I just received a copy of Douglas Reeves’ book Finding Your Leadership Focus: What Matters Most for Student Results and started flicking and scanning through the pages to get an idea of what this book is about. One or two sections caught my eye straight away. All the research pointing to immediate feedback and what follows from the giving of feedback and the scaffolding of student learning experiences was one of the most obvious aspects of helping teachers to improve the education of students. Pastoral care – leaders in the school knowing students and how they are traveling – actually teaching some of the students and following their progress also helps leaders keep their fingers on the pulse of improvments and progress within the school.  Another aspect discussed was the idea of Power Standards. These are the non-negotiables – the skills and standards required of students which have endured all changes in curriculum – and believe me I’ve been through many of those since the 1980s! Reeves argues that the best way to focus energies for student learning and progress is to ask the teacher in the year level above “What will these students really need to be able to do to have a hope of experiencing success in the next year level?” The way to test whether these power standards will save teachers time is to compare what is the content of an end of year test and how much of that test is covered by what the teachers in the year above have stated are their basic requrements. Reeves sums up by saying that “…power standards represent the essence of focus at the classroom level.”  Further to this focus on skills in the curriculum,  moderation in the marking of student work is key to collegial understanding of the standards required.  This also provides a way to leverage teacher professional learning through discourse regarding assessment with colleagues and those who are more specialised in their focus on particular curriculum areas.

Suffice it to say, the main message I have taken from this book is “Only by having leadership focus will we be able to work through the mire of documents in order to discern what is appropriate for our school context at any given time.”