The theory behind developing effective teams.

Well today has been a bit of a shock to the system, a course on as Saturday! Anyhow, it has gone well and has been an interesting journey. Today we have looked at Meredith Belbin who identified 9 different behaviour types that individuals display in the work place, these are called the nine Team Roles. Typically, most people have two or three Team Roles that they are most comfortable with and prefer, and a few others that they can manage to cover if they need to; and finally the rest that they prefer not to adopt at all. These are explained in further detail at http://www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles/.

From this research, I was able to identify myself with elements of Plant because I'm able to be creative, imaginative and share ideas. I am also a Resource Investigator as I'm outgoing, enthusiastic and I like to develop contacts. The area in which I have the most skills is as a Teamworker, I've always loved to be part of a team and this is a reason why I'm taking part in this leadership course. I'm also very good at being the Implementer as I can create actions to follow through an idea and organise the work that needs to be done. This is even more evident in my everyday school life as I job share with a NQT and I need these skills to make the relationship work. Whilst reading this team roles I can see that a role that I really need to develop is the Coordinator as I need to be able to delegate effectively, this has been happening through my leadership project as the TA has been running the maths intervention for me. We have worked together to evaluate the effectiveness of Autumn term 2 and will use this information to make changes to Spring 2 interventions. The class teachers have been updated and they are now carrying out maths interventions throughout Spring 1.

Today we looked at good teamwork and what it looks, sounds and feels like. I believe that a good team is approachable, effective, and can work together towards a goal or vision, they are all hardworking and united. Leaders can be changed depending on the task. The sounds that may be heard can be laughter, hard work, good communication and passion. In this environment all team members will feel supported, trusted. supported, have respect for each other and feel happy (most of the time).  Effective teams have a great impact on each other. One of our group shared the idea of Eustress.

This was quite a useful idea because it shows how a good leader needs to push their team into Eustress to get optimal performance. I shall definitely begin to use these ideas to support myself as a leader in school and take myself out of my comfort zone a little more so that I can develop in more of Belbin's team roles.



My leadership challenge

At my school, I am the maths leader. By looking at data I have found that with the new curriculum the gaps are widening in each year group. In particular, I have highlighted the children who are working below their age group in maths. With this information and by talking to the Head and staff, I have come up with a challenge. It is to close the gap in maths for children working below their age related expectation. 

I shall be using a Teaching Assistant daily during the afternoons to do interventions, a timetable has been drawn up and her working hours have had to be changed to accommodate this. Yesterday we sat down together and looked through the children's skills grids and chose the objectives for each group of children, some of these are quite individual. These are small measurable objectives and will focus particularly on number and place value in the hope that these skills will then transfer into the classroom and help the children to access their independent work more confidently. These interventions will run throughout the rest of the Autumn term and then the children will be assessed to measure impact. This will be fed back to parents and staff.  I will then support class teachers to continue to build on these skills within the whole class context. These interventions will be repeated in Spring 2 and Summer 2 and will include any children who require it according to the data and focus will be tailored to the children's needs.

From looking at Sutton Trust's research this supports my choice to offer intervention and although it states that one to one tuition would give more impact, this is unfortunately not possible as we only have one TA to give intervention and approximately 20 children who require it. This will however be reviewed after this Autumn terms interventions have taken place. As the children will be working in groups, I will encourage the TA to use activities that involve collaborative learning which will also support Sir Ken Robinson's suggestions 'that children work best through collaboration'.

This course has already started to have an impact on my leadership skills. I returned to school after the last course inspired and motivated to make changes to my school. I have been more confident to put forward clear ideas to improve our school which included making changes to maths assessment, whole school tracking system and new school rules to improve behaviour so thank you Matt and Debi! I still have a long journey to travel and by looking at the leadership competencies, Operational Management is an area for development, and through my mathematics challenge I hope to begin to hold others to account, develop others and think analytically to get the best results through the interventions. In the long term I hope to continue to develop interventions every year that see children making rapid progress to close the gaps in maths.

A reflection of my first day of the Developing Leaders course

Today has been a really interesting day, not only because I was in a new environment with new people, but also because for the first time ever, I really thought about myself as a leader. I have been teaching for about 12 years and have always shied away from leadership roles, but in my new school I haven't been able to hide!

From today's discussions, I believe that a good leader needs to be confident, ambitious, have empathy, dedication, good communication skills, approachable and have a positive approach. The National College recognises that outstanding schools need strong leadership. Good leaders inspire, motivate and set by example. They are people who encourage but also give constructive criticism. Good leaders need to be able to open up horizons for others by seeing people's strengths and weaknesses and developing these. I was surprised by how many of these I feel I already have but I also noticed those that I need to develop. I feel that one of my development points is to have the confidence to develop my own vision without relying on others to give me reassurance. This was supported by the fact that my learning style is diverging. The diverging learning styles characteristics are people who; observe, enjoy situations like brainstorming and  prefer to work in groups. Therefore, my learning style is one of the reasons for my target and I shall have to get out of my comfort zone to develop further.

I am now going to begin to think about The Leadership Challenge. I have a few thoughts on this, first I could look at developing my school's behaviour policy to create a more consistent approach which is something that I have begun to do during the summer holidays. Secondly, I may look at maths attainment within the school as I'm the co-ordinator and focus on moving the potential learners. On Monday I will discuss these ideas with my Head and try to make a decision and then add to this blog.