Five ideas for School Leaders to beat the COVID slump

There is a growing resignation that in-again-out-again lockdown may be our new normal, at least for the next few years. School leaders at all levels are weary, decision fatigued, emotionally dry.

School Leaders, a question, “Could this be an opportunity to show some adaptive leadership and innovate your way through this?”

“Clearly, you are someone not still leading in schools.” I imagine leaders saying, and that is quite true. But it is from this vantage point, out of the day-to-day grind, that I suggest to you, my colleagues, a way forward.

Idea One: Increase your Staff and Leadership Capacity by at least 20%. If you have not, then you have a problem. No-one would deny a huge increase in actual or perceived staff workload due to cognitive overload yet have you increased staffing to accommodate this? Cash strapped school leaders will be outraged saying they don’t have the finance. My response is to either dig into reserve capital, or trim down non-essential activities and redeploy staff to achieve the same theoretical saving. If not, schools face the real prospect of burning out staff, possibly permanently.??

The first person in need of support is YOU as a school leader. If you don’t have an effective Executive Assistant, get one. In addition try advertising to see if you can bring on an additional Special Projects Assistant Principal to supplement and relieve some of the pressure on the Senior Leadership Team. If you can’t find a suitable person, or the recruitment time frame is too long, promote from within on a higher duties/acting basis.

At a middle management level, consider providing teams with administrative support. Middle leaders are the engine room of the school and if they have the head-space they will be in the best position to support staff at a teacher and support staff level. If you don’t temporarily increase their time allowances and administrative support they too will go to ground, displaying self protective behaviour, and leave it to senior leadership to deal with the wellbeing of all staff.

Idea Two: Get your own health back. When rescuing someone from drowning, the first rule is not to become a victim yourself, which ultimately will further compound the problem. If you are exhausted at this point, you are in trouble, because you CANNOT make good decisions when your own energy mental and physical stocks are depleted. A person can act as “the hero leader” working long hours, caring for others at the expense of their own health for a short period, but what when this current situation rolls on for years. To be blunt, something needs to change, fast and in a significant way, if you are not going to lead your school into a cultural trough for which it may take years to recover from. The COVID crisis ended in June 2020, it has now moved into a battle of attrition.

Colleagues, you are not superhuman. You have a mortal body, on which the long terms proven effects of stress are well documented. You need rest, real rest, good food, a healthy exercise regime, if you are to be at the top of your game. As a staff member who is supporting vulnerable young people through the most significant mental health challenge of our lifetime, I want to be led, skilfully, sensitively, compassionately and wisely. Only a well-rested and stable body and brain can provide this.

Idea Three: Free up financial resources. A siege is not the time to turn in a surplus. Schools that have cash reserves, now is that rainy day. My normal stance on staffing costs is one of deliberate frugality consistent with quality provision, a sustained pandemic is not the time for this strategy. In Government schools, my suggestion is larger and thereby more efficient class numbers, but reduced teaching loads, to create the space needed for mental recovery. Future Schools is well positioned to help schools achieve this.????

Idea Four: Cut out Non Essential Activity. A word of caution, that does not mean cutting out those non-curricular activities which may well be serving a vital function for maintaining community, wellbeing and connection. You might indeed in consultation with stakeholders choose to actually increase such activities. Could academic programs and assessments be trimmed back to the essentials? Work set and assessed by stressed staff, completed by semi-traumatised young people will be busy work and of limited quality. “Less is more” would be a good guide here. It is almost certainly not the time for a new building program.

Idea Five: Only after you have fully explored and enacted the previous four ideas, have regained your strength, continue innovating. This is not the time to mess with things that are working well, but in restructuring programs to reduce loads, can you simultaneously create a more future focused alternative. For example, creating or extending the amount of genius time/ passion projects that offer students greater autonomy and less teacher preparation and correction. Could you form student advisory committees to review proposed changes to programs offering young people greater levels of agency and participation in how the school operates. Could school reports be modified to include greater student self-assessment and online student-parent teacher conferences replacing longer written reports?

I have enormous respect for school leaders, you are my everyday heroes, but I also know your capacity for self-deceptive, “I can do it all” self-sacrificing beliefs. This pandemic has highlighted the need for strong, sustained, hope-filled leadership. Our young people, our school community and broader society need you to be there, fully present, energised and able to care for us in the years ahead… “adapt and innovate” is the answers and we at Future Schools are here to help.

https://futureschools.education/

Peter Hutton

24JUL21