Windsor's+Aspiring+Leaders

Hi TeamFollowing the sessions with Terri I thought it would be good to collaborate a little about the benefits of the sessions, the "where to" and any other thoughts you have had. Through the two sessions we have covered the team profiles, difficult conversations, our values and what they mean, initial concepts of the Windsor Way and a number of incidental matters. So some feedback from you all would assist with the direction from here. Please take the time to add your thoughts.Neill
 * Aspiring Team Leaders@Windsor School****2009**

We have a good range of skill/ team strengths in our school. The areas we do not have a strength in can be managed. These are difficult and take some strength of character to have in a meaningful way.
 * Name || Things I have learnt || Things I would like to explore further || Other matters ||
 * Neill || ** Team Profiles: **
 * Difficult Conversations: **
 * Values ** : We need to unpack these as a staff on an ongoing basis
 * Self Confidence ** : We don't say enough good things about each other and we cringe when other say these to us ||

Although people learn assertive skills and have the ability to have difficult conversations self awareness is critical to ensure that we do not create new conflict through our assertive behaviour. Perhaps some role plays? We need to practice speaking good things about each other and celebrate our strengths and contributions || Strong positive teams, take time and energy- we need to make space for this development || Thanks Terri and Neill for the wonderful opportunity! || I found thi ** s ** fascinating, it must be my psyc. degreee from centuries ago that was aroused. For me my profile was spot on and reinforced what I already knew, I like to be organised and are a big picture person! It was really interesting seeing where people placed themselves before their profiles and then seeing what the profiles revealed. When working with people, who I know what their profiles are, it makes me rethink the situation from their perspective. I avoid difficult conversations and will try a variety of other strategies to avoid them, and always have. In all my years of teaching I've had few, hence spending time on role playing scenarios that no-one cna predict isn't really for me. It's such a small part of my professional career, where I am at the moment that it's hard to see the value of it. That's just me though! It has been great to discuss our values because they are a very personal and difficult think to discuss as a staff and especially what we mean at a child's level. The PRIDE values are great and reflect the qualities we aspire to see in all people This is so true of teachers in general I feel. I've always wondered if people who inwardly lack self confidence are attracted to teaching or if teaching creates people who lack self confidence. In general we appear to others really confident in all aspects but in reality we are always questioning ourselves and how others view us. Is it because you can never achieve 'nivana' in teaching as it's always changing- I don't know but it's an iteresting one!! || ** Team Profile ** It has been good to know the profiles of the leaders in our school but it would be good to know the profiles of those in our team so we can work smartly and appreciate each others strengths. I know you can discuss them until you're blue in the face but they underpin everything we do so it's important that we know what they are and also wha tthey look like in us and children (we are doing this I know)
 * Sue D || ** Team Profile: ** We have a lot of creative people on our team. This lends itself well to being an innovative school.
 * Difficult Conversations: ** Probably something we could all do with practicing. If you open your mouth and the wrong comment comes out, the damage is done. Worth having a few sentence starters up your sleeve.
 * Self Confidence: ** Many of us are overly harsh on ourselves. More self belief is required - we wouldn't be where we are now if we weren't special! ("I am") We need to practice being more assertive, and work hard at rephrasing those negative thoughts that often pop into our heads. ("gants" - gloomy automatic negative thoughts) || We have explored the individuals, and seen how we fit into the team. I feel the next step would be to inter link the team with the school, by exploring the Windsor Way more thoroughly. We then all become one. || I have absolutely loved being part of this team workshop with Terri. The first session was great for self reflection, affirmation, future guidance and direction. The second, for dealing with conflict and communication in general. I think the more we know and understand ourselves and each other, the better we are able to work together as a team.
 * Lesley || ** Team Profile: ** It was very interesting finding out about the strengths of ourselves and the others in the team. It has given me a greater appreciation of the ways that others work and also taught me to value my own strengths more.
 * Difficult conversations: ** I will never be the person that looks forward these (if there is such a person) and I will always probably be a bit soft, but with some role play practice (Glad, sad, we) I hope that I can at least handle these a bit better.
 * Values: ** I think that we have come a long way in the last year and 1/2 in regards to common values and I think it will be of huge value to continue to unpack our values and develop that ownership of language and expectations. Many of the schools that we visited had done this and this was seen as a real strength of those schools.
 * Self Confidence: ** We are who we are and self confidence has never been high on my lists of achievements but it was nice to hear that others appreciate my contributions. || Even though role plays might seem a bit naff to some I still think having the opportunity to practice some of those conversations in a safe environment would help me to remember how to say things when the real time comes. || I have really enjoyed sharing this learning with the others and getting to know everyone outside of the rush of school. It is also very nice to be taken out of our normal environs and to be treated as valuable professionals. ||
 * Wendy dt || ** Team Profile: **
 * Difficlut Conversations: **
 * Values: **
 * Self Confidence: **
 * Values **

