Achieving Excellence in School

Headship and Management at

South Africa- 11th-13th August 2015
Summary Report on Seminar
Proceedings
Introduction- The school organised with the support
of the board members training for the senior and
middle management team.
1.1 The specific objectives of the training team were:
To build effective team and leadership
To create an effective teaching and learning
environment
To create a school with effective teaching
Be the best school in the community
Create tasks and functions comprehensively
Motivate teachers in striving for excellence
Recognise the right and need of learners to
maintain commitments
to both their cultural communities.
2.1 The seminar was attended by 22 delegates from
different schools in Nigeria. A total of 8 conference
papers were presented by different professors
mainly from UNISA (University of South Africa).
2.2 The workshop constituted a good opportunity to
foster monitoring and sharing of knowledge among
teachers.
2.3 The workshop met their objectives in creating
awareness on the process of team building and
formation.
2.4 Following very active and lively discussions on the
various topics presented; the objectives of the
seminar/workshop were met.

Lessons Learnt and the Way

Forward
1)There is increased awareness and growing clarity on
the need for effective team building. An effective
team has the following characteristics:
clear goals
unified commitment
effective leadership
relevant skills
mutual trust
good communication
negotiation skills
external and internal support.

Four stages of team development

Forming

Performing Conforming

Storming
A Group: A collection of people who are interacting and
who influence one another.
A team: A group of people who are committed to a
common purpose and performance goals for which they
are mutually accountable.
The above knowledge has helped me in forming team
and not a group..
2)Create an effective teaching and learning
environment; the school and its partners.
Parents involvement in schools- Parents are the
primary educators of the children and their role is
crucial. Education is shared activity by family and
school.
Six types of parent involvement
Parenting deals with the help given to families by
the school as to create a home atmosphere where
learning is supported.
Home School Communication is the oil that
greases the wheel of parent involvement in any
school. Communication should be regular, clear,
brochure/ prospectus communication strategy, invite
parents input first before the teachers begin to give
their views.
Volunteering- A volunteer is defined as anyone
who supports school goals, children learning and
development in any way. Create a positive school
climate, form committees to deal with parent
volunteers, teachers to work with parent, determine
the necessary program to fit the need, recruit and
train parents, reward and maintain interest.
Learning at home- Different ways parents can
support learning activities in the home are with TV
viewing time, games, music, sharing family history
etc.
 Decision making- Inclusion of parents in school
decision making. Thorough care should be taken to
know the limit.
Community Involvement- Three levels of working
together (co-operation, co-ordination and
collaboration). The extent of the above depends on
each partners willingness to share resources. School
should approach companies to sponsor some of their
programmes.
RIS has been involving parents in her
programmes, but the above training has opened our
eyes to the need to involve them more and the
management has put some plans in place to achieve
them. The school will also work with her immediate
community to accomplish some tasks.

3) How to create an effective school with an

effective teacher cooperation?
What makes an effective school? Five factor
model of school effectiveness:
strong principal leadership
pervasive instructional focus
orderly school climate
high expectations and
consistent measurement of learners
performance.
Firstly, school effectiveness researchers unanimously
list strong and supportive leadership and
management as a key characteristic of an effective
school. In addition, those key focus areas for which
successful leaders and managers should be sensitive
are listed below. They are inter alia the following:
school climate, parental involvement, appropriate
monitoring, dedicated staff development, effective
instructional leadership, high expectations etc.
 RIS has strong leadership, school climate is good,
teachers and management have high expectation
from the pupils and we constantly measure learners
performance.
4) Effective mentoring: An essential tool for staff
development in schools.
Mentor: Is a person who guides and supports, more
especially a newly appointed or promoted individual.
Some benefits of mentoring include:
Well trained and adjusted teachers
Development of good networks in school
Environmentally improved relationship
between the staff of schools
Identification of problems in schools
The likelihood of attracting or retaining more
people
Empowering schools and practicing
teachers.
Natural/ Informal Mentoring: It develops on its
own between two people whereby one wants to
professionally and personally grow and turns to
another person for ongoing advancement.
Planned/ Formal Mentoring: This occurs through
structured programme in which mentors and
members are carefully selected and matched
through a formal process.
Selection of mentors largely depend on what
will be required of them.
These are benefits of mentoring:
having a medium through which to address ideas
to senior management, opportunities to observe
other teachers at work. Mentors also benefit
from mentoring
Re-evaluation of own teaching, development of
leadership skill, increased enthusiasm, motivation
and energy for teaching etc.
Planning a Mentoring Program

What? How?
The task The
Standard

Planning

When? Who?
The time The
Person
 Having a better understanding of Mentoring has
helped me to appoint appropriate mentors for the
new members of staff in my section and the result
has been amazing
5) Being the Best school in the community:
Introducing Invitation Purkey & Schmdt 1987
developed an invitational model comprising five
components of fours. Four levels, four choices, four
qualities, four areas and four factors. Four qualities
form the nucleus of the model and are linked to the
other four.
Four levels are intentionally disinviting,
unintentional
disinviting, unintentionally inviting and
intentional inviting.
Four qualities are intentionally, optimism, trust
and respect.
Four areas are inviting to yourself, inviting to
others, professionally inviting to yourself and
professionally inviting to others.
This paper taught me how to comport myself
generally so I can invite people to the school both
intentionally and unintentionally. I have also been
teaching other members of staff in my section how
to comport themselves.

6) Instructional Leadership (Tasks and Functions):

Good management will succeed depending on the
Vision, Mission, Aims, Quality service, Use of existing
resources and Generating new resources. Two tasks
of an organisation are Functional tasks and
Managerial tasks.
 RIS management is doing very well in this area,
though there is room for improvement especially in
the area of creating new resources.

7) Ways to keep your teachers motivated in striving

for excellence. Two types of motivation: Intrinsic
(from inside) and Extrinsic (from external influence).
Several ways to motivate teachers were discussed.
The management has started motivating teachers
more since we came back from South Africa, we
have also improved on our relationship with our
subordinates.

8. Diversity in Schools. The implication for school

leadership. As a result of a diverse society, education
policy makers are faced with the challenge of how to
deal with inclusion of learners from different racial
and ethnic background and who speak different
language. It will recognise the right and needs of
learners to maintain commitments to both their
cultural communities. Understanding ones own
culture will help us understand others. If we dont
make effort at understanding the culture of people
different from our own, conflict is inevitable.
RIS has employed the services of a counsellor who
would through counselling and gathering of data
from both the pupils and their parents, would know
more about their background and understand why
they behave the way they do and offer help.
Teachers have also been told to always listen to
pupils and find out why they behave the way they
do.
Apart from the training which has prepared me
better to carry out my responsibilities effectively, I
also had a lot of fun starting with the luxurious hotel
we were lodged, sumptuous meals served daily,
visits to places of interest, shopping etc. It was
indeed an exciting, educating and memorable
experience.