Your staff consists of teaching and non-teaching personnel. At a general level every staff member needs to have a clearly defined role statement. See below on expectations.
Focussing on teaching I have found that it is a job that can have ill-defined limits. Conscientious teachers often carry a sense of never having done enough and can easily burn out as they strive beyond reasonable expectations. There is also considerable evidence that after about 7 years in the job many teachers wonder whether they could have or should have chosen another vocation. A restlessness sets in.
What can we do as school principals to keep our teachers happy and having a sense of satisfaction with what they are achieving.
At the risk of teaching you how to suck eggs here are a few suggestions that might help:
A top priority is to convince them that theirs is a profession in the true sense of the word. A profession is defined as having unique attributes that define it and for teaching these are:
- To be expert in how learning occurs;
- To be expert in knowing how to organise the detail within the subjects of a curriculum to ensure continuity of learning;
- To know the moment that a student is ready for new learning.
Teaching is not something that one does because one could not do anything else. Hopefully this myth has been dispelled for contemporary teachers.
The expectations for teachers need to be a written policy of the school and be understood by all concerned. This should include a set of best practice teaching principles. As a principal the buck stops with you to ensure that all are performing to expectations. This is a subtle business which can be based on providing opportunities for teachers to demonstrate to appointed mentors how and what they prepare and how they operate in the classrooms. Inexperienced teachers will benefit from closer regular supervision by whoever is appointed to be their mentor but once a teacher consistently displays top professional standards in all aspects of their work such supervision can be reduced in favour of self evaluation.
Teachers should feel that at all times they are supported by their leader(s). This should extend to support if they are waning on meeting the best practice requirements and support if they are being subjected to unacceptable student misbehaviour despite their best efforts. On the matter of not meeting best practice teaching principles the teachers need to have full confidence that due process and natural justice will be applied by those seeking to help them.
In contemporary Australian schools there are the pressures for results as manifest in the NAPLAN testing regime. Much has been written about such pressures and the tensions that schools experience. It is a fact of life in schools today with the good news being that the tests are soon to be based on the Australian National Curriculum (ANC). The ANC is slowly being used across Australian schools with modifications at state and territory level at least for government schools. The NAPLAN tests based on the ANC should raise teachers' confidence that if they are having their students achieve the learning outcomes as in the ANC syllabuses the NAPLAN results will take care of themselves. It is perhaps not that simple but is a confidence booster. I don't envy today's principals having to keep a lid on NAPLAN pressures in their schools but it needs to be done to keep teachers from not stressing too much. The reality is that within the so-called normal stream there are students who will not achieve within an academic year the expected outcomes for their age/grade. I firmly believe that such students should not be moved on to new learning, especially in areas such as maths and English language skills until they have mastered the steps that are precursors to new learning. This is a big call but when one sees such students in say year 9 with huge gaps in their learning and struggling it is heart wrenching. I've written a lot about this elsewhere and it is too much to supply all the detail here. I can only imagine what it would be like for a principal to adhere to my mastery policy for these students knowing that they will struggle with the NAPLAN requirements. It would be a big job to encourage teachers to feel confident to adhere to the mastery policy despite NAPLAN, not to mention educating the parents.
Another factor in developing teacher satisfaction is for the principal to provide opportunities for distributive leadership. For example, teachers of say the years 1 and 2 classes in your school will benefit from opportunities to discuss in a group setting the syllabuses of the curriculum to see if they are all on the same page. It is a standards moderation exercise that works and provides leadership opportunities for teachers to chair such discussions. At secondary school level such discussions can occur within subject departments and not necessarily be led by the Senior Subject teacher. These discussions provide valuable spinoff of peers learning from peers. It's one of the best forms of inservice.
Improving your school year by year requires change and too much of this at any one time worries teachers whose focus is on the day to day classroom work. I was guilty as a principal at one stage of being over zealous and impatient to make the necessary changes. I had to pull my head in. A sound school development plan (SDP) over say a 3-5 year period where improvement is steadily achieved in a few select aspects of school operations each year is the way to go. Again I have written in detail on this but it is too much for this blog post. Teachers should be part of the process in developing the SDP.
Occasionally teachers may need to be defended about the long holidays that they have. The holidays are essentially for the students, thus teachers get them by default if you like. The holidays are often used in part to improve their professional skills and to offset long working hours that include face to face contact with students and the long hours of preparation and time spent assessing student output. The holidays give a break from the pressures of intensive daily contact with students. It is important that as a principals we encourage teachers to spend time with their loved ones and to have pursuits outside work that provide relaxation and enjoyment. They are to avoid becoming slaves to a job that has ill defined boundaries of how much is good enough.
Of course as a principal you will take opportunities to thank the teachers for their good work en masse or individually, whatever is appropriate. A useful idea is to write a brief thank you note and leave it in the pigeon hole of a teacher who has done things above and beyond the call of duty; has made a very special effort.
For the non teaching staff members most of the above also applies recognising that some non-teaching staff like guidance officers and bursars (accountants) are also professional people.
Enough already!
GD
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