5B: What is ‘success’ in leadership and management?

Anne Loveday was one of the first heads of learning and skills to be appointed [at HMYOI Feltham]. She told us, ‘The overarching role is to raise standards and qualifications across prisons. We are working towards professionalisation of the workforce, so we are working through staff development to achieve this.

‘I'm part of the senior management team, which includes, amongst others, the governor, the deputy governor, the head of residency and head of security. In this position, I can influence what happens across the prison. As a service we are in contact with a whole range of services – the Youth Justice Board, the Prison Service, and the Learning and Skills Council for funding. We are trying to draw on the expertise of all these bodies so that we become more cohesive and more able to raise the qualifications of staff.

‘We have a quality improvement group, which includes all functional heads across the prison. We are doing a self-assessment and looked at the strengths and weaknesses of individual areas and out of this we are producing a development plan, which will eventually go to the Offenders’ Learning and Skills Unit. Out of all this will come our staff development. Currently we are slowly training all instructors and prison officers in literacy and numeracy – not to get them teaching, but to raise their awareness of the importance of literacy and numeracy. Their reaction to training has been fantastically positive.’

Anne goes on, ‘The three things that have made for good leadership and management are:

• receiving the utmost support and confidence from the other managers, particularly the governor
• the formation of a Quality Group. This has involved building the right team that shares the same values and vision
• receiving continued funding and support from the LSC, the DfES and the Youth Justice Board.

‘I have an early shutdown once a month and all education staff are expected to come to the meeting. Other staff are also invited and sometimes kitchen officers attend. Through this and other means, we are developing a whole-organisational approach because we’ve got the cooperation of everybody at HMYOI Feltham. We are gradually professionalising people into their particular roles and responsibilities. Through this approach we hope to continue to raise the quality of what we are doing.’

 

Vanessa Greenwood is literacy and numeracy coordinator at HMYOI Wetherby. She says, ‘The things I think that raise standards are having top-quality teachers, with a passion and empathy with our kinds of groups. They need to have a degree and PGCE or a Certificate in Education. We have two members of staff who have achieved Level 4 in both literacy and numeracy and another about to do literacy.

‘The second thing you need to raise standards is a supportive prison regime. If the governor is on side and embroiled in the culture by supporting the spread of education, then quality really improves. By supportive I mean being reactive to requests to change the regime to suit the way education is going, instead of fitting education into a pre-conceived box. Our governor is open to new ideas and is willing to embrace innovation.

‘Two of the new things we are working on are including literacy through vocational training and using technology, like using interactive whiteboards and the hand-held personal computer tablets.

‘The third thing you need to raise standards is money and resources to actually realise what you want to achieve. Our greatest advantage has been that the materials for Skills for Life and PLUS are free. In addition, we have been given access to a body of expertise that has matched what we need to develop quality.

‘There are three managers like me and we have a staff of 88, full- and part-time, with 28 learning support assistants. Our aim is to give more time to train teachers and trainers; time for those who want to achieve Level 4 and time to help everybody at HMYOI Wetherby see their role in delivering teaching or support through whatever role they play across the organisation.

‘My job is to try and make all this happen, to provide support to those that need it and to manage it by bringing all this together to benefit the learners.

‘We believe in expanding the boys’ horizons through using activities seen as enjoyable; like drama, journalism and producing their own magazine, but all this is literacy and numeracy by any other name!’

An interactive whiteboard is a touch-sensitive projection screen that allows you to control a computer directly, by touching the board rather than using a keyboard or mouse, although these can still be used. This technology requires a computer, a projector and the whiteboard itself. The computer is connected to the projector and whiteboard, and the projector displays the computer screen image on the board. As you point at active elements on the board, using your finger or an appropriate electronic 'pen' as a mouse, the action is transmitted to the computer.

 

Abi Baker is Basic Skills Coordinator at HMYOI Wetherby. She has found interactive whiteboards to be a very useful tool. Abi says, ‘Using the interactive whiteboard has transformed learning for the lads. They come alive and take a far more active part in the lesson, with the end result that they do all of the work and become teachers themselves’.

Abi only had to show a few students how to use the whiteboard and they were thoroughly engaged in figuring out its capabilities and passing on the information to the others in the group. Lessons are now truly interactive experiences.

‘They are engaged with the whiteboard because they have to get up there in front of the class and demonstrate their knowledge,’ says Abi. ‘Learning has become tangible and fun. To touch something makes it more real and relevant for them’. The students are now working on breaking down difficult fractions and can translate that learning to paper.

The whiteboards can be used as a traditional whiteboards, for projection of PowerPoint or video or to display and use interactive software so that the whole group can work together and participate in the same lesson rather than one individual working on a PC in isolation. Following training, Abi has been using the PLUS interactive literacy and numeracy CDs 'Buying a Scooter' and 'Amazing Machines’, which form part of the PLUS strategy learning resources.