Due: 30th May
Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.
My strength is not that of a single warrior but that of many.
Fundamentally, we (GCLA) believe that Professional Learning and Development needs to be authentic and contextualised within the real world in which we interact. Aspiring NLP is committed to providing growth opportunities for aspiring leaders to solve problems and address issues to help equip delegates for 21st Century educational leadership positions. For some, this module and discussion might evoke anxiety. However, we hope that this discussion remains hypothetical and that no undue anxiety is caused.
Provocation:
This is a joint task, to be completed in collaboration with your learning partner(s). Have a conversation with your partner(s) then post on the forum. Please sign off your collective forum response with the names of the people in your learning partnership (i.e. only one response is required for all of the members of the learning partnership).
Scenario: You arrive at school to find yourself in the position of Acting Principal (indefinitely), at the request of your frazzled Board Chairperson. You oblige and soon after, you get a notification (via the media) that a neighbouring school has just reported an unauthorised intruder on the school premises which has forced the school into lockdown. Upon investigation, you learn that they have an accomplice who is on the run in the local area.
By 10:00am both staff and students are ablaze with concerns and speculation, following inaccurate social media posts.
Question: With the many layers of competitiveness and sensitivity, whose voices do you listen to and how do you respond (initially)?
- Who are your priorities to communicate this with?
- What would be your mode of communication with the various stakeholders?
Please take time to read and reflect on the attached links before responding to the ‘Voices and Drivers’ provocation.
Resources:
Rabbi Dr Abraham Twerski speaks about decision making.
Disclaimer: Rabbi Dr Abraham Twerski expresses his religious worldview which is his own and the thoughts and beliefs shared in the video and not necessarily the opinions and beliefs of Growth Culture.
Stakeholder Engagement.
Optional Extra: Best to watch if you are familiar with Daniel Kahneman’s work and ideas around the anchoring, priming, framing and cognitive bias effects.
- Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow (review by Swedish Investor)
9 Responses
Sound thinking (and great photo!)
Great response and love the photo!
Link to the discussion of what we have discussed over the last two weeks:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Te-1GLeWB_ebVFpxyYONJf75b-qOe2nYmjELf0j3wlc/edit?usp=sharing
SUMMARY – Learning Partnership: Abi Copley (Gulf Harbour School) Peter Thorne (Belmont Primary), Cara Bergin-Stuart (Marina View Primary School)
Abi, Cara and Peter have met to discuss prior experiences in similar situations. We discussed our school policies and procedures, and identified a number of similarities and differences within our schools. The management structure within our schools are different however neither was wrong. The core of the decision making process was about ensuring the best decisions were made for the safety of our children and staff, at that time. A quote by Dr Abraham Twerskii in his video, if you don’t make a decision, then you’ve already made a decision.
When decisions are made, it’s important that as leaders (the leader) that we remain respectful and ensure everyone’s mana remains intact.
In leading through this situation, it is important that roles are calmly assigned and clear messages are given. The designated people with roles in our will all have different roles of responsibility and this looked different in each of our schools.
We all agreed that once the children are in their classrooms safe with their teacher, further communication would go out to parents/community to assure them of student safety and what the next steps would be.
Sound thinking, and of course the strong policies and procedures in place guide that clarity and communication
Kia ora, I had posted, but not sure what happened – reposting.
Voices and drivers:
Sarah and I think following lock down procedures is important and these should have already been set up and practiced with the school.
With the knowledge of someone in the vicinity with unknown threat and the neighbouring school in lockdown, we think the call should be made by the acting Principal to also go into a lock down situation.
This can be communicated with staff and students via the lockdown bell -students and staff should act efficiently based on previous practices.
Emails/texts can then be sent to parents, staff and the BOT about the fact this is a precaution lockdown and once we have more information, they will be updated.
Then via phone calls, clarification happens with the neighbouring school and police as acting Principal.
Once the situation has been cleared, then communications go out to parents, staff and BOT via text/email.
Staff know to stay in lockdown places until they have a knock at the door by senior leadership and the room is unlocked.
A follow up call is made with the BOT chairperson to talk through the situation.
Review takes place about the lockdown process.
Tess and Sarah
Couldn’t agree more about the safety that comes from having practiced routines.
Prior preparation prevents poor performance – a logical simple plan to follow. The 5 Ps and the fact it is a legal and compliance responsibility of all schools to have a policy around responding to emergency situations. If management are well versed and have a shared understanding of responsibilities, they can then follow due process. The policy would include key information around Who – What – When – Why – How in response to a potential intruder onsite. Communicating this to staff and going through this policy regularly is key to school Health and Safety as well as sharing this information in parent speak. This will support a community to have a shared understanding of if the unavoidable happens, these are the steps we aim to take.
The police will advise whether you also should go into lockdown. (Who is your key liaison person and direct line with the police) Update the BOT chair immediately and your SLT team. Person in charge of comms to staff and community then briefed with factual information and timeline and method of further updates.
Utilise key comms methods with brief but factual information (if you have it) …precautionary we have been advised to lockdown..
Key comms; might be facebook post if this is how you usually communicate with your community (Turn off comments)
Bulk text
Ensure staff know that in this situation they are not to post anything or communicate with the media etc. One voice only representing the school
Reflections – (Claire) The lockdown situation of March 15, and also a previous lockdown I experienced in Ashburton in (2014) the biggest issue was around managing communication. Clear, concise, factual communication from a trusted source is so important. (Anna) Recent case – administration team overreacting to unconfirmed information via a heightened whānau member about someone on school grounds with a weapon. The balance of deregulating the whānau member to be able to give me factual information, whilst communicating with police – which in turn, turned out to be no weapon, and verbal words exchanged offsite.
This is where a good relationship with the schools Police liaison is key- where possible this should be someone the school community already knows and trusts.
We were both very interested in what Rabbi Dr Abraham Twerski had to say about making decisions. This enforced for us that you make the best decision you can with the information you have at the time. Sometimes you don’t have the luxury of time to make a ‘perfect’ decision so you have to act with integrity.
This is where preparation (Policy) and practise (Learners and staff know the policy) come into play.
We also believe it would be prudent to engage with stakeholders after the event and use this information to refine the policy and learn from any shortcomings or unexpected challenges.
Anna & Claire
Couldn’t agree more about the safety that comes from having practiced routines and I like the reference to debriefing.
Our first priority is to ring 105 to assess our level of threat and to question whether or not we need to go into lock down
Scenario 1: We go into lock down which we follow the process of a lock down. (Ring lock down bell, lock all windows, close doors, students lie on the ground on their stomachs).
As acting principal we would then communicate with all staff via email letting them know about the lock down and continue to keep staff up to date through email regarding the incident.
Because the media has been involved we will update the school website letting parents know that the school is in lock down.
When the incident is over the principal will go knock on doors and release classes one by one. We will then have a whole school meeting at the evacuation point to communicate the event and congratulate the kids on their awesome work during the lock down.
A newsletter will then be sent out to the parents and caregivers about the situation that has happened.
Scenario 2: There is no threat confirmed by police. We would then communicate with the parents via school apps, social media etc.
Nicky, Ashleigh and Johanna.
Click the link to see the hard working photo: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bWnO9FPQB3DN79nU32Gx2frfEqj6UcR-G212xrrlask/edit