留学文书20类:详解与范例


留学文书的种类:嘉文博译Future Leaders Development Programme范例

— A Way Forward by All Means, but with Necessary Modifications and Improvements


Education is a top priority in any nation or society, be it the UK, the US, or China (where I am from). Education is ultimately about developing outstanding students but it is, first and foremost, about developing senior school leaders who are willing to assume the vital role of administrating and implementing effective and innovative pedagogical programmes in urban schools. To a large extent, school leadership is, over time, the most determinative factor on the quality of education and on pupil outcomes. Therefore, against the policy backcloth of the UK government’s agenda to recruit and retain senior school leaders, the Future Leaders (FL) programme, in an effort to address the crisis of alarming shortage of head teachers and to encourage practising teachers/middle leaders and high-quality individuals currently not in the schools teaching system to commit their future careers to working in urban complex schools, is so positive and valuable. According to a Future Leader website (http://www.future-leaders.org.uk/), “schools that have employed a Future Leader for at least two years have improved their results at a faster rate than the national average”.

As an educator in the field of English teaching at the New Channel International Education Group, a leader in English language education in China, I have been head teacher at the Division of High School English Education and Corporate English Training. With my 4-year full professional experience in leading and managing pedagogical programmes and curriculum development, I am fully aware of the importance of headship development programmes. While I fully identify with the conceptual objectives of the FL programme, I believe there are many facets in the programme’s conceptual and methodological scheme that deserve to be optimized. With the problems duly addressed, the programme in question is definitely a way forward.


Issue 1: The Efficacy of the American Model

The initial inspiration for the FLs Programme in UK is derived from the “New Leaders for New Schools”(NLNS) programme in New York, initiated in 2001 with a cohort of 13 people in New York City and Chicago. The tentative success of the American NLNS scheme is indicated by the increase to 427 school leaders by 2007. The UK FL programme started with a feasibility study in early 2006 by a group from UK’s NCSL, SRK and SSAT. During this 5-day visit, the UK group studied the NLNS scheme by sampling its operations in New York and Maryland, in several charter schools.

I believe that for a project as important as FL programme, the five-day visit was all too short. The samples were too narrow and restricted, and the article contains no information about the extent of efficacy of the American programme. There was no follow-up study regarding the outcomes, either quantitative or qualitative, of the implementation of the programme in individual partnership cities. We do not know what were some of the key problems in the American NLNS programme and what measures were taken to address those problems; and what was the support from the federal or municipal governments. If the feasibility report prepared by the UK group and submitted to government ministers had contained information about the experiences and lessons from the American scheme, the steering group of the UK FL programme would be better equipped to enhance the efficacy of the FL programme itself. In addition, the FL programme would be strengthened if the schemers had taken into full account the particular circumstances of the UK schools context and introduced innovative concepts and approaches into the FL scheme specifically targeted at the UK situations.


Issue 2: the Role of the Professional Tutor (and Coaches) as the Key to Success
With the first cohort of participants, the FL programme was launched in a rigorous manner. In Phase I, the recruitment, assessment and selection process was complicated, elaborate, and strict; hence the quality of the cohort was high, with an acceptance rate of below 10%. The participants were highly motivated as they loved the “challenging, innovative, fast, and mission-bound” nature of the programme. In Phase 2, the applied nature of the foundation training and ongoing training contributed to the participants’ positive responses to the training sessions which were generally deemed to be of high quality. The close interactivity between the mentor/coaches and the participants not only worked out professional problems like dealing with a fight on the playground but also personal problems such as an age divide. The senior staff of the host school reacted to FLs also very positively. For Cohort 1, the head of the host school and four external coaches worked most responsibly, leading to the destination posts of 13 participants in the programme’s second year in “permanent deputy headship”, as compared with only 8 participants for Cohort 2.

This sharp statistical contrast between two cohorts points to an inherent danger which might jeopardize the whole FL programme. In the pilot programme, the carefully selected participants were motivated and of high quality, the school head and 4 coaches worked conscientiously. However, with regard to Cohort 2, the ‘professional tutor’ (PT) who was a deputy was much less committed to the cause, lacking the time, initiative, and the skills to provide tutoring. In addition, the PT could not understand the needs of those he was supposed to tutor. If the FL programme was to expand from a pilot programme into a large-scale one, involving hundreds of participants in the future (already a total of 100 in 2009), it is inevitable that a large number of PTs and coaches would be needed. The failure of those tutors and coaches to remain motivated, dedicated, and high in morale would seriously undermine the quality of the FL development programme. In turn, the morale of the participants would be seriously damaged (as in 2/3 of the cases in Cohort 2), resulting in a declining number of qualified participants who could take on senior leadership positions. Another factor that might have contributed to the less successful outcomes for Cohort 2 is that, with the selection process streamlined, the process was not as robust as for Cohort 1, leading to some people accepted onto the course despite their obvious unsuitability.


