My journey with faculty leadership and management.

A single moment within a single discussion caused me serious reflection on my performance as a Head of Department recently.  In a conversation with a few of my staff regarding the “extra” work that I do, one staff member essentially commented that at times it seems like I have forgotten my main priority, which is management of of department.  The fact that this comment was made is not a concern to me, I often engage in open discussion with my staff about what I choose to do, and they readily acknowledge that I am busy.

Does this mean I am performing poorly?  That depends on how I am assessing myself.  There are certainly tasks that I performed last year that I have either not done well this year or not done at all.  I believe my support for my staff has not reduced, and when they want advice or assistance that is always my priority – and quite often the source of my stress as this results in others planning my day and hence me not completing my jobs.  But this is the balance of a Head of Department.  I think that this encourages some subconscious desire of mine to be involved in other projects (eg. running ICT PD, University partnership projects) in order to establish some control over my working life.

This has been exasperated towards the end of term due to a loarge number of absences from school due to normal sickness and other responsibilities.  If this is often enough it would seem that I am not available to support my staff when needed.  In this circumstance I am very fortunate as there are three other Heads of Department that teach HPE, and one Year Level Coordinator.  At these times, their support is invaluable.

So how do I correct this perception, because as our boss has often said “Perception is Reality”.  First and foremost I need to get back to basics – toodledo, google calendar and zen to done.  I tend to forget these management tools when the jobs pile up.  This leads to me being and working disorganised.  Clutter builds up, both physical and digital.  My focus is lost.  Generally after a couple of days break from thinking and doing work I revert back to the practices that have served me well, and get all my tasks onto a task list and calendar.  The result – effective work practices.

The most significant aspect of cponcern is the perception that I may be prioritising other responsibilities over department management.  I think this is the result of the simple things not being done, things that I would not have left undone last year.  Now that I am on holidays, I’ll need to find time to fix them.

Throughout last year, I became concerned over the amount of paper my department consumed. Ignoring the financial cost to the department, the environmental cost of paper consumption within the school would be staggering.  In an attempt to reduce my personal and my department’s impact on this, I have set up a learning management system (LMS) to house general management items this year.  The LMS used is BlackBoard, however any LMS or php website could work.

Within the LMS, I have built separate (yet accessible by everyone) areas for each subject.  There is also a generic area for the whole department, plus a repository for circulars such as memos and other communications.  The LMS has an announcements section which will broadcast email all teachers within the department and my upline Deputy Principal whenever I enter an announcement.  This function will be used to send notification of updates to the LMS, and other pertinent information.  Its important to note my staff are spread across 5 staffrooms within the school, therefore digital communications will always exist as it is a method to ensure all people are advised.

To me the most exciting component of the LMS, is embedding multiple google calendars.  Each subject has its own calendar, plus there is a generic department calendar.  The generic department calendar houses information such as facility bookings, where the subject calendars house unit details.  However the functionality of google calendar does not stop there.  I can set staff as members of a specific calendar (for example, year 8 and 9 teachers are members of the Middle Years HPE calendar).  Then the calendar can be programmed to send out reminders at specific dates and times.  This would allow me to automate reminders of items or tasks that are due.

Already I can see the benefits of setting this system to assist management.  My staff are engaged and acessing the LMS to find the information they need, I am using much less paper and I feel more organised.

One unexpected bonus is how staff are now using this as a model to manage their classes, building google calendars for their lessons and using the LMS to house learning.  Exciting times.