|| What a great place to be with other teachers, some who you never see as they're on the other side of the school, and share our ideas and work towards the commonm goal of creating the best learning environment for our children. Terri is very professioanl and it has been great to hear her stories in other fields than education and how these skills apply. We've learnt heaps about human nature. || || The things I would like to explore further are the role plays and having the opportunities to practice those difficult conversations in the safe environment of this day. Exploring the Windsor way and what these values mean to us and then to Windsor is extremely important. If a fundamental difference in these values underpins conflict, then we all need to be on the same page as a school and have that collective understanding of these values. || It has been really great to get to know others outside of the school environment and have a chance to interact with them in a different way. Seeing others strenghts and hearing their thoughts (often similar to your own) helps you to see others in a different light. These bonds add to building a stronger team. || Values: as a school we do need to come back to these so they become part of our Windsor language and our children and community understand what we stand for. Difficult Conversations: We would all wish that we never had to have any of these conversations but reality tells us otherwise.I found this session very useful. Self Confidence and sharing the good stuff.... how come teachers who promote this with everyone else find it so hard to do with each other- or hear it... bring it on I say! Lets share more of the good stuff- we really aren't too busy || It would be great to eventually have all of our teams Bellbined.... so that we all understand how we can work better together.
 * Wendy D || ** Team Profile: ** I found this very interesting and it hightlighed some of the things I did know about myself and pointed out aspects I didn't know. Having this awareness of other people's strengths gives me a greater appreciation of others strenghts and woking styles.
 * Difficult Conversations: ** This is something I would try to avoid and found very difficult, especially between staff. Having practice time and some key statements is very worthwhile.
 * Values: ** Having these values as a staff and school is an excellent focus. Ifeel we need to explore these more so we are all on the same page and agreed to what they mean. This will help when dealing with difficult conversations between staff.
 * Self Confidence: ** Self confidence is very difficult to gain. While some people appear self confident to others that is not always the way that person actually feels. I think it is very natural to be hard on ourselves and the more we share and celebrate achievements in teams and as a staff then self confidence can improve. Everyone likes to hear nice things being said about them.
 * Debbie || ** Team Profile ** : It's great to be able to see the strengths of people across the team. It's great to see that all these skills are equally valued.
 * Values ** :I think the PRIDE values are a fantastic focus for the school. It has been good to brin || || ||
 * Dianna || Team Profile: These could be quite empowering to our teams now that we know better how they can work to our advantage. I was pleased to see my 'plant' side come through when personally I felt as though I had lost some of that in my role. I must work on my organisational skills!

Sharing the good stuff.... lets just do it.... we might have to deliberately plan to share this to start with.... then we hope that it all becomes more natural and just happens everywhere in our community. After all it does come into our school values. || We all have to work at it to make our teams successful- it doesn't usually just happen.

