Section 3.6, are parental guidelines as to how parents may go about enlisting the appropriate support services that are offered by the DBE (Maringe & Prew, 2014). Now that Mrs Alark’s and Mrs Maharaj’s portrayal of their leadership and management enactment have been expounded, these SMT members’ perspectives of their school as a learning organisation their judgment of whether or not they deemed their school to be a learning organisation where teamwork, collective decision-making and distributed leadership featured, is explored.
Elaborating on her observation that not all teachers wished to work together, it was with much disappointment that Mrs Alark noted that some teachers were likewise selfish with their ideas.
Mrs Alark’s voice aptly represents what appears to be similar perceptions and sentiments expressed by the other SMT members of GPS. This is what she had to say in this regard:
And yet I remind them that it is not a competition where one teacher feels she must be better than the other teachers. At the end of the day, it’s about the child. …not everybody buys into this. Some teachers still cut-out worksheets for their class only…
It is observed that Mrs Alark’s challenge was not unusual or undocumented. Senge (2007) similarly advises that to encourage a collegial and collaborative atmosphere in which mutual respect, trust, teamwork and learning prevails, may prove a challenging endeavour for most SMT members. This is because the creation of professional learning communities (PLCs) requires time, suitable venues and finance, which are impediments commonly experienced by most staff members. Mrs Alark’s contention that collaboration and collegiality, as the cornerstones of teamwork, are necessary for the successful functioning of any school, is congruent with the advice offered by Eaker and Keating (2012). Reinforcing the ingrained potential of teamwork, Eaker and Keating (2012) assert that it is about making efforts to bring people to work compatibly with each other in finding a common ground. Amplifying this, Hodkinson and Hodkinson (2014) expound that effective collaboration starts with attempts by HODs, as SMT members, to encourage teachers to share their thoughts, ideas and responsibilities collegially with others in the group.
Eaker and Keating (2012) postulate that HODs ought to be receptive to helping teachers develop strategies for addressing and resolving challenges in the classroom, working on unfamiliar tasks and trying new teaching strategies to ensure that their school operates as learning organisation. Building on this notion of collegial interaction as alluded to by Mrs Alark, it is suggested by Timperley (2011) that effective school organisations are those that encourage collaboration and dialogue among staff, and promote risk-taking by teachers’ who have no fear of being humiliated or embarrassed if their projects do not produce the expected results or anticipated success. In contemplation of the above, the role played by Mrs Alark from GPS demonstrated his attempts at creating such a collaborative, collegial culture.
Similarly, Kools and Stoll (2016) aver that teamwork encourages professional learning and development, promotes innovations and school-to-school collaboration, and helps create good
practice. They warn that, especially in this age where SMT members are held accountable for collaborative and collective teaching and learning, without government policies and support, schools as learning organisations will operate in isolation (Kools and Stoll, 2016).
Nonetheless, Mrs Alark, as a HOD and instructional leader, acknowledges that although it is a challenge for her to get some teachers to function as members of a team, she made concerted efforts in trying to overcome this challenge. This is reflected in the following assertion made by Mrs Alark:
So I always try to get teachers to work as a team…from getting them to do simple things like designing and sharing worksheets, getting ideas from each other…supporting and managing resources together. In this way, if all teachers are doing the same thing in that grade, then we know for sure that all learners are learning the same concepts…this ensures consistency…
In like manner, the attempts made by Mrs Alark is consistent with the submissions by Militello, Rallis and Goldring (2009) who advocate that since SMT members are tasked with engendering an atmosphere favouring collaborative relations, they needed to encourage teachers to work in conjunction with other staff members so that productive outcomes may be realised. Now that it has been established that despite encountering challenges, the SMT members of GPS valued and appreciated the merits of teamwork, an inquiry as to whether or not these SMT members anticipated a relationship between teachers’ professional development participation, learner success and whole school improvement to exist, was presented. Correspondingly, Section 7 of the SACE Code of Professional Ethics clearly states that a teacher must keep abreast with educational developments. Since this implies that teachers are committed to observing the above code, it is protested that professional development is not an alternative but is a compulsory initiative that teachers are bound by law to participate in.
In pursuance of the notion of school improvement, Kelly, et al. (2008) propose that now more than ever, members of the SMT are urged to attend to the task of teaching and learning, whilst addressing challenges with regard to learner progress. Consequently, it is acknowledged that SMT members like those found in GPS, make every effort to build a collective way forward aligned to the projected outcomes that the school desires to attain. In particular, it is recommended that members of the SMT turn their attention to the objectives of creating a sustainable school vision, and maintaining an environment congruent with leadership that is
shared across all planes, whilst engaging with relevant data elicited in order to take their schools to exceedingly raised heights. It is warned that to meet these necessary improvements in the school, encompasses the responsibility of eliciting and assessing data to determine those areas requiring remediation, to monitor teachers’ teaching and to determine the progress of curriculum implementation (Kelly, et al., 2008). This brings to the fore SMT members’
discernment of whether or not they perceived a link to be between teachers’ CPD, learners’
academic achievement and school improvement, an area which will now be explored from the viewpoints of Mr Ken and Mr Pillay.
