No cup of tea leadership here please!

Last week at the regional principal conference I was fortunate enough to introduce one of our key note speakers, Vivane Robinson a professor from the University of Auckland. Vivane gave an insightful presentation on school leadership and student outcomes, what works and why. I was fortunate to hear Vivane in Sydney last year presenting the William Walker address on the topic at the ACEL conference.

Hearing her presentation a few keys points “sank in” so to speak: the biggest effect size [0.84] on student outcomes comes from principals engaging in teacher professional learning where we not only increase our own expertise and provide a symbolic statement of what’s important but focus on the links between what is taught and what student learn. She made the point that anything over 0.35 in effect size on outcomes was a big deal.

She also make a clear point that we as leaders need to engage a teachers theory of action into an agreed evaluation of that theory rather than bypass it to try and achieve a goal. The “cup of tea leadership”style that doesn’t do this work means kids miss out on quality instruction which, as we know from the research, is one of the main detriments of high student outcomes.

She also explored the Singapore TLLM theory: teach less learn more. That children need multiple ways to represent a concept in order to understand it: explicit instruction, inquiry and direct experiences.

Her presentation is attached: geelong-regional-conference-300508

Vivane has committed to sharing some of her work with us which I was pass on via this blog.

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