Leading for Literacy Outcomes
The pilot Curriculum Institute was conducted on Wednesday 2 May 2007 with a focus on the role of the Principal's curriculum leadership in influencing literacy outcomes.
Principals from 33 schools in the Greater Brisbane districts were joined by senior District and Regional officers and members of the Steering Committee at Chermside Bowls Club to explore the possibilities offered by the Institute model.
The first session of the Institute was a presentation by the ADG, Curriculum.
Key Questions
Conversation during and after the Institute revealed a number of key questions that might be used by a Principal taking up the challenge posed in Lesley's presentation.
Not all were discussed at the time, but they are offered below as starting points for personal reflection (and action).
- What tasks do I spend my time on? What does this indicate about my priorities?
- What are my current actions in leadership of curriculum-assessment-pedagogy?
- What do other Principals do?
- What on-the-job behaviours are demonstrated by effective curriculum leaders?
- Which of these are my strengths?
- Which do I avoid (or delegate)?
- Which do I need to consciously address?
- How do effective curriculum leaders challenge assumptions (their own, or those of their staff)?
- What are the barriers to my acting as an effective curriculum leader?
- What quality questions do principals who are curriculum leaders ask of their teachers/HoDs/HoCs?
- Can I recognise when students are engaged in deep learning?
- What indicators do I use?
- What questions do I ask of teachers (or learners)?
- How do I validate student outcomes and data?
- What does a quality moderation process look like?
- What use do I make of performance data?
- Do I use all available data sources?
- What analysis or interpretation do I carry out?
- With whom do I share this information?
- What value do we derive from it?
- What does alignment of curriculum intent, quality teaching and learning, and assessment look like?
- What actions by a leader promote its attainment?
- Is high level curriculum leadership generic or is it context bound?
- Will the leadership strategies promotiong literacy outcomes be effective in supporting the implementation of QCAR?
- How does curriculum leadership need to respond to local circumstances?
Suggested activities
- View the presentation and develop a personal response to the challenges of the ADG through reflection and evaluation.
- Refer to some of the research papers (new window) 30k
used by the ADG in her presentation. - Use the presentation as the stimulus for a collegial sharing of stories around performance as a curriculum leader.
- Challenge an aspect of the presentation by assembling evidence from your own school or personal practice. Use this to identify the "next step" in your role as a curriculum leader?
- Refer again to Leadership Matters for its statement on the capabilities of an effective curriculum leader.
- Make these issues a focus for on-going dialogues with your Executive Director, Schools.
- Invite current and aspiring leaders on your staff to generate lists of "performance questions" to probe their on-the-job performance as curriculum leaders.
- Set personal goals for enhanced performance as a curriculum leader and establish follow-up procedures.
- Join a District or Region collaboration around these issues.
- Use one of the case studies (new window) 24k to explore aspects of curriculum leadership of interest to you.
Curriculum Leadership in Small Schools
Principals from 40 small schools attended a workshop in Ipswich on 6 December 2007 for the second CAPA activity.
View:
Curriculum Leadership in Small Schools - A Big Issue
Curriculum leadership in relation to QCAR Implementation
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