In the daily rush of school life, it’s easy to to get caught up in the noise. Emails, compliance tasks, student concerns, staff shortages—each can feel urgent and essential. But at the core of school leadership lies a responsibility too important to be overshadowed: improving student learning outcomes. I find that too often, this can be pushed aside, even with tasks that are important – such as student mental health, event organisation, parent emails and meetings – the list never ends.
I was challenged by the research done by (Smith, 2016) in the article: The Role of Leadership Style in Creating a Great School. Smith focused on the different leadership types of school administrators, but his discussion around the focus on student outcomes especially challenged me:
Most importantly school vision must be directly related to student learning and the pursuit of finding ways to improve learning in the school. “Achieving the vision requires their work to be deeply informed by knowledge of how to improve learning and teaching. Tat is why we must put education back into educational leadership” (Robinson, 2011, p. 155).
As a teacher librarian, this is one of the ways that I can be a visible leader – focusing on assisting and resourcing teachers to improve their practice, and therefore, improving outcomes for students. Finding resources to support curriculum outcomes, providing training (especially in technology and information resources) and being someone teachers can go to for support and motivation. I often find teachers appreciate a chat and ‘space to vent’ when they are in the library doing their photocopying, or picking up books, and this has been an informal way I have found to offer support and leadership.
The following quote sums it up:
Image source: https://readwriterespond.com/2019/07/real-work/
References:
Davis, A. (2019, July 11). Doing the real work that matters. Read, Write, Respond. https://readwriterespond.com/2019/07/real-work/
Smith, B. S., (2016), The Role of Leadership Style in Creating a Great School, SELU Research Review Journal, 1(1), 65-78.