The School Corridor Tatler

I wrote in a previous post  that a school head with a dysfunctional senior management team, makes it difficult for a school to succeed. What then, do we mean when we say school leadership is dysfunctional and how can the school leadership fix their poor performance?  Let's unpack Dysfunctionality. I like the definition of the word, dysfunctional, as described on the Urban dictionary website: to be very bad at something .  This definition eliminates the temptation to be pretentious about what is going wrong at the school. Being "bad" at something means you lack the ability and the skill to do what you are supposed to do. The complexities of dysfunctionality at schools It is often difficult for outsiders to know to what extent SMTs are dysfunctional. The outward signs at school may mask the degree to which SMT members are not helping to manage and lead the school effectively. These school leaders may themselves compromise teaching, monitoring of the curriculu...

Adrian in the foyer at the school, Floreat Primary School, where he has been teaching for the past two years You will agree that even though you love your job, there are days when you wonder whether you are in the right place, don't you? Then there are those days - and hopefully they are the norm - when you ask yourself whether it is really possible to have so much joy; so much pleasure, when those with whom you work make you feel like a mentee on steroids? You know that feeling, right?   Now, today I had one of those "mentee on steroids" days. I was merely going to pay two short courtesy visits to Floreat and Capricorn Primary schools in the heartland of the broader Lavender Hill-Steenberg area. However, each session became a reflective session on the quality education agenda driven at these two schools. I must add that I had not engineered any of the sort. My focus was just going to be on "basic functionality" - checking on textbooks, time tabling, staffing...

Circuit Team clockwise: Juan, Kay, Helen, Colleen, Pierre, Michael, Irene, Sharon. (Elize not in picture) This year ended on a bitter-sweet note for our circuit team that has been together for five years and a bit. Four of our team members, Juan, Irene, Elize and Kay will no longer form part of our circuit team. It seems like it was just the other day that we formed our melting pot, Circuit Team One of our education district. There we were, a diverse group with fiery personalities and equally strong world views, bound by a common mandate: to provide effective support services as a multi-functional team to the 37 schools we were assigned. Our diversity - and quirkiness - could so easily have been the barrier to supporting the schools. And, bureaucratic structures can hinder team building because of its structural hierarchy. Yet, it is fair to say that our team managed to transcend these potential threats largely because of the relational, progressive leadership style of our circu...

SMT of Prince George Primary School SMT of Prince George Primary deep in discussion Teaching has always been challenging. In this fast- changing world, teachers are expected to lead the their children to become well- balanced, critical problem solvers who can live and work harmoniously with their communities of family, friends, fellow colleagues - everybody! How tall an order is this? There is often some glib talking about the higher order thinking we want our children to master and the need for teachers to develop these cognitive skills of the learners. As if thinking is automatic, as if all teachers themselves have the capacity to teach the new content and the new thinking skills without the necessary training and support. it is one thing knowing say, certain content and making sense of it for yourself. But, having to mediate that same content and having to teach children the various skills to master the same, you need a basket of strategies and a solid understanding of the pedagog...

The SMT of St Mary''s RC engrossed in their diagnostic activity. Maureen Jacobs, Head of Blouvlei LSEN, hosted our Session 1  This week ANA test papers were placed under the microscope again by our SMTs. We had set up SMT clusters formed by 3-4 school teams. Our aim, as action researchers, was to analyse why the majority learners responded so poorly to certain questions in the ANA tests that were written at the end of last term. The schools had already graded the papers and all our schools had done their analysis based on their learners’ performance at the various levels of grade, phase and school. We used the ANA maths test papers as our frame of reference for these sessions.Today our focus was on specific questions. We sought to identify the elements in the question that may have contributed to the learners’ inability to answer those respective questions correctly. The SMT of Steenberg Primary School that also hosted our Session 2 SMTs diagnose questions that posed challenges...

Schools serving poor communities need super strong, driven, inspirational leadership and teachers to rise above all the odds stacked against them. Learners in such schools must be immersed in a culture of high expectations, visible in all spheres of school life to help them blossom and succeed. Square Hill Primary school is one of those schools that can be singled out to be such an oasis. The Senior Management Team of Square Hill Primary School It is said you can test the popularity of a school by the number of applicants wishing to enroll there. In Square Hill Primary School's case, application for placement  especially in the reception class is always a challenge. In February every year, Lavinia Davis, the Head of the school, e-mails me to inform me when applications open for the Gr R/reception class because on that day I will have to deal with many agitated parents. Our office always receives a flood of complaints because of the clamouring for space at the school. On the day of ...