Upside-down Thinking: Is it time to starting thinking differently about your school management structure?

In this article Mark Steed challenges traditional ways of thinking about school management structures.

"…the world does not have to be run as it has traditionally been run. Looking at things upside-down, or back to front, or inside out is a way of stimulating the imagination, of spurring our creativity in an Age of Unreason when things are not going to go on working as they have been working, whether we like it or not."

Charles Handy The Age of Unreason, page 252

Are school leaders distracted by the business of running schools?

The traditional school management model places the Head or Principal at the top of the heirarchy, overseen by the Board of School Governors.

Thinking of schools in this ‘top-down’ way relegates education to the bottom of the pile.

There is a danger that school leadership teams can focus too much on the business of running schools: staffing, finances, policies, procedures, inspections and meeting external targets, at the expense of a student-focused approach.

Upside-down thinking

A more productive model is that inspired by Charles Handy’s ‘Upside-down thinking’ model for organisations. Applying upside-down thinking to schools reminds us to put pupils/ students at the top of the hierarchy.

This model reminds us that student learning is the fundamental aim of schooling, and this takes place as a result of interactions between teachers and students - that is where the magic happens.

Everything else in schools exists to make those interactions as effective as they can be.

• The role of the teachers is to support the students.

• The role of HoDs / Subject Leaders is to support the teachers supporting the students

• The role Senior Leaders is to support the HoDs supporting the teachers supporting the students.

• and so on

Don’t forget the widget

It is easy for Heads, senior and middle leaders to get caught up in the bureaucracy of running a school and to forget that that their role is fundamentally to support learning. Upside-down thinking reminds us where the priorities should lie.

This is especially true when it comes to Board discussions. The very nature of School Boards is that they bring together people with experience from a range of important areas outside education. Most boards look to have a sample of commercial and professional expertise, such as accountancy, finance, HR and property management. Undoubtedly, these are areas where Governors can add value by providing advice and challenge. There is danger, however, that the agenda of board meetings shifts towards these areas at the expense of discussing the core purpose of a school - student learning.

Are your Support Staff ‘helping to put a man on the moon’?

There is an uban myth from the 1960s that when Joe Saltzer, a janitor at NASA’s Cape Caraveral was asked what he did, he replied, “I’m helping to put a man on the moon.” The story is a case-study illustrating the importance of universal understanding, engagement and alignment to the aims of the organisation.

The upside-down thinking model helps us see how the often unsung heros on the operational support staff fit into the bigger picture. Support staff in every school do an amazing job, but how often do we remind them of why they are doing what they do, and how their daily work contributes to what the school is trying to achieve?