Page 19 - Leadership Basics 3

Conversation 3

Harbour View Primary School
Context

Harbour View Primary School is a small city school of 360 students.
The Team
“I am Head of IT. Last year we changed the name of our team from the “IT Department” to the “IT‐ Critical Friends
Group” (IT‐CFG). My role as HOD changed to being a coach and a team member. Our aspiration was to improve student
learning by reflecting on our own learning. It took two terms of professional learning and trust building before we could
seriously say that we began the process of looking at ways of improving student learning. The group was small (five
teachers) and we were very closely‐knit, meaning we used to seek each other out between our fortnightly meetings for
mutual support. We used to share the workload and we were so close that I could take a Unit Test or a Learning Object
developed by any of the other team members and use it unchanged knowing that I could trust what ever resource they
developed to be acceptable to me and my classes.

In this group we were so focused on sharing and learning that the role of team leader shifts throughout the session.
Sometimes I am the team leader, but most of the time it is someone else. Perhaps because of its size, the group seems
to be an example of shared leadership or true democracy and collaboration, and we were able to achieve really fantastic
things in IT integration across the curriculum.”
The Problem
“This year we had a new in principal, who amalgamated various positions as part of a wider system initiative. I suppose
I should be grateful and proud because the new principal said that he recognised my excellent work in IT. He believed
that I would be the right person to lead the school’s push to strengthen the teaching of Mandarin, which rated poorly in
our last school review. Therefore, as a result of the reorganisation, I have added Languages to my original
responsibilities for IT. My new role beginning next term will be HOD for Languages and IT. There are now 18 teachers in
my mega department and I don’t even speak Chinese, my only other language is Kazakh! Worst of all, the current HOD
for Languages did not have her contract renewed; even though she was not very popular, the teachers still think I have
taken her job. What a mess! Where do I begin?”

Conversation
1. What advice can you give to this team leader about her new role?
2. What criticisms might cynical teachers have of this new structure?
3. What would need to happen for this new team to be effective? Consider the Team Pyramid Framework.

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