- Secretary Jude Hayman

The NSW School Leadership Institute (SLI) has partnered with the University of Wollongong (UOW) to co-design and deliver the Aspiring Principals Leadership Program which will run, for each cohort, over a period of 12 months. Joanne Jarvis (Director of SLI) and Dr Kylie Lipscombe, Educational Leadership Coordinator from UOW have together with Ann McIntyre, designed a program that (in a nutshell) has a strong emphasis on leadership for learning through mindsets, evidence informed leadership behaviours and a leadership inquiry to support improvement and innovation.

Ten Principal Facilitators, both secondary and primary, were selected from an EOI process and gathered prior to the workshop to learn more about the program. The Facilitators’ in cohort one are Leonie Clarkson, Tanya Rose, Estelle Southall, Sue Roach, Mark Harris, Jude Hayman and secondary colleagues Leanne Larcombe, Jan Pattinson, Craig Brown and Mark Sneddon. The Facilitators are fortunate to have Karen Maraga and Chris Presland leading and supporting them through the journey.

Workshops will run over a period of 12 months with the aspiring leaders participating in an educationally tailored ‘360’ survey. With the feedback they will be creating an action plan with goals and tasks to achieve over the next 12 months. The first workshop was presented by the SLI team (Joanne, Kylie & Ann), Professor Emeritus Viviane Robinson and Professor Sue Bennett. Mark Scott and Murat Dizdar spoke about the importance of the SLI, aiming for it to be a world class program to ensure new Principals were prepared when they entered the job for the first time.

The aspiring leaders in cohort one were very impressive and most definitely ready to be leaders in our schools, participation in the SLI program will further strengthen their knowledge and definitely make their beginning years as Principals a lot smoother than many of ours would have been! Keep an eye out for the opportunity to apply for a Facilitator role in future cohorts and encourage those within your schools to apply to be a part of this excellent initiative.