Don Ledingham
1. Please describe your school, programs, educational values, brief descriptions of student body and faculty; include anything unique or special about your school.
I’m Head of Education of East Lothian Council. I have responsibility for 1,300 staff and 15,000 students and all education provided for learners aged 3-18.
We are attempting to bring the qualities of effective school leadership to the process of district education. Our intention is to create a learning community where all members of the district feel an affinity for, and perceive a benefit from, belonging to larger entity than their own school.
Our key principles are what we refer to as the 5Cs, these are:
CONSISTENCY
CONTINUITY
COLLEGIALITY
CREATIVITY
COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
These principles underpin our practice and shape everything we do within East Lothian. Associated with these principles is our commitment to improve the Learning and Teaching Process. We have collectively developed a policy which has three non-negotiable foundations:
1. All learners must be treated with Unconditional Positive Regard;
2. For learning to take place learners must be engaged with the learning process;
3. The development of the teaching process should be seen a collaborative enterprise.
We are making innovative use of Web 2 technology to support the development of a culture which challenges the traditional lines of hierarchy and power see www.exc-el.org.uk
Such cultural change is resulting in the development of a new way of working between the district authority and schools.
2. Discuss your most significant accountability challenge and its impact on your role as a school leader.
My most significant accountability challenge is to challenge the traditional notion of accountability.
I believe the traditional definition of accountability depends upon an over-reliance on personal liability.
Accountability is usually defined as - “if things don’t go well I am to blame” or “if people make mistakes then I am to blame” The answer in most cases is to reduce risk by increasing control. In such an environment the school teacher feels disempowered, becomes passive and happy to play their ‘part’ by “blaming the management” if things aren’t going well.
The manager responds to such passivity by increasing the level of direction and control and will say things such as, “I’ve got to do everything myself” - “no one thinks for themselves” In turn the circle becomes even more vicious as teachers become even more removed from the management.
The underlying source of the problem would appear to be the crippling effect of accountability - so what can we do?
Perhaps this idea is too simplistic but I believe the answer to be to shift the focus from accountability for “bad” things to accountability for “good” things. For it seems to me that head teachers burden themselves with negative accountability - and, ironically, that they do this for the best of reasons, i.e. to protect their staff.
What might the impact be if we could just turn this on its head and focus instead upon the positive things that can happen in our schools then? By taking such an outlook the head teacher is more likely to be prepared to share accountability with their colleagues.
If such an environment could be created then teachers are much more likely to contribute, lead and help to shape the future of the school.
We are attempting to develop such a culture in East Lothian and I’m looking forward to exploring this area further during the Harvard experience.