Two into one does go

Rebekah Iiyambo and Mitch Karunaratne, co-leaders of Kaizen Primary School in London, give an insight into what it’s like to share the role of headteacher. They have been co-leaders since September 2009.

1. Why did you decide on a co-headship model?

Innovation, creativity, inclusion and reflection are the four cornerstones of our school, driving our vision and work. So in 2009, Mitch and I approached our governing body as existing head and deputy headteacher with the suggestion that we become co-leaders of the school. As well as greater flexibility for ourselves, we felt a co-leadership model – sharing the role of headteacher – would also benefit the school; benefits that included:

• sharing the heavy burden of leading a growing inner-city school
• increasing capacity for sustained improvement, as well as, innovation
• a chance to build greater leadership capacity through synergy and resilience
• increasing the pace of school improvement and the excitement to do the job in the best possible way

2. What were the challenges and benefits of such an approach?

The ability to work together is of course a very large part of the success story. We also decided that a key aspect was to ensure all stakeholders were committed to the principle of co-leadership. We worked hard to develop a joint vision, with shared core values, for the school as well as developing effective systems for communication between ourselves, staff, governors and the whole school community.

This self-critical approach helped us express a clear vision for the school, so that all staff, governors and children knew what they were working towards. As co-leaders of a school in a challenging and deprived area, getting the best results for the children would only occur through highly effective and sustained emphasis on leadership at all levels, including the children.

It was also important to ensure that systems were in place to prevent cross-over and overlap and/or perceptions of division with the school staff and professionals within the local authority.

Another minor challenge was giving ourselves permission to not be at work!

3. How did you persuade governors and parents of the merits of such an approach?

At our annual governing body away day in May 2009 we designed and put in place checks to ensure that the co-leadership model was closely scrutinised. We also discussed some of the difficulties which the model might face – from direct and practical issues, such as the need to communicate the change to parents to more administrative but nonetheless significant issues, such as how to undertake performance management of two headteachers.

By grappling with these issues at an early stage we were able to circumvent potential difficulties when we implemented the model in September 2009.

4. How did the approach work in the early days?

Because this was the first co-leadership role in the school, we played around with different timetabling issues. We both work 0.6 FTE (full-time equivalent) over a year and over time this has evolved from working one week, working together some of the time, to both of us working three days a week together. Because our focus is on the strategic aspects of the school, we found that to do this, we needed to be in at the same time.

We also supported the development of leadership skills throughout the school. We devised a leadership framework to enable staff and governors to reflect where they are and what they need to do to get to the next level. All staff were given access to a leadership development coach and a personalised plan to increase their own leadership capacity. We were given an extra boost when, after a period of accelerated leadership development at senior level, our deputy landed a headship after his first interview.

5. How is it working now?

Having demonstrated that the co-leadership model can work, we have now developed a variety of co-leaders across the school. We developed shared open leadership spaces and have found that this allows for open dialogue between staff at all levels. Coaching and developing conversations takes up a vast quantity of time and we believed that formal and informal discussions contribute better to holistic review of systems and processes. Therefore providing a shared leadership space was a natural development to allow this to take place.

The thing that we get very excited about is that staff very quickly not only say what they need to adapt or develop for the children but also how they are going to do it. This flexibility is also clear in the way our school improvement planning works. Evaluation is embedded in the school’s practice. The school improvement plan is monitored and problems identified early, in a frank open, and accurate way with resolutions sought.

Staff are supported to take risks by listening and respecting each other. They are challenged to take on new opportunities and encouraged to innovate. They reflect on and develop their personal and team leadership visions at our annual leadership away day, where our most experienced staff mentor those at early stages of their career. They have become good at holding each other to account.

6. How does co-headship contrast to single headship? Does it change the way you lead? If so, how?

The ability to rehearse and articulate ideas in a safe environment enables us to check each others judgements. The confidence to allow others to lead also ensures that we can monitor who is the best person to lead in different contexts across the school. There is a peace of mind and security in knowing that there are two of us. We can laugh at each other and at different situations that occur and we finish every day on a high.

It is difficult to envisage how single headship works. This way of working has changed our leadership systems and styles, by adopting more distributive leadership and having different expectations of other leaders. For now we’re just enjoying the rewards that come from our willingness to put the old cliché ‘two heads are better than one’ to the test.

7. If others are thinking about co-headship for their school, what advice would you give them?

Think carefully about how deep your shared values go. Ensure you know how the other person works. Be able to clearly articulate your strengths and how you each bring different things to the team. If being right and publically being right is important – then this isn’t for you.

8. What impact has co-headship had on your school?

High achievement, compared to local and national context. The children who attend our school need and thrive from innovative, wide-reaching educational experience and extremely high-quality academic education, which gives them the best life chances. For example, this includes camping on the school field in Year 4, and building up to residential centres in Years 5-6. Implementing this required us to build up trust with parents and carers to achieve 100 per cent engagement. Many parents themselves have negative experiences of their own education and were resistant to learn alongside their children so now we take the learning to them and every month a different year group leads a big breakfast of food and learning activities in the school playground. This has been a huge success.

Also, staff opportunities have led to stability in the school. Some are developing expertise that they can share and experiencing leadership in their chosen fields. Clear objectives and policies, focused on pupils’ needs, are understood and implemented by staff and governors. The school provides successfully for pupils who do not respond well to school or have difficulty in learning. Pupils learn effectively and efficiently, and show high levels of motivation and engagement with the learning process.

9. Next steps: what are your plans?

We will continue developing and working on the model to see how it can make a difference beyond the borders of Kaizen. We have also just completed a successful two terms executive headship with a local nursery school.

Kaizen Primary School was built under the private finance initiative (PFI) scheme. The doors were opened in September 2003 and the first Year 6 children left in July 2010. They did so with some of the best results in Newham. But Kaizen is no overnight success story – everything that has been achieved has been through the hard work and commitment of the whole school.

Kaizen moved from a ‘satisfactory’ Ofsted grading to ‘good’ in June 2010 and Rebekah and Mitch are confident that ‘outstanding’ will be achieved when they next visit.

Published January 2012