TRANSCRIPT 🔗
Paul Ainsworth: Welcome back to the No Silver Bullets podcast, the nine steps to executive headship. I'm Paul Kay Ainsworth. And in this short reflection episode, I want to look back at my conversation with Donna Winters, executive head of Spires Federation in Lincolnshire and explore what her insights reveal about step three unleashing the capacity of your team. Donna leads three small rural schools. Digby, Dunstan and Nocton. And what really struck me in our conversation was how intentionally she has built a leadership model that creates capacity rather than consumes it. Her federation is a brilliant example of what step three argues for. That executive leadership is not about replicating structures, but about reimagining them. One of the lines from Donna that has stayed with me is this. That honesty is at the heart of step three. In the book, we talk about how executive headship requires a shift from doing to enabling, from holding everything to creating the conditions where others can lead. Donna has embraced that shift. She trusts her team deeply and she said something that captures this perfectly. They are all experts in their field. I've got confidence in their decision making. That confidence is what unleashes capacity. Another powerful part of Donna's story is how she resisted the temptation to replicate leadership posts across her three small schools. Many new executive heads appoint heads of school on each site, but Donna recognized that this would simply recreate silos. She told me, ⁓ Instead, she created a shared leadership ⁓ one executive head, ⁓ one executive deputy and senior federation lead who is also the Senco. Each has a home school for pastoral presence, but all work across the Federation. This is exactly what step three warns us about, that adding posts too quickly can remove the very capacity the Federation was meant to create. Donna's model avoids that trap entirely. Subject leadership is another area where Donna's Federation shines. She explains that her subject leaders work across all three schools. which means they can specialise rather than juggle three or four subjects each. She gave the example of her history lead.
Donna Winters: it's been a big learning curve to know that you don't need directly manage it. You don't need to directly control all of it and everything and manage every decision.
Paul Ainsworth: In step three, we described this as one of the great advantages of the ability to create genuine subject expertise in small schools. Donna's Federation is living proof of that. And then there are the systems. Capacity isn't just about people, it's about clarity. Donna talked about the SLT agenda document that runs all year in the background and how Ascenco has created flow charts so every teacher, teaching assistant and parent knows exactly where to go and what to do. She said, It's come through communication and trust that we just talk to each other. Step three emphasizes the importance of mirrored processes, consistent expectations and clear communication. Dona's Federation has all three and it shows. But perhaps the most human moment in our conversation was when she said, That line captures something essential. Unleashing the capacity isn't just structural, it's relational. It's about trust, stability and emotional intelligence. Donner schools have that in abundance. Next week, we move into step four, turning processes into habits. And I am so lucky to have the opportunity to talk to both Ross McGill and Sam Strickland. Next week. I'll be joined by Ross McGill, teacher toolkit. So step three is about unleashing capacity. Step four is about what that capacity actually does in classrooms. Ross has spent years helping schools turn teaching and learning processes into habits and his insights on routines, modeling and consistency are the perfect follow on from Donna's story. If you found this reflection useful, please like. comment, subscribe and share the podcast with colleagues. Your support helps the series reach more leaders and ultimately more children. Thanks for listening.
Donna Winters: ⁓ still had that very much, this is my school from the deputies ⁓ and they would go off on their own tangents or their own things and be quite protective. ⁓ So ⁓ example, the history lead planned the key stage two for the whole of the federation for this on the slides ⁓ and ⁓ has a key stage one. teacher who's doing it for Key Stage 1 and then communicating with her. ⁓ and know that the are absolutely fine without any being there so it's actually that that team is everything ⁓ so care for and they they care. ⁓ back.