IPPN

Published: 03 April 2019

Mentoring

“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” Oprah Winfrey

321 principals (260 primary and 61 post-primary) are currently being supported by CSL mentors.

Cohorts One and Two gathered for their Professional Learning Days in Athlone on Tuesday and Wednesday March 12^th and 13^th. This event was attended by 260 mentors, 210 primary and 50 post-primary. IPPN was represented by CEO Páiric Clerkin, Deputy CEO Pat Goff and President David Ruddy. Coaching was the thematic focus, with participants being addressed by Professor Christian Van Nieuwerburgh from the University of East London and Viv Grant from Integrity Coaching in London. IPPN and NAPD facilitated a meeting of group mentors while CSL Cairde met with those involved in one-to-one mentoring.

Cohort Three attended their Professional Learning Days on March 28^th and 29^th. 85 principals attended this event, 74 primary and 11 post-primary. On this occasion, participants were addressed by Dr. Joe O’ Connell on the Difficult Conversations Framework, by Dr. Tony Bates on “Changing the Story, Changing the World", and by Adam Harris of AsIAm on how to build an inclusive school for students with autism, in addition to partaking in Cairde Mentor meetings.

Coaching

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” Albert Enstein

One-to-one coaching is now accessed by 550 principals. Team Coaching is presently available to schools in which the principal has accessed 4 one-to-one coaching sessions. Plans are being made to extend the coaching service to group coaching, and to training a limited number of principals in professional coaching.

The CSL team would like to encourage principals to consider availing of one-to-one coaching at this time of the year rather than waiting until September and the beginning of another hectic school year.

Professional Diploma in School Leadership (PDSL)

“It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.” Nelson Mandela

Applications are now open for Cohort Three, with capacity for 300 participants. These places are filling fast, and will cost participants approximately €2,000 with the remainder subsidised by the DES. This is a blended learning experience with three semesters running from September 2019 until December 2020. There are three centres in Dublin-Blackrock, UCD and Blanchardstown, and centres in Cork (CIT), UL, Waterford (WIT), Galway (NUIG), and Carrick-on-Shannon and Donegal Education Centres, with a sraith Gaeilge in NUIG. Applications close on Wednesday, April 17^th.

Endorsement

“Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer.” Rick Pitnio

The quality assurance pilot is just completed, and the learning from it included a change to an endorsement process, in line with international research and the work of colleagues in Scotland and Wales. The team is currently completing the review of the process to begin endorsing provision in September. CSL will work with the National Academy for Educational Leadership (NAEL) in Wales and the Scottish College of Educational Leadership (SCEL) in Scotland to peer review processes, and to learn from each other’s experiences.

Shared Calendar

“Always plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.” Richard Cushing

The testing phase with primary stakeholders is just completed, the post-primary testing phase will finish before the Easter holidays, and the calendar will be open to stakeholders to add their full range of professional learning provision for principals and deputy principals in the 2019/2020 school year from May 1^st onwards.

Leadership Clusters

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” Henry Ford

101 schools have begun working on 24 projects. The Opening Seminar took place in Athlone on March 28^th with an attendance of 230 principals, teachers, Education Centre Directors, business, third level and support service representatives and CSL Facilitators. Presentations were made by CSL, IPPN, NAPD, business and third level colleagues in the areas of project management, distributed leadership, communication and collaboration. The learning and networking from this event was rich, the clusters are now focused on their projects, and are familiar with the supports available to them with guidance from 24 CSL Facilitators and the 13 Education Centre Directors involved.

Published: 26 February 2019

Please click here for update

Published: 20 December 2018

Centre for School Leadership Update-December 2018

“Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.“
Marian Wright Edelman

Mentoring for Newly-appointed Principals

The big mentoring wheel of CSL trundles on, and is gaining strength, direction and a sense of appreciation as it does so. It hits the odd bump in the road here and there but becomes more accustomed to the landscape as it travels and adapts accordingly!

There are currently 260 primary mentor/mentee matches, the learning is immense, and the feedback is very positive. This year, CSL tendered for software to assist with the matching process. This software proved very useful in this capacity.

To facilitate professional learning for CSL mentors, Cohort One and Two had two professional learning days in the Sheraton Hotel in Athlone on November 29th and 30th. There were 252 principals in attendance.

Shane Martin presented a powerful talk entitled “Uprooting the Roots of Stress” and mentors had the opportunity to meet with their CSL Cara for an hour to discuss how the mentoring relationships are going, and to develop strategies to deal with challenges they encounter.

The participants attended two workshops on Friday 30th, on mentoring skills and distributing leadership, and Senator Lynn Ruane presented in the afternoon on her early experiences of education as she grew up in Tallaght. She spoke about her determination to learn so that she would have the capacity to voice her concerns about disadvantage and to fight for those suffering from addiction and the myriad of problems related to it. She also spoke about the recent publication of her book, “Someone Like Me”.