Issue 3: Continuing Support for Newly-Recruited Leaders to Ensure Long-term Success of the FL Scheme
Having found their way to their various destination posts, the FLs have produced their impact on a range of aspects of school activities and ‘the first year of the pilot scheme was seen by all those involved as a considerable success’. Nevertheless, ‘the responses to the second year were more mixed… In the second year the evaluators found that some FLs were not significantly benefiting from their placements.’

The authors of the article have identified the complex interplay of three components as important factors determining the success of the scheme—the residency school, the FLs themselves, and the support offered by the coaches and the Future Leaders organization. As far as I am concerned, the last component is the most important in guaranteeing the long-term success of the scheme. For those newly-recruited leaders in the second year of the FL programme, their senior headship career has just begun. Assigned to work at various schools, they will be faced with new challenges different from those they had encountered at their first-year residency school or host school. The fact that ‘some FLs were not benefitting from their placements’ should convey an early warning that continuing support from coaches and the Future Leaders organization is crucial. Without this continuing support, the quality of the work of the newly-placed head teachers would decline and how long they could hold onto their posts would raise serious concern. The failure to upgrade their headship skills would eventually lead to their resignation of the posts and in a matter of years new vacancies would be created. In the long run, even if there were a large number of successful placements at the beginning, there would be more and more vacancies and the FL programme would come back to where it began—the alarming shortage of senior leaders!


Issue 4: Non-traditional Candidates Recruited for Senior Headship Posts—the Most Innovative Part of the FL Scheme
The conventional way of developing senior leaders was to select candidates from practicing teachers and middle leaders. However, faced with the shortage of qualified people already in the schools teaching system, FL programme’s practice to attract high-quality individuals from professions other than education is not only a realistic option and also an innovative alternative. We have strong reason to believe that, among those recruited for permanent deputy headship posts, both in Cohort 1 and cohort 2, some were non-traditional candidates. This practice is innovative because non-traditional candidates, with their prior professional experiences in different sectors and at various levels, can introduce external perspectives, different ways of working, extra capacity, and new ideas. For example, a former project manager may introduce far more efficient managerial skills, as well as leadership and teamwork, into school environment. This can not only bring changes in a school’s leadership structure but also enrich the learning experiences of the students themselves.

This practice can produce important ramifications. Toward the end of the article, the authors raise two thought-provoking questions—‘Will the Future Leaders change the mindset of the gatekeepers, such as the governors, so that they will be prepared to take the ‘risk’ of employing a non-traditional candidate? Will the future see a greater acceptance of different models of headship as well as different routes to the top job and different kinds of people filling them?’ I believe the answers to those questions are necessarily two-folded. On one hand, faced with demonstrated excellence of the non-traditional senior leaders, the governors need to be open-minded and receptive to the input from non-traditional sources, recognizing the vitalizing impact of non-traditional leaders. On the other hand, the non-traditional candidates, both prior to and after their leadership placements, should make relentless efforts to get acquainted with the teaching system and schools ethos, develop expertise of interacting with students as well as with the teaching staff. Furthermore, for those non-traditional candidates who have little or no prior experiences in management or leadership, it is imperative that they make conscious efforts to hone their skills in those two areas.


Issue 5: Solutions to Voluntary Early Retirement and Attraction of Potential New Leaders on the Policy Level
A paradox about headship is that, although an alarming number of headship vacancies need to be filled (31% of the primary and 40% of secondary), there is a considerable shortage of applicants for headships. Voluntary early retirement can be attributed to a number of factors including ill health caused by excessive workload and stress, the high-stake accountability pressure, the increasingly challenging nature of the job, low satisfaction, etc. It is obvious that the education system cannot afford to lose such a large number of school leaders and among the proposed solutions there are new models of leadership such as co-leadership, executive and federated headship, as well as distributed leadership, all characterized by a greater level of inter-dependence to reduce workload. Only a change in the government micro-management can make school leadership a truly rewarding profession and politicians and political parties need to turn the development of school leadership into a public policy. Increased welfare and wellbeing of senior leaders through increased public expenditure can be a viable and effective incentive.

This incentive mechanism will also enhance the motivation of potential school heads. The vast majority of participants in FL programme said that they had no regrets about giving up their posts and joining the programme. This testifies to the inherent value of the programme which had drawn candidates to even make personal sacrifices. Therefore, it is important that politicians and political parties recognize the initiative of the participants and respect their commitment to a worthy mission. In this way, an increasing number of high-quality individual would be more prepared and more forthcoming to join the programme in the future. By then, FL programme can become a ‘movement’ ready to take off.

In the foregoing critique, I have discussed the effectiveness of the American NLNS project as a model for the UK FL programme, professional tutors and coaches as the key to the programme’s short-term success and continuing support for newly-ordained heads as the key for long-term success, the non-traditional candidacy as an innovative feature of the FL programme, and welfare improvement as a policy issue for both current and future leaders. I will be following the progression of the FL programme with serious interest and I hope that I could have a chance to share my perspectives with the initiators of the FL programme and contribute to the success of this worthwhile and innovative programme.






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