5.6 Link between CPTD, learners’ academic achievement and school improvement
With the intention of deepening the understanding about the link between CPTD, learners’
academic achievement and school improvement from the SMT members’ perspectives, their views were invoked by the query as to whether or not they believed that their personal, as well as their teachers’ professional development, had the potential to lead to improved learner results, culminating in successful school outcomes. In light of the above, Mr Ken conceded:
…most definitely…It is beneficial. I believe there is a link. After I attend the CPTD workshops, it increases my ability to perform better…In most cases I am able to apply this when I return to school, although sometimes the methodology or philosophy projected is for an ideal school situation. And as you know in South Africa we rarely have ideal school situations…but I try to adapt them and make them work within the context of the school situation…
The views expressed by Mr Ken above were also shared by Mrs Maharaj, who volunteered:
…Well, we are all learning all of the time, I don’t know everything, I don’t have all the answers…I’m learning every-day. In this school the Governing Body and management tries to provide the best resources possible…the smart-board and so on. We raise funds for this…So I expect our teachers to be improving themselves all the time…it may not be in a formal way, even in an informal way…as long as they can deliver in the classroom…and their minds are open to learning.
In a similar vein as the advancements made by the SMT from GPS that teachers improve their teaching by continuously updating their knowledge, is researcher Steyn’s (2009) postulation.
In effect, it is suggested that teachers, as formal or informal leaders and managers, improve their curriculum knowledge and evaluate the performance of their peers through professional development. Arguing that this exercise helps strengthen each other’s competencies, teachers are likewise advised to facilitate in-service professional development programmes within the school, concurrently participating in school level decision-making (Steyn, 2009). Expounding the above, Spaull (2012), like myself, firmly contends that the teacher’s expertise surrounding content knowledge is potent in impacting learner progress, as teachers cannot teach what they do not know. Similarly Day (2011) argues that the central purpose of professional development is to enable teachers to respond to continual educational reforms and remain committed amidst the changing contexts in which teachers work and learning takes place. A growing body of evidence shows that teachers’ PD has the potentially to positively impress upon learner performance and teachers’ practice. Consequently, McFarland (2014) advises SMT members, teachers and administrative officials globally to invest in quality, career-long PD projects, thereby ensuring lifelong and active professional learning.
In offering his inclination, Mr Pillay ventured that his principal always encouraged and created opportunities for her staff to grow professionally. On one of these occasions, she afforded them the opportunity to attend a servant leadership course by securing the services of the
‘kingdom leaders’ who host these workshops. His observation after this one-day professional development workshop, was that teachers returned to school with a renewed spirit, and conducted themselves in an amicable manner which helped to bring about better social relations and an improved ethos in the school. This is what Mr Pillay had to say:
Like for example…I find that when I approach them now about anything, they have a more positive attitude and want to work with me and the other teachers as a team, as opposed to working against management, which was sometimes the past practice with some of the teachers….
In alluding to Mr Pillay’s postulation that his principal deliberately created professional development opportunities, Desimone (2011) and Mestry, Moonsammy-Koopasammy and Schmidt (2013) argue that the most effective leadership behaviour to have a positive effect on teachers’ holistic development, is principals’ interest in their teachers’ professional
development. Thus, attempts made by principals such as those of the calibre as Mr Pillay’s principal, is cited by Desimone (2011) as being interested principals who make deliberate attempts at alerting teachers to PD activities for instance. In addition, they organise internal and external projects, focusing on targeted educational goals and overall professional development. Below is the document from GPS, which indicates staff attendance at the servant leadership workshop which was one of many such enterprises undertaken by GPS. The challenges experienced by Mr Pillay will now be considered.
Echoing similar sentiments as those expressed by the SMT members of GPS with relation to the link between CPTD and learner success, Mr Pillay observed that the stumbling block was parents’ demonstration of apathy in relation to their children’s homework, allowing unlimited cell-phone usage, and unmonitored television viewing. Heightening these conceptions, Mr Pillay averred that learners were exposed to inappropriate media and parents were not on board in terms of supervising their children’s schoolwork. He proposed that parents needed to be educated on how to monitor their children, claiming that the only work most learners did was at school, because when they got home, their bags remained locked. In view of alleviating this challenge, Mr Pillay suggested:
I tell my teachers to do as much work as possible in class…because we know that when these children get home, they won’t do much…plus there’s no-one to really help them at home….
In furtherance of Mr Pillay’s inferences that teachers at his school made concerted efforts to offer learners an integrated, comprehensive education, it is asserted that most public schools in this post-apartheid period, including GPS, whose learner population was made up primarily of Black learners, insisted on perpetuating the tradition defining the apartheid era of keeping their LoLT as English (DBE, 2010). Nevertheless, despite debates and discourse which promote the retaining of African languages, Lemmer’s (2010) findings reveal that the overriding choice by Black parents, is the desire for their children to be taught through the medium of English, as they believed that that would offer them better chances of attaining success in the wider world preoccupied with social status, and which is thus associated with the notion that English proficiency holds greater benefits.
I endorse these findings by Lemmer (2010), as when I enquire from parents as to why they admitted their children at the school at which I am based, compelling their children to arise so early, to commute such a long distance away from home, I was presented with a similar reasoning. Parents argued that they would rather spend money for transport to allow their children to learn at this English-medium school, rather than to admit them to schools where the Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) is in their mother-tongue, isiZulu. Although many of these schools are on their door-step, these parents argued that if their children learnt to read and write in English, their chances of securing better prospects in the future, were higher.
Compatible with the protestations of Mr Pillay regarding the apparent absence of parental involvement at his school, findings from research conducted by Ngcobo and Tikly (2010), yielded similar results. Evidence revealed that learners emerging from disadvantaged homes were generally found to perform poorly due to a dearth of guidance and assistance with regard to supervision of homework and learning tasks. Invariably, such dearth occurred largely where parents and/or grandparents were illiterate and the children were staying with them. It was concluded that parental involvement in instilling norms and values outside of the school was vital, as it provided learners with tools to cope in the school environment (Ngcobo & Tikly, 2010). In view of the above enquiry, these managers from GPS attested to the existence of a strong link between CPTD, learner success and school improvement.