Cohort Three participants attended their professional learning days, also in the Sheraton Hotel, on November 22nd and 23rd. There were 95 in attendance.

On this occasion, Dr. Joe O’ Connell presented his workshop on “The Importance of Emotional Intelligence for School Leaders”. The participants took part in meetings with their Cara and in professional learning communities to discuss issues relevant to their everyday practice. Dr. John White from DCU presented on non-verbal communication, giving numerous tips and pieces of advice relevant to effective communication for everyday life in schools.

Cohort One and Two reconvene in the Sheraton Hotel on March 12th and 13th, Cohort Three on March 28th and 29th.

There are currently 32 primary CSL Cairde. 12 new Cairde were trained on September 25th last and all existing Cairde were offered the opportunity to attend a Development Day in Athlone on September 26th at which Shane Martin made a presentation as did Seán Hourihane, himself a CSL Cara. Seán’s presentation examined possibilities around hooking each Cara/Mentors’ meeting with a standard on the Quality Framework for Leadership and Management from the Looking at our School 2016 document.

Unlocking Potential through Coaching

CSL Coaching was launched in January 2017 and is a confidential, one-to-one personal service now available to all school principals. It is a powerful tool to develop individual and organisational performance by unlocking potential and capability. The service is fully funded by the DES and 555 principals have already benefitted from it.

Principals face a wide range of challenges and goals that can benefit from coaching, as it offers the time and space to reflect on both. It can also:

• Help create a coaching culture in schools
• Enhance capacity to work in a changing environment
• Increase ability to prioritise and manage demands
• Enable more successful management of change
• Renew enthusiasm for the job.

To engage with the service, principals can go to www.cslireland.ie and access 40 coaches in six regions around the country. A ‘chemistry check’ is available followed by six further meetings over a one-year period, and a final review six months after the last meeting.

40% of those accessing the service are teaching principals, 25% are from DEIS schools and 27% have special classes in their schools.

Testimonials from principals demonstrate the effectiveness of coaching as a leadership tool.

“Coaching has been one of the most useful leadership tools that I have come across. It gives me time to reflect upon myself, my actions and my decisions. I am making changes in my practice.”

“Coaching has been invaluable to me. We experienced a crisis in the school and I believe that it was the coaching that helped me personally get through the crisis and assist the staff in coming to terms with our situation. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.”

Team Coaching

This one to one coaching service has now been further expanded to include other leaders in school communities so that the school leadership team can increase their ability to prioritise and enhance their capacity to work in a changing environment. This service will provide time and space for the senior and middle leadership team to reflect on their roles in a collaborative manner.

Team Coaching is a professional, coaching-based developmental approach which will enable school leadership teams to begin their journey towards an empowered and team-led leadership model envisioned by the DES in Domain 4 of “Looking at our School 2016.

Team Coaching is available to School Leadership Teams in Primary and Post-Primary Schools where the Principal has already completed a minimum of four sessions of one-to-one coaching though the current CSL School Principal Coaching Programme.

The CSL and the Department will be made aware of individual schools availing of Team Coaching. This service is not anonymous. Confidentiality will apply to all discussions/communications between a team coach and school leadership team participants, and to any materials/instruments used in the context of the team coaching. School Principals should contact their individual coach for further information.

Accessing CSL Team Coaching for School Leadership Teams

• The Principal and their individual coach, during their own coaching discussions, can explore team coaching and its relevance and appropriateness to the school
• Principals who have received a minimum of four individual coaching sessions through the current CSL School Principal Programme can immediately avail of Team Coaching in their School
• On confirmation of interest the Principal and their coach either work together on Team Coaching or work with an agreed nominated Team Coach from that Coaching provider’s CSL coaching panel
• The Team Coach will facilitate a detailed exploration of the interest and priorities for Team Coaching with the School Principal and School Leadership Team. Team Coaching content will be customised to individual schools to best deliver on the identified priorities and support the building of the School Leadership Team capability
• 4 x 2-hour Team Coaching sessions are available per school with a maximum of 6 participants from the School Leadership Team including the School Principal
• It is anticipated that Team Coaching will be conducted over a maximum of 9 months
• It is the responsibility of the individual school to provide a venue and any related costs must be borne by the school.

The Post Graduate Diploma in School Leadership (PDSL)

A total of 241 Cohort 1 PDSL participants have completed the final semester of their course. A total of 274 aspiring school leaders (Cohort 2) enrolled for the course in September 2018.

