By Neil Bunting
This is the second part of a three-piece post: CAR: Challenge, accountability, rigour – three key attributes that my school is focusing on this year.
“Accountability breeds response-ability” – Stephen Covey
Who is accountable in schools? How many times have we heard someone say it’s not my job to do this or that?
Does the buck stop with the head? The senior leaders? The teaching staff? Or does everyone take some share of the responsibility? What about the students?
What are the advantages of clear accountability and how do we create a climate where everyone is involved and where everyone understands their role, rights and responsibilities?
I believe accountability covers and includes everyone.
In the school community accountability is a key marker, as it is for any successful functioning organization.
Parents have protocols to follow, and in an IB World School, for example, they are encouraged to be active in support of the school and sharing their personal and professional expertise for the benefit of the learners. For example a chef, and school parent, might come into school and create a recipe with the students. A sports woman, or man, might come and run a coaching session.
The parent also has to know their role in supporting the school philosophy, vision and mission, and the development of their children, by for example reading, and listening to the child read.
Teachers need clear, well defined job descriptions and to be aware of the professional expectations of them, both in and outside of the classroom. This also applies to all administrative staff, cleaners, security guards and maintenance team. It is extremely important in terms of health and safety that every single member of the school community has to be aware they carry equal accountability if they see some broken equipment or potential hazard in the school.
How do we help our learners be accountable?
Part of the educator’s responsibility is to model their expectations and to train the learners in good habits of accountability. Emphasizing and unwrapping the IB Learner Profile attribute of Principled, and the importance of fairness and justice is a good way of helping young learners understand responsibilities and cooperation.
Experiential learning experiences, camps and school trips, where students learn to manage budgets, cook meals or put up tents are great ways to develop accountability.
As adults and professionals we can demonstrate to the learners, through performance review, how we as an organization measure performance and look to determine and improve our accountability.
We then look to establish good routines and study habits amongst the student body.
These habits include: meeting deadlines and not procrastinating, being aware of the expectations of them—and clarifying anything they are not sure about—following mutually agreed school rules and regulations, taking pride in work, the environment, and personal appearance, wearing a uniform, if part of the school expectations, being organized and punctual, actively contributing to class, collaborating, taking action, questioning, encouraging and listening to others, reflecting on the quality of the work they are producing and addressing personal shortcomings and making an action plan for greater success in future.
Getting into good habits—as early and young as possible—helps, and at the start of the new school establishing solid routines, again, helps no end. These habits come with being organized, balancing time for meeting all the daily and weekly school requirements, getting the right amount of sleep and rest time.
The IB emphasis on approaches to learning (ATL) skills teaches young learners the importance of being organized and to understand why it is important to develop good habits in and out of the classroom.
A positive ethos of accountability in schools balances the needs, rights and responsibilities of all learners and stakeholders.
Learners have every right for their point of view to be listened to, they are given opportunities and choices, and with those selections the learners bear the responsibility for the results of the actions they have chosen. This is a crucial life skill to be learnt.
Schools set up prefect systems, student councils, Model United Nations (MUN) organizations, leadership camps, student leadership summits, school teams, house systems, and other student leadership opportunities, on an understanding that learners feel greater investment and make a much larger contribution when their voice and opinion is valued.
Young people make up the greater percentage of population, in parts of Africa and much of the Middle East. Their ability to act, and be held accountable for the consequences, is crucial to development in these countries. President Obama addressed this very issue on his recent trip to Africa.
As preparation, and as a mirror for real life, a school, an educational institution provides real life learning contexts. These contexts include giving the learner responsibility, with an understanding they are accountable for their own decisions and action.
Neil Bunting is the Head of Secondary Programme at Greenfield Community School – a Taaleem school. Watch out for more posts from Neil as he explores common themes that weave through all IB programmes.