Joanne Jarvis

Hello and welcome to Episode 22 of the Leadership in Focus podcast series. I'm Joanne Jarvis and I'm the Executive Director of the New South Wales Department of Education's School Leadership Institute. This is the final episode in our 3-part series on teacher leadership. Across the series, we have moved from the individual to the collective, from strengthening teacher practice to strengthening schools.

In this episode, we widen the lens further to the system itself. Teacher leaders shape school culture. Schools collectively shape the system and the system in turn, creates the conditions in which teacher leadership can flourish. Today, we explore the pivotal role of system leaders in strengthening capability, building professional expertise and advancing equity across New South Wales public education. I'm joined by Dr Paul Owens and Andrew Stevenson, both outstanding directors, educational leadership in the New South Wales public education system.

Paul Owens is director for the Bondi Principals Network, supporting primary, secondary and special purpose public schools between Vaucluse and Kensington in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Paul has been an educator for over 40 years, taking his first steps as a music teacher. He has held executive positions in comprehensive and selective high schools, including boys and co-educational settings across Sydney. Paul has a long-term active interest in cognitive load theory and instructional design, and how this research underwrites explicit teaching.

Andrew Stevenson is celebrating his 37th year in public education with a distinguished, career spanning teaching and leadership roles. Currently, Andrew is in his ninth year as director for the Pittwater Network, where he drives continuous improvement across schools for specific purposes, primary and secondary settings on the North Shore and Northern Beaches. He is passionate about student engagement and raising expectations in teaching and learning.

Andrew has been instrumental in advancing high potential and gifted education, Aboriginal education and aspiring leader development within local networks. Together, we'll explore how leadership at the middle of the system strengthens schools, grows leaders and builds capability to create the conditions for sustained improvement across diverse contexts. So welcome Paul and Andrew.

Andrew Stevenson

Thanks Jo

Paul Owens

And thank you very much Jo, it’s always a delight to work with the SLI and your good self.

Joanne Jarvis

Thank you.

Well, let's start with you, Paul. What changes do you notice in a school when teacher leadership is genuinely making a difference for students? What would people be doing differently? What does it feel like when it's working well in schools or in networks?

Paul Owens

I tend to think about it in terms of relationships, and relationships you have going in and out of a school and the first relationship I might put forward is to the environment itself. And if you've gone in sometimes for a brief, a period as half an hour, sometimes certainly for longer, you know, frequent visits that you do certainly in our role, you realise that the students, first and foremost, by attention, by focus, by what people are doing, by deferment, and of course, by the general operations and decisions that help, of course, make that the case.

A second relationship for me is to the individuals themselves and how they see leadership. It's about a culture within a school, and it's about that question of what is a good leader? And I think, again, teachers will see themselves a leader, and I know this is very close to the heart of the work that, I think SLI are probably pioneering, in the fact that in the first days of being a new teacher, you should be seen in that orientation as also a leader in growing leadership skills, and that thing keeps going for your entire career.

So, I would expect to see that. I also like the idea that a leader in a school, thinks of themselves and as the best imagined version of themselves is what they are as a leader. It is about making yourself, building, remaking yourself, taking influences from others, of course, influencing others. And that's the really key question to me, it is about influence. And to me, leadership is about the currency of influence, and it's that currency of influence which is important.

And the last relationship I look for, some of the observable things in a school, the obvious ones, like, it's not a top-down leadership, or it shouldn't feel overly like top-down leadership, like you have a traffic cop operating hierarchical in nature. You shouldn't hear, and I was always conscious of this, sensitive to the things people would say at various points of leadership, and I would hope not to hear but I did, things like, ‘that's why you get paid the big bucks, that's above my pay grade’. Those types of sayings, which to me suggests that we're, abdicating, leadership and that understanding, that deep understanding of leadership.

So I'm looking for that idea of humble strength, the person who is influencing but willing to be influenced, but also will take risks, has that sense of courage to be able to put themselves out there and be willing to risk what they wish to contribute to a greater conversation within a school and thereby, influence others.

And we go into that true meaning of collective efficacy, the idea that we believe together we have a greater compounding power to be able to solve and make better the environment in which we work. And that's when leadership becomes across the school, very, very powerful.

I would expect to see, a great deal of mentoring and coaching, which goes in all directions, not simply from the top down, but it can be a beginning teacher who is able to influence back a principal at times, in something that they've brought to the school you refreshed, or whatever it may be.