I think it has been beneficial to meet together in this way and to make developing our leadership skills as a team important. I certainly have not had this sort of opportunity before and I have been in a leadership role for a wee while now. || Values: This needs to be revisited regularly to get deeply embedded into our practice. I feel we have only touched the tip of the iceberg in some classes. Difficult Conversations: I have uese Glad, Sad, Sure with parents and staff. I think I chose this strategy because it was easy to remember. Honestly, I haven't gone back to look at the others again. Self Confidence: I would rather do this in a more 'genuine' way throughout the term. Perhaps this could be a focus for us as a staff to recognise people's strengths similarly to what we do in our team meetings. Team Kahu and Kotuku call it 'Celebrations.' || Role plays feel so false without the 'pressure or stress' of the moment. Perhaps we could undertake to use a different strategy and report back on what we used. || Like all one day courses it is hard to make time to reflect on what we covered and put some of it into our practice when we rush back to school. Should we have some follow up task between each session to make us use some of our new learning? Even if it is the day before the next meeting with Terri. Could this be our Ariki for next term? || The guidelines for assertive comments are valuable too but I need to use them to remember them. I'm not a fan of role plays but not sure how we can develop the skills without role playing. I found the Tool Kit of listening features worthwhile. Pride needs to be inherent in all we/they do. We need to 'walk the talk.' We've made great gains but need to keep up the momentum. Self confidence? What is that? :) Sharing the good things that happen in the school, and in classrooms is a neat thing to do. It's human nature to be hard on ourselves isn't it? It was good hearing the positives from our colleagues. Let's do more of it across the school. || I like Jacqui's idea and trying some of the strategies and reporting back. Could we 'buddy up' within the team to share when we have had a 'situation' or time when we have tried something. There may be times when it would be important or beneficial to share straight away what's worked/ not worked or what we've trialed rather than wait until our next Leader meeting. || || It was really interesting to reflect on the way that the Windsor team is made up. For some people the fit was obvious, but for others it was quite enlightening. It was good to see that we have a range of strengths within the team and that we can always adapt to cover any areas not covered naturally. This area was very beneficial to me as I am not naturally a particularly assertive person. I feel that I should go back over the stuff at the moment and probably will need to periodically in the future. The work we have done so far on unpacking Values at school has been really beneficial but I feel that it is important to keep the momentum going. It is very easy to pay "lip-service" to these things - the children can all repeat the PRIDE mantra, but does it go any deeper than this. Hmmm. Obviously I still have work to do in this area. || I think focussing on giving positive and constructive feedback would be useful. What to say after you have observed somebodies reading programme or checked their planning etc. || || As I am a "new" member of the Windsor team this year it has been interesting for me to gain some insight into how other people operate within a team situation. I find it interesting that like myself, many of the team did were surprised at the strengths that this profile identified. Overall we seem to have a good range of skills, personalities and approaches within our team.
 * Jacqui || Team Profile: Now that I have a better understanding of peoples profiles I have responded in a different way than I would have previously in some situations.
 * Kaye || ** Team Profile: ** I believe we are fortunate to have a range of different strengths across our team. It has been valuable gaining an understanding of what the individual strengths are.
 * Difficult Conversations: ** I have referred back to the behaviour indicators and used them to determine best strategies for coping with certain behaviours.
 * Values: ** I agree we need to continue with unpacking the values and displaying our thoughts/ideas to remind us on a day to day basis. It's important for our children to learn what the Pride values are and what they mean- what should we see and hear?
 * Self Confidence: **
 * Sue || ** Team Profile: **
 * Difficult coversations: **
 * Values: **
 * Self confidence: **
 * Vic || ** Team Profile: **

I agree with Cindy that it has been useful to gain some tips for handling the difficult conversations, and like Cindy feel it is the moments when we are tired, stressed or "caught off guard" that these conversations are the most difficult.
 * Difficult Conversations: **


 * Values: ** I think in order for our values as a school to be truly shared we do need to have a very explicit and specific understanding of what each value means to us. I am pleased to see that we are beginning to unpack these further as a staff. I must admit that at times when teaching I feel that children use the word "PRIDE" as a "this is what I should say" response rather than truly understanding what these values mean and how to live these values. Hopefully if we as a staff make this more explicit this will have a "flow on" effect for the children we teach.


