The FL 2014 cohort came back together to reconnect with each other and the FL mission!
We began at 1730 on Friday with a problem solving team building PSTB session led by our LDA, Steve Hawke. The two problems we chose to investigate were centred around year 11 behaviour and difficult colleagues. Both problem owners took away a flipchart page full of ideas, benefits and concerns. We discussed mobile phones and were reminded of the technique were you put in a harsh policy, fully intending to pull back.
Something I hadn't heard of: temporary exclusion at another school!
Saturday started with a cooked breakfast in the restaurant (I need more of these in my life) before moving to the main hall for a talk led by Kate Chhatwal:
This session reminded me of a huge number of very useful networking ideas and impact leverage!
I made a to-do list! Join ASCL; magpie some slides for my latest burning platform on cultural capital (my impact this year is going to be increasing this among our students). The Mulberry School for Gurls was mentioned and the fact that the girls are going on a reciprocal visit to the White House which reminded me to get maximum value and exposure for inspiring visitors to our own school.
We then moved onto the two main learning sessions (2.5 hours each) we were asked to opt into. My choices were:
Performance management including disciplinary (Cath Hayes).
Although the name of the session may not be all that inspiring, Cath certainly got the point across with a blend of instruction and humour which kept the whole group enthralled. Cath made me think about the people depending on you (as Headteacher) for their jobs and being able to pay their own mortgages! She talked about having the conversations before relying on the capability policy; ensure you go in and display the 'do-now plan' and the 'medium term plan'; "you need to look people in the eye and know you have done your best for them".I was sat near Craig Avieson who always inspires me and fires golden nuggets like a machine gun!
And we talked about recruiting new staff, he said "you need to consider working with what you've got as it is quicker" Cath referred to a school and said that she "didn't lose a single member of staff - I worked with them"; "believe in your staff".
We went through case studies involving the different procedures:
- Disciplinary - Gross misconduct; pushing a child; falsifying information
- Grievance
- Capability - Underperformance
- Sickness / Absence
Cath said that she always bundles policies together at the start of the year and gets staff to sign for them - making those conversations down the line much easier!
Just a note to myself - remember support plans / informal stages of capability- the letter you send says you can't bring along a union rep because it is informal.
When you get to review time in Jan / Feb get people to take ownership of their targets by asking to bring along evidence and let's see if we would be successful at this stage in the year.
Cost effective staff? Remember Cath's table!
The scenarios given by Cath were interesting. I have saved
Coaching - Leading and influencing (Liz Robinson)
Liz skilfully took Nick Zienau's '7 tools' and allowed us to explore them using our own ideas. A really good session which gave me a couple of take aways on some of the things I shared and made me feel enabled to go and try out the things we learnt. I believe the seven tools takes coaching to another level and we were lucky enough to take away a quick guide... I will be using this a great deal starting tomorrow morning!
This video of Nick is a summary
https://vimeo.com/90169982
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