Headteachers — sometimes you are the problem

I can just imagine several primary school headteachers shaking their heads vehemently in protest. We are slow to accept criticism even when it is constructive. However, I ask you to place ego and pride aside so that this message can resonate with you.

Too many of our primary school children cannot read well, write well and do basic maths. We sit and we cast blame on various stakeholders but many issues that primary school students face in the classroom are a direct result of poor management. Headteachers, you are there to manage. My colleagues, you are at the helm of each school. You must be held accountable for what you allow to happen at your schools. However, too often people don’t really understand management and leadership. Headteachers having favourite teachers who they cannot correct, poor reflection on leadership styles to decipher what their strengths and weaknesses are and not providing forums for feedback have forever affected primary schools across SVG.

Micromanagement, sadly, seems to be the order of the day with headteachers trying to do everything and yet they complain of being burnt out.  Where are your management teams and teams of grade heads and year heads? How well do they function? Do you rely on them for proper feedback? How is it that headteachers are still marking lesson plans? Aren’t you supposed to meet with your assessment teams to figure out the positive and negative aspects of teaching and learning at your school? Can you accurately verify that each lesson plan is executed, or do you just rely on what the subject teacher says or presents in a lesson plan?   

Is your PTA vibrant? Why isn’t reading a timetabled subject at many schools, even though there are classes in some primary schools where at least 60% of students are unable to read at their grade level? Some of these students face CPEA exams in 2025? Who is going to help them?  Why aren’t there proper and consistent intervention plans at some schools to help students who are weak in reading and math?  These are just some of the questions that I have.

Being an effective headteacher means setting the tone, pace and developing the culture of your school to the point where if a student, parent or teacher wants to be part of your school community, they know that they must match high standards that have already been established.  Many headteachers will have to take a hard look at what is happening at their schools and be brave enough to say the buck stops with me. Monitoring in the classroom should be done by your management, assessment teams and grade or year heads. Learn to trust their expertise and judgement. Report teachers who are consistently delinquent to the Ministry of Education.  Please delegate. A true leader trains others to one day take over. This means that you must share the responsibility of leadership.

Finally, there is no friendship when it comes to doing what is right. If rules apply to one, they apply to all. It is the inconsistency and placing friendships before duty that has contributed to the instability of many primary schools, contention among staff and worse the mediocre grades that students consistently produce at some schools for CPEA.

Maybe you are still saying that you are not part of the problem. Maybe you are not, if you are doing the right things. However, statistics for National tests (Grades 2 and 4) and CPEA along with reading diagnostic tests for some schools do not lie and have been consistently poor for some schools many years.

Educator

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