3 Building Blocks for a Student Success Culture (Part 2 of 4)

My greatest challenge to becoming an instructional leader was time. I wanted to be an instructional leader, but I found the demands of the job repeatedly robbed me of time to be in the classrooms. I will talk more about how I created time to accomplish this goal next week. This week I would like to give you a vision for Instructional Leadership and why creating time for this to happen is so important.

Almost every principal I work with understands that student achievement is impacted by the quality of instruction. What is often missing in schools not achieving their goals is a plan to influence the quality of instruction and to create a culture where student success is not only talked about but achieved. 

Knowing that instruction influences achievement is very different from knowing how to influence the quality of instruction to make an impact on student results. 

When leaders identify the key factors that influence the quality of instruction and make them a priority, they make better decisions and ensure that their decisions have an impact on student outcomes. Simply believing that students will accomplish their goals is not enough. They must also help teachers develop the skills needed to engage and impact student performance.

If you are reading this article, you want to be an instructional leader and maybe you are searching for answers to influence quality of instruction at your school. 

• Clearly establish and communicate a schoolwide vision for high standards and success. 
• Motivate Students, Staff, and community to work together to accomplish your goals.
• Identify positive root causes that strengthen your vision. Celebrate and replicate those instructional skills and behaviors.
• Identify negative root causes that block your vision. For negative root causes, provide training on best practices necessary to overcome those blocks and obstacles.  This may include training on data driven decision making, curriculum and standards, instructional practices and behaviors, student observations, etc. 

Reflection: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your vision of Academic success for students? Is it impacting student achievement? Do your teachers know your vision and want to help you accomplish it? 

• Engage in Instructionally focused interactions with teachers.
• Know your teachers’ instructional skills and beliefs about student learning. Create plans to direct and support teachers based on their needs. This can range anywhere from empowering your strongest teachers to guiding teachers who want to make changes to directing teachers who need improvement plans. It is not one size fits all.
• Facilitate collaboration and instructional skill conversations by establishing collaborative structures. 
• Provide positive and useful feedback and support to improve instruction, which includes training and resources when needed. 
• Bring in people who can help you identify instructional strengths and deficiencies so that you can lead instructional-focused conversations with confidence. This can come from internal district support, and/or an external consultant. 

Reflection: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your interactions with an instructional focus? Is it impacting student achievement? 

• Spend time in classrooms observing students and student work. Help teachers see the connection between their teaching behaviors and student learning.  Use this information for follow-up discussion, feedback, and training.
• Lead with your student work and data and follow with questions. Focus questions about the “why” things are occurring and what students need to achieve success. Reflective questions in a safe environment leads to real change and ownership of the data.
• Use collaborative learning structures to facilitate teacher discussions about student work and what teachers are going to do about their results, positive and negative. 

Reflection: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your ability to use data to guide instructional decisions? Is it impacting student achievement? 

When the principal is the instructional leader, everyone who walks onto your campus knows that student learning and student success is a priority. It is evident in your conversations, in the classrooms and displayed student work, and in your decisions about what is important. 

“When the students have no idea what is to be learned, and the teacher has no idea what is to be taught, no student learning can take place.”   Harry K. Wong, The First Days of School

If the demands of the job are pulling you away from what you want to accomplish as an instructional leader, check back next week for Leadership lessons and hear how I created more time to be an instructional leader. Leadership lessons:  and hear how I created more time to be an instructional leader.