Conversations You Never Wanted to Have (But Have to)
Difficult conversations are one element of good accountability. Accountability isn’t always perceived as a positive thing but in the long term it really does make everyone’s job easier and a school better.
Schools with clear accountability structures, systems and cycles, with excellent quality assurance at every level, achieve great things. The structure has to be fair, mutually agreed, understood and consistent if it is to achieve optimum impact. Being held to account, when it is done well, should feel like a positive and rewarding experience.
From the perspective of one of your teachers, for example, it is the feeling that you are clear about your roles and responsibilities; you have been challenged by the requirements but have support in place if you need it. As you achieve benchmarks, you receive timely advice and constructive and helpful feedback and feel a sense of recognition and success when all has been achieved.
When accountability is used less wisely, it can create a fear factor in a school community or organization. If people are less clear on their role or responsibility, they do not feel ownership and are quick to blame others or cover up mistakes rather than be honest. Accountability at its best is constantly demanding the highest performance from every individual in the organization. People know what their role looks like if it is done outstandingly well. If standards are not met, leaders are unafraid to look the person in the eye and say: ‘this is not good enough’. Swift intervention is undertaken and consequences enforced.
Systematizing your process can be very helpful. You should try to be specific about what will be reviewed and when. You need to specify who will deliver the data or evidence required and outline the criteria for how its impact will be measured. You should aim to provide people with a checklist of what should be achieved in a typical week, month, term or year for each role in their team.
In the case of exam results, checking performance on a student-by-student basis is essential for good accountability. With this in place, how do you measure interim progress? What checks will you put in place to reassure yourself that you are on target and at which point should interventions, if necessary as a last resort, be put in place? A calendar and list of checkpoints should be shared with the success criteria clearly articulated, very similar to a mark scheme. This is a transparent and shared way of measuring success. At a whole-school level, there may be a rhythm to this already established.
When we avoid difficult conversations, we trade short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction - Peter Bromberg
Love and Light
DAO