Leadership Challenge

 

Well, it has taken me a while to blog my reflection from the first session as it was something that I had to think of about what I feel about leadership and what leadership means to me. I believe that a leader is a person who is approachable and is aware of the next steps for the school and curriculum. Is able to motivate but is able to spot the weaknesses of their team but also their strengths. The current Head teacher I currently work for I believe does this and really motivates you to do more for them. From the last session, I have been discussing with my Head teacher what lies ahead for me in my future. When I first started teaching I was not interested in leadership I just wanted to teach but the more I have taught and taught in shall we say some “interesting/ challenging” schools and observed not such approachable leaders I have now become more inclined to become a leader. Hopefully, one day becoming an Early Years Manager or perhaps a Key Stage One leader (aspirations).

However, I believe I have got a few barriers to cross before I become an effective leader. From the Kolb Inventory I learnt that my learning style was a diverging style one where I like to observe situations and let others share their ideas rather than becoming more assertive in the way that I want it. This is completely true of me I HATE CONFLICT and do not want to cause any conflict between people and do not want to feel like I am offending anyone. I love working in a group and thinking of the idea as a group but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and make the decision on your own. To become a more effective leader I think you need to come out of your “comfort zone” and use a different learning style. I would like to use a more converging learning style in my leadership by experiment with new ideas, choose the best solution and make decisions. Making decisions is not always my strongest part. The leadership challenge will take me out of my comfort zone and make me feel uncomfortable in parts.

I have been thinking and discussed with my Head teacher about my leadership challenge. A massive focus for Early Years and Key Stage One is phonics and it something that I am very passionate about. Since I have started at this school I have been worried about the consistency in the way that phonics is taught and by the mixture of different schemes that are used in the school and the pace of each of the session. This is something that I would like to look at and to see if we can improve the results in the Year One phonics test. Last year, Year 1 got 83% of the cohort past the phonics check this was a rise from the previous last couple of years. This is something that I want to investigate further whether this data can be improved this year and to see whether as a school we can improve the consistency of phonics teaching in the school.