24% of participants are teaching in DEIS schools, 49.64% are Post-Primary teachers and 50. 36% are Primary teachers. The Leadership visits element of the course is proving very successful with students visiting, observing and reflecting leadership practices in other schools and in areas outside of education.

Planning is commencing for Cohort 3, and the application process will open in January 2019.

The consortium was delighted that the PDSL course was recently shortlisted for the GradIreland Awards.

Endorsement /Quality Assurance

The CSL pilot of quality assurance of professional learning provision for school leaders is currently in completion and the learning from this pilot with inform the quality assurance remit of CSL going forward. The current quality assurance handbook will be amended in light of the learning from the pilot and uploaded to our website. Peer learning from quality assurance/endorsement processes in Scotland and Wales will further inform this work.

Deepening and Broadening the Continuum of Professional Learning for Leadership

Following on from the bilateral seminars held with all stakeholders in the early part of 2018, the team has produced and published a continuum and a model of professional learning for Irish school leaders. Currently, this is represented by the graphic below which is available on the CSL website with a brief explanatory video. There is a plan to further develop and articulate this graphic and to present a research document to further explain the content.

The long term vision is that this continuum would contain endorsed/quality assured professional learning for school leaders at every career stage.

A Continuum of Professional Learning for School Leadership

Coordinating Stakeholder Collaboration in the Provision of Professional Learning for School Leaders

All stakeholders (Management Bodies, Teacher Unions, Professional Associations, Third Level Colleges, NCCA, Teaching Council, DES Inspectorate, Business in the Community and all DES support services involved in professional learning for school leaders at all levels on the continuum were invited to two collaborative forums on Oct 7th (Primary) and Oct 14th (Post-Primary). The team was greatly encouraged by the full attendance and by the engagement and participation at both forums.

This is the first phase of a process towards the development of a shared calendar, further collaborative provision, and closer association with third level institutions and with business/industry.

Leadership and Management Clusters

On Oct 7th 2018, the former Minister for Education, Richard Bruton, announced a new clustering initiative. CSL was charged with coordinating this initiative in consultation with the Education Centres. Schools were invited to participate in a pilot scheme designed to support projects that involve innovative approaches to school leadership and management. The pilot scheme is designed to facilitate schools in harnessing and optimising internal leadership, management capacity and collaboration at all levels.

The closing date for receipt of these applications was Wednesday, December 19th.

Published: 14 May 2018

‘Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears and never regrets’ Leonardo da Vinci

Mentoring for Newly-appointed Principals

To date, 500 mentors (400 at primary level) have completed the formal training, which was developed from research carried out by the CSL team on mentoring in Scotland, Canada and Australia. The training comprises two professional learning sessions of 1.5 days and a shared professional learning day. 60% of primary mentors are administrative principals, 40% are teaching. 10% are from Gaelscoileanna, a further 4% are from the Gaeltacht and 7% are from special schools.

Mentors and mentees meet during the school year once per month for two hours and have fortnightly contact by phone or email. A Contract of Agreement is signed, including a confidentiality clause. After the first year, mentees have the opportunity to access group mentoring provided by IPPN and NAPD.

Both mentors and mentees benefit from the mentoring relationship. Mentees avail of much-needed support as they get to grips with the leadership role. Mentors appreciate the learning and networking available to them, as well as the opportunity to ‘give something back’ to the profession. CSL Cairde (of which there are currently 24 at primary level with another 10 due to be trained in September) provide an extra layer of support for the mentors. The most appreciated aspect of the mentor-mentee relationship is the co-professional dialogue with a principal colleague, and the discernible positive impact on the practice of both mentor and mentee.

Quotes from Mentees

“Having a mentor has definitely made me more confident in the role of principal. I can anticipate difficulties and have the chance to talk them through before they become an issue. Knowing that there is an experienced principal on your side, available to help you through the first year of principalship whether you need them or not is incredibly reassuring.”

“My mentor is approachable, encouraging, and supportive. He is patient and a very good listener. He is very objective in the advice he gives and ensures the advice is accurate by double checking first. He respects my need for complete trust and confidentiality and shows genuine interest by asking how certain situations played out in subsequent meetings. He listens to my concerns and also shares his expertise and experience freely.”

“I listen to and seek advice from my mentor regularly. I trust in my mentor's advice and support. Especially in the area of policy development. I use my mentor's advice and ideas from her experience when making decisions in my own school. My mentor has a significant role in informing practice in my own school.”

Quotes from Mentors

“I have gained confidence in my own role as principal, and the learning from the mentoring relationship has greatly benefited my school.”

“The mentoring relationship reinforces the mentor’s own practice in that it provokes/promotes reflection and learning for both mentor and mentee”

"I am convinced that I learned more than my mentee did from the experience. Active listening requires humility and can lead to profound insights into one's own practice as well as the opportunity to help the new principal on their journey."