Joanne Jarvis

You've almost defined what someone once told me you cannot define when you're talking about that thing we often call a vibe in a school. I remember someone saying to me, there's no definition of vibe. Where's your evidence? But you talked about the notion of humble strengths and collective efficacy, and you put those two together. And boy, what a perfect recipe for having a vibe in a school where leaders can flourish from the moment they step into teaching.

Andrew, what are your thoughts about, how what changes you notice in school around your network when teacher leadership is genuinely making that difference for students?

Andrew Stevenson

Yeah. Look Jo, I’ve seen, there's definitely been an increase in principals and executive staff looking for opportunities, I think, to create teacher leaders. And I think, you know, a lot of that goes to the emphasis the department put around leadership, SLI have played a major role in that.

I think it's gone from strength to strength, particularly over the last 5 to 10 years, but when I look at it across the journey that I've had, the nearly 40 years, there were always great leaders out there that embraced, you know, early career teachers that obviously had high level communication skills, content knowledge, understanding, they always did that they always look to have, you know, collective efficacy and high levels of collaboration. You know, driving their school culture, the best of always done that, but what I'm seeing now is that's happening on a much, much wider scale when we're really looking to provide opportunities to, you know, I think the good leaders they, they definitely look to really cement in an organisational culture. And then once they've got that in place, then the learning culture these days, it's built around that definitely incorporates, you know, younger leaders.

I think, I've done a lot of work with my principals in recent years about avoiding that pragmatist trap where just because you've had a lot of years in the the job or you've got a lot of knowledge and understanding, it's like, you know, ‘step back, young Johnny come lately we've been doing this for years. We know what to do, we can cut to the chase and get it done’. So it's really been about, you know, building a culture across our schools and the three networks and the northern beaches in particular, that really, encourages, you know, beginning teacher voice, or the voice of they may be new grads, they may be people have coming from different industries into teaching later, but embracing everybody's voice and and we need to we need to hear from everybody.

When I see it working well in schools, when I visit schools and I see this teacher leadership working well, there's often these days, you know, panels or focus groups that that will be presenting to me and it will incorporate without a doubt, I had to again today, young teachers, you know, teacher leaders, leaders of the future that are giving being given great opportunities now and are getting you know, a lot of credibility about what they're bringing to the table to get the best outcomes for students, around student engagement, you know, creative opportunities for student outcomes, ultimately.

But I think what it brings is there's a lot of satisfaction that comes to, the beginning teaching staff, as teacher leaders, but to all staff, when they know that, you know, their voice will be listened to, when it will be acted upon and it won't be, you know, we create a psychologically safe environment in staff rooms and in faculties and in grade meetings where everybody's feeling confident to, you know, to put their, you know, their ideas forward and sometimes they're, they're adopted and, and that teacher feels, you know, confident, you know, potentially for the rest of their career that they didn't sit back, they came forward.

Joanne Jarvis

One of the things that I'm hearing clearly come through both of the answers you've provided, both of you have provided, is this sense of the power of being in a system, and I, I think we have sometimes we underestimate what that power is. That when you decide to join the New South Wales public education system, you are signing up for a system and all of the possibilities and opportunities that provides. And the other thing is that you, Andrew were talking about the intentionality about how we develop teacher leaders from the, you know, the first moments they they join a school.

Which brings me to the second question. I think I'll stay with you, Andrew, on this one, how do we therefore create the pathways where teachers who have an expanding sphere of influence can then step into middle leadership roles without having to leave the classroom too early?

Andrew Stevenson

Yeah, well DELs, we're in a great a great position that we can, you know that that this iteration of the role is around educational leadership, and it's allowed me and my colleagues across the the Forest Network and the Beaches Network and the Pittwater Network to, to really, you know, we've constructed a number of networks within networks and we're we are definitely looking to target, you know, with expressions of interest, but we're looking to target people and let them know that they could bring a lot to the table.

So, whether that's around, you know, curriculum reform groups, HPGE, beginning teachers, middle leaders, SRC groups that we've got, we're looking to to target individuals that we know are already sort of, you know, exhibiting in skills of, of leadership. And, you know, I think it's important that we, we, we let them know that their voice is significant and their voice matters early, and that, there are many, many opportunities beyond their school.

Joanne Jarvis

You and Andrew, as system leaders, have an important role in influencing what needs to change or how you support principals and other leaders, well, let's just say all leaders across your network, to support the identification of future leaders.

