Principals and the learning of the students - instalment #2

Fellow principals I am sure you see yourselves as the educational leaders in your schools, even when the administrative load in a large school becomes heavy.  You would be well aware that the buck stops with you when the results of the student learning program are revealed at various points during each school year.  However you have many other potential leaders within your staff to help and they can be deployed through practising distributive leadership based on the expertise of various staff members. Secondary school principals are fortunate to have specialist Senior Teachers for each subject and much should be expected of them in leadership of the learning program.  Delegation is vital, especially in large schools.  I recommend a little book "The One Minute Manager" which tells us to ensure that the responsibility monkeys are on the backs of those whose responsibility it is.  You can't carry it all and shouldn't have to.  You will experience much satisfaction in knowing that you have done all you can to ensure that your students are learning successfully.

The learning program in Australia has been revitalised through the introduction of the Australian National Curriculum (ANC).  In the government school sectors of each state and territory the ANC is being taken on board with variations at a state and territory level.  I am glad that there is an ANC and enjoy exploring its contents.  In my own state we went through an outcomes-based approach in a context of an altruistic broad curriculum statement and I saw teachers floundering as they clung to the old syllabuses that were becoming outdated and in a state of disrepair if you like.  I welcome the stability that an ANC gives as a vital source for teachers of the expected student learning.  I cannot comment on what the private schools are doing curriculum wise other than to observe that they can make wider choices than the government schools taking on programs such as the international baccalaureate.  My concern is that never again as in my own state should busy teachers be put in the position of having to be curriculum builders : they do not have the time.  Within an ANC there is plenty of scope for innovative teacher built variations provided they do not move too far from the core of what the ANC requires.

When I boil it all down, as a teacher I want to dip into the syllabuses of an ANC and select the next learning outcomes towards which I will move my students. I want to be clear on how I will get the students to the point of mastery of these expected learning outcomes.  I also want to be clear on how I will find out that they have arrived. If I am say a teacher of a year 6 class in a school where there are two other year 6 classes I want to have discussed with my other two teacher colleagues what the ANC syllabus outcomes in say mathematics for year 6 mean and what manifests mastery of these outcomes.  This is a vital standards moderation in-service exercise which for primary schools needs to be tailored for school size and restricted to certain subjects.  It works.  There are very useful guidelines about mastery in the Work Samples in the ANC syllabuses.


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