"I gained as much if not more than I gave, a grounding experience for myself, I gained a friend.” 

Professional Learning Days for Cohort One, Two and Three are underway with in-put from speakers such as Adam Harris, Dr. Geraldine Simmie Mooney and Dr. Joe O’ Connell. The learning is further enriched by participants sharing their own best practice in carousels showcasing vignettes of good practice. Cairde mentor meetings are enhanced by feedback from a survey of mentees at Misneach and an online questionnaire to capture their feedback on the process. IPPN and NAPD provide information on the group mentoring process which all principals in the second year of the role will have access to from September. Training videos of mentors and mentees sharing their experience of the mentoring relationship, and a focus on having difficult conversations provide significant learning opportunities for participants.

Quotes from Participants from April 24^th/25^th (Cohort One) and May 2^nd (Cohort Three). Professional Learning for Cohort Two takes place in Athlone on May 17^th and 18^th.

“Thank you for giving me some time and space to reflect on practices in the school in which I work and for giving me a chance to hear what other schools do. I feel that I can bring a little positivity and good ideas to our teachers.”

“The two days afforded me the opportunity to collaborate with fellow professionals, brainstorming solutions for current issues. They assisted with reflective practice and self-direction. Thank you for the beneficial, constant and consistent professional in-service.”

“Every session had something of value to bring to my practice as principal, especially the learning from the Vignettes of Good Practice which is so transferable into my school setting. The journey home was very thought provoking.”

“It gave me a chance to breathe and take stock. It made me take some "me" time. Really enjoyed talking with colleagues, met some really interesting people and had some very worthwhile conversations about very pertinent issues in our schools.”

Unlocking Potential through Coaching

CSL Coaching was launched in January 2017 and is a confidential, one-to-one personal service now available to all school principals. It is a powerful tool to develop individual and organisational performance by unlocking potential and capability. The service is fully funded by the DES and over 420 principals benefitted from coaching this year.

Principals face a wide range of challenges and goals that can benefit from coaching, as it offers the time and space to reflect on both. It can also:

• Help create a coaching culture in schools
• Enhance capacity to work in a changing environment
• Increase ability to prioritise and manage demands
• Enable more successful management of change
• Renew enthusiasm for the job.

To engage with the service, principals can go to www.cslireland.ie and access 40 coaches in six regions around the country. A ‘chemistry check’ is available followed by six further meetings over a one-year period, and a final review six months after the last meeting.

40% of those accessing the service are teaching principals, 25% are from DEIS schools and 27% have special classes in their schools.

Testimonials from principals demonstrate the effectiveness of coaching as a leadership tool.

“Coaching has been one of the most useful leadership tools that I have come across. It gives me time to reflect upon myself, my actions and my decisions. I am making changes in my practice.”

“Coaching has been invaluable to me. We experienced a crisis in the school and I believe that it was the coaching that helped me personally get through the crisis and assist the staff in coming to terms with our situation. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.”

The Post Graduate Diploma in School Leadership (PDSL)

The 243 participants have reported very positively on the course content, and the learning from leadership experience in a setting outside of education has been immense. Arrangements are currently in place for the participants to experience learning in an educational setting outside of their own school, and this current cohort of participants will graduate in November.

The application process for Cohort Two closed on March 31^st with almost 500 applications. The DES has agreed to add an extra 50 places to participants this year, allowing 300 successful applicants to be chosen from the 500 who have applied.

A Continuum of Professional Learning for School Leadership

CSL is looking at the whole continuum of professional development for school leadership, from teacher leadership, to middle leadership and the development of aspiring leaders, to newly-appointed senior leaders and also to established and system senior leaders.

After a series of consultative workshops with stakeholders, the final Continuum document is in preparation for publication in September.

The team is also piloting a Quality Assurance Framework and process to ensure that both aspiring and serving leaders have access to high-quality leadership programmes.

Strategic Priorities for 2018-19

CSL will continue to monitor mentoring, coaching and PDSL programmes over the coming year, with the ultimate goal of improving learning outcomes for our school communities. In addition, CSL will aim to:

• Work collaboratively with stakeholders to elaborate, continuously update, and present a detailed and evolving best-practice continuum, responsive to all needs
• Build awareness of the work and role of CSL, including the potential of mentoring and coaching as leadership tools
• Refine the Pilot QA framework and process to ensure teachers and school leaders can access quality professional learning at every point along their career path
• Explore and build upon existing innovative approaches to high quality professional learning provision
• Reaffirm CSL’s central long-term focus as a centre of excellence, spearheading the reform and modernisation of school leadership professional development and performance in Ireland