What kinds of thing is is this within your control? And I'll get you to come in on this one to Andrew.

Andrew Stevenson

Look I think yeah, I think we definitely do have a, a role to play in making sure that, you know, the 20 principals Paul and myself directly, you know, support, you have a lens for full capacity building. I think that's part of our role description to be making sure that's on the agenda in conversations with principals and executive teams. Across the cross network that I'm working, DELs work very closely to, to come up with collective, you know, programs and opportunities for the future leaders, we’ve had that running for a number of years no.

Beyond the SLI offerings online that we could deliver some of that in, in context and work having future leaders working together on the northern beaches, on the north shore with the SLI knowledge and and support. So it's you know, it's been able to, you know, target, you know, many, many aspirants that were probably, you know, close to looking at their first executive position and as a result of some, you know, some action based research, they've done the input of, of, of principals and a driving committee and SLI yeah, we've unearthed some, some quality, you know, leaders and they've moved into relieving and substantive roles within schools now.

Joanne Jarvis

And as directors, educational leadership, Paul you’re, you really are, going back to that comment about influence, you are amplifying your influence significantly across hundreds of teachers in your networks. Do you want to talk about how you go about embedding that in your practice?

Paul Owens

Yeah. I think you're right. I mean, I think we have some significant influence. I certainly don't think and I never have thought that I have control. And I think that would undermine everything that we've been talking about, but we do have, influence. And I think everything that Andrew, said is, spot on. So, I think for me, I look for the moment and that moment can arise, you know, whether you're talking to a group, whether it's a straightforward meeting, network meeting. But there are some other ways that I think accelerate that process.

So projects within a network. And I love calling teachers, and they nearly always, for want of a better term, aspiring teachers of to some degree. And the idea of, giving them a platform and giving them ideas and giving them some leverage by which they can then exercise their imaginations because really, they make the running thereafter, has been, I think, incredibly successful.

I think it was successful back in school days. I still love the action learning idea within schools. You modify it as you see fit, but, across a network now we're able to take from various schools, target certain individuals, obviously, the various priorities that we want within a network, which are usually befitting greater systems, top priorities as well, but we can narrow that down into a group of people in which you're doing two things trying to progress that idea, might be HPGE, equity, as you said, it might be attendance. It can be a whole range of those big system goals that we have. But you're doing it in such a way in which you're giving people, again, I'm going to come back to that term.

You're giving them currency. You're giving them a currency of influence to be able to apply in a way, that will which you can support and mentor, but they can test and they can get it wrong, and that's absolutely fine. Because they are learning an awful lot about leadership as they, you know, test and try, as we all do and, find some things work very, very well and sometimes not so. And, I do think, there are lots of those smaller projects which have probably helped in that regard.

Joanne Jarvis

So those are big system initiatives, and then, as you said a moment ago, there are the moments when you just say it and, you know, we know one of the sources of efficacy is someone a credible other, such as yourself and Andrew tapping you on the shoulder and saying you've got what it takes, you can do this. I know even in my own work, when I've travelled around regional, rural and remote parts of New South Wales, and I've met the most extraordinary leaders who don't see themselves, as a leader until you say you've got what it takes, just in a conversation and now they're joining our programs.

Paul Owens

I agree. And there is a statement that for a long time now, if it's not too harsh, word that just detest and it's ‘they're not ready yet’. I find people are always ready. Even if, you know, it is not for a substantive or permanent role at this stage, I find people grow enormously every time they’re given an opportunity, become almost someone else, and very malleable, to be able to do the types of things that we're talking about now in leadership.

Joanne Jarvis

Yeah. And look, I think that brings us to the end of this podcast but what I've observed from both of you is your capacity to feel the joy, exude the joy of leadership, and have that influence on the growth of these fabulous teachers that I see so often throughout our system and those leaders who influence their development as well.

And, you two are just outstanding ambassadors for that cause and I really thank you for joining us today to share your insights and perspectives on the powerful impact that teacher leadership has on our public school system.

So thank you, Paul and Andrew, for joining us.

Andrew Stevenson

Thanks, Jo. Thanks for having us on.

Paul Owens

And thank you, Jo. I have never, ever lost sight of the gift of the people with whom we work. We're very lucky.

Joanne Jarvis

I absolutely agree with you.

For our listeners, please follow the School Leadership Institute on X, our handle is at NSWSLI. And for New South Wales Department of Education staff, you can access our leadership resources on the department's website. Thank you for listening.