I was a little horrified when I read this chapter the first time - Shelley Burgess describes the freak-out moment she had the day when she went out to purchase the coffee for a parent meeting. My "freak-out" moment happened when I was reading this chapter - Shelley was essentially describing something I had done - and recently!
How was this a high impact activity? It wasn't - Now don't get me wrong this is not an everyday thing that I do but it highlighted to me that on that particular day I had not prioritised learning and I was not swimming in the pool with the crew.
I want to be immersed and I think that our Senior Leadership Team works hard to do this but as always it is great to reflect - How can we do this better?
I like the idea of using the LEAD acronym (Leverage Systems, Elevate the Impact, Activate a team, Delete) to make more time for what matters most. I want to find more time to be working alongside our crew leading learning.
This year one of our main target is raising achievement in Writing - I love to teach writing - it is one of my favourite things to teach - I think I have a lot that I can share with our teachers - however I hate to admit I have not taught writing alongside any of our teachers this year.
I have chosen to concentrate on Leveraging Systems in this post. What systems can I leverage to make more time to be working in classrooms alongside teachers so that this becomes the norm rather than the odd occasion?
The office manager manages my calendar - if I can strengthen this system, I can recapture some time for teaching in the Hubs.
- Meet with the Office Manager and share my goals with her which will help her understand what I am trying to achieve.
- Block out some times in my calendar that are non negotiable which will ensure that I don't let the teams down by having last minute meetings being popped into my calendar.
- Give the office manager the go ahead to tell people that I am in classrooms - this will also let people know that getting into classrooms is a priority for me.
I know that none of this is rocket science, and none of this new to me but I have a renewed enthusiasm after reading this chapter to do this and do it well. I'll keep you posted!
