Category Archives: Leadership

Rethinking Educational Leadership: an open space symposium

Posted on January 23, 2013 by | Leave a comment

In January a group of   experienced practitioners and researchers in education and business met together in an Open Space Symposium designed to bring fresh thinking to the current challenges facing school leaders and to generate new ideas about leadership development.  The Open Space Technology provided a means of capturing the collective intelligence generated by the group in response to the core question. This report Rethinking School Leadership Bristol Leadership Forum Open Space Symposium Report January 2013 is the result of these two days.  It is designed as the beginning of an ongoing conversation.  

The following themes were identified by a thematic analysis of the Open Space Sessions. Key ideas were highlighted and abstracted from their context,  coded on post it notes and collected together. These were then organised into overall themes which cut across most or all Open Space Sessions and framed using the principles of Systems Designing .

  • Developing and maintaining constancy of purpose
  • Leadership which learns
  • Redesigning Curricula for Deep Learning: Learning Architectures
  • Co-Creating Sustainable Learning Systems
  • Deep Listening
  • The Inner World of the Leader
  • Creating Trust within Community
If you would like to join in the discussion and respond, please comment or email us at ruth.deakin-crick@bristol.ac.uk

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Posted in Authentic Enquiry, Collaborative Learning, Complexity, Leadership, organisational learning, Systems thinking, Uncategorized

Teaching for Effective Learning: South Australia Department for Education and Children’s Services

Posted on November 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Visiting Fellow Chris Goldspink presents the research and practice from the Teaching for Effective Learning Programme in South Australia at the Centre for Systems Learning and Leadership at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol in March 2012.

The Teaching for Effective Learning Framework was developed as a part of ongoing enquiry in South Australia into the nexus between how teachers design and orchestrate learning and learner engagement. The framework was developed through consultation with international researchers, as well as local leaders and skilled practitioners, about the essential elements of quality practice. The framework provides means of measuring quality of practice through systematic observation of teaching practice and been demonstrated to be valid and reliable in this role. It supports the collection of data for research purposes but also provides a means for teachers to observe and be observed by peers, supporting deeper reflection on professional practice and providing a rich language about quality practice to support professional learning communities and individual professional development. Chris was involved in the research which led to the design of the framework as well as in its testing and use both for research and professional development purposes.

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Posted in Authentic Enquiry, Collaborative Learning, Community, Language for Learning, Leadership, organisational learning, Pedagogy

Ngambara Fimityatit: Learning Together in Daly River

Posted on October 20, 2012 by | Leave a comment


These murals of a Barramundi and a Brolga have been painted by the community in Daly River, Northern Territory, Australia, to remind everyone about how the community and the children in St Francis Xavier Catholic School are learning and achieving together.  The project, led by Miriam Rose Bauman and Julianne Willis, draws everyone in the school community together to engage in learning and change.  The vision of the project is summed up in the title Ngamara Fimityatit – which means

When we learn together, sharing + living the same language for learning, we will be empowered to create a new story for our future…

It’s about bringing together local traditional knowledge systems with 21century ideas about learning, in order to empower and engage a new generation. For more details of the project you can read the latest update about how  the whole community is engaged in a process of merging two streams into a third way.  Watch the video below made by the students in the school to show how we learn together in Daly River….Animal Powers…..

Ngambara Fimityatit October 2012

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Posted in Authentic Enquiry, Coaching for Learning, Collaborative Learning, Community, Complexity, Culture, Language for Learning, Leadership, Learning Power, organisational learning, Pedagogy

Article: “It’s ‘complex’ – Workplace Bullying as a Wicked Problem”

Posted on October 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

New Article:  It’s ‘complex’ – Systems Thinking and Workplace Bullying

This article written by Damian Stoupe has just been published in the latest edition of Counselling at Work (Autumn 2012).  It draws upon the work of Elinor Ostrom and systems thinking in promoting the use of authentic dialogue as a means of countering the phenomenon of workplace bullying.  Using the notion of wicked problems I suggest we may gain a greater insight into the issues surrounding bullying and be able to challenge the current dominance of event-driven responses in the workplace.

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Posted in Community, Complexity, Culture, Leadership, organisational learning, Publications

Rethinking Professional Learning

Posted on June 18, 2011 by | Leave a comment
RETHINKING PROFESSIONAL LEARNING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Exciting seminar from Dr Patrick Hazelwood, head teacher of St Johns School Malborough. Patrick is one if the UK’s pioneering heads – developing the RSA’s Opening Minds curriculum and the International Baccalaureate, to create a learning-centred school. He talked about how teacher professional learning is key to radical change. He has published two books ‘How to nurture indpendent thinkers’ and ‘Leading the Leaders for the Future‘.

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Posted in Collaborative Learning, Community, Leadership, organisational learning, Uncategorized