 * Self Confidence: ** I definitely agree that I am guilty of focusing on the "what went wrong" rather than the things that I have done well. I guess that it is all about finding a balance between reflecting to improve our teaching next time (not being complacent and settling for the mediochre) and not beating ourselves up when things aren't perfect. And YES we need to all need to practise taking compliments! :) || How to remain calm and "non-adrenalised" during those surprise/off guard difficult conversations.

What happens if when we unpack our values we find that we disagree on what those values actually mean to us?

Effective techniques for making tough decisions! || || It has been good finding out about the team Profile stuff although I don't think it really holds much credence unless it is implemented into a 'team' as such. I felt concerned that individuals felt challenged by their profiles and thus I looked deeper into mine. I am content that mine represents me fairly for what I am and are not. I am concerned that judgements within the room are made based on the the top 'strength', when I in fact had strengths in all 3 areas (top 3 were in each) making me a different person to the one portrayed in the room. I think this is an area that we really play lip service to until we are placed in that situation. The lip service however was very good and I enjoyed the roles plays. What I learnt from this the most was to pause, think, stand in the other persons shoes and then proceed. I guess I could use the Glad, Sad, Sure as i like how it rolls and sort of provides a calming scene. I think there is a major difference between unpacking values and owning them. My fear is that without ownership, unpacking them becomes fruitless. I think the unpacking needs to happen at a whole staff/community level and should be taken seriously. What we are looking for must be a shared understanding of all people involved in the school as to what each value means to the community of Windsor. Ownership comes from full participation in process, so my only fear is that we don't have that in our group. (ie we are a minority group of the staff and are possibly not representing everyone because of the hierachial nature of schools a common theme/ideal) Not sure how this has helped my confidence personally as I was able to make those judgements both negative and positive about myself before this. I am not a fan of pidgoen holing people based on this type of inventory and find that this is too much of a 'business' model that is not relevant to the varied roles of leadership in schools. || More role play opportunities for "those" conversations. I also think this needs more of a focus with staged role plays... · We have explored the individuals, and seen how we fit into the team. I feel the next step would be to inter link the team with the school, by exploring the Windsor Way more thoroughly. We then all become one. With this in mind there are many leaders still at school who have not opted into this for various reasons so we just need to be aware of them...I like this concept though. · Although people learn assertive skills and have the ability to have difficult conversations self awareness is critical to ensure that we do not create new conflict through our assertive behaviour. Perhaps some role plays? And what to do when you can be overbearing and offensive without knowing it... · We need to practice speaking good things about each other and celebrate our strengths and contributions To often we celebrate the “I” people without celebrating the effort of all...I think it is important when building team to be collaborative and thus have shared responsibility. Ie celebrate the facilitation and the doing of by all.... I am not underestimating the leadership role but increasingly this is the result of sound contributions of many in a wider team. This is also increasingly so as we complete ‘whole’ school and team learning and events. || Scones, jam and cream were great!!!!!! Savouries were ok. Lets tee off! || It has been interesting finding out how other people view themselves and how this can be toatlly different to how we see them. Having an understanding of how other people 'tick' I feel is definitely worth knowing especially in the close working environment we sometimes find ourselves in. A very useful tip for me was the 'glad sad we'. The role plays don't overly worry me however, I wonder how much you can practise when you don't have the 'caught off guard' moment or your own adrenaline running, which is often the case in a high anxiety type conversation. I agree that the work we have done on unpacking our school values is good. To have a common language unites a school and gives the children good boundaries to excel in. More of this including other staff would be great. It is wonderful to hear good things about yourself, however, I would like to know how to respond better to these without feeling stupid. || How to better respond to positives without sounding stupid and more unpacking of the values. || It has been great to meet in a comfortable place away from school, so that we are not disturbed by daily school comings and goings.Thanks to the organisers for the info, location and food. ||
 * Craig || ** Team Profile: **
 * Difficult Conversations: **
 * Values: **
 * Self Confidence: **
 * Cindy || ** Team Profile: **
 * Difficult Conversations: **
 * Values: **
 * Self Confidence: **