Design for Session 2012-13-School-wide Holistic Achievement
Model
Bihar has a diverse and politically conscious society in which educational disparity is prominently pronounced and glaring. The achievement “gap” is unstated reflection and consequence of poor academic infratructure in a state that seeks to spend maximum money in education outside Bihar. Angika Development Society took an educational JV initiative with DPS Society in order to bridge this gap in 2006.
Educational quality has a leveling affect on growth of society around the school. Empirical data of new admissions every year is an interesting reflection of the performance of teachers and Principal of the school. In DPS Bhagalpur the “gap” between new admissions and attrition is truly alarming and needs to be arrested immediately. Steps to improve upon leadership deliverables and pedagogy should be undertaken without further complacency.
Irony is no stranger to enhancing of performance and politics of success. Learning experiences in the school has to be cognitively stimulating and progressive. We need to introspect our lacunaes and fault lines and work on them in a planned manner. Enrollments should climb inorder to make the base of school strong and sustainable. Following steps are being taken to ensure long term success in school.
Mechanism for pursuing the vision for “a gifted qualty education” for every student is being brought into being in form of Schoolwide Holistic Achievement Model (SHAM). SHAM is intended and designed to identify and address talents in all students and help Principal and his team to perform in a planned and structured manner with express aim to achieve quality results. Leasons learned during the journey towards perfromance excellence should be preserved and form basic of school structure in times ahead. Just to qoute Oliver H. Perry (War of 1812) he said “We have met the enemy and they are ours”.
Mandatory Standards at Delhi Public School, Bhagalpur
1. Establishing of scientific, collaborative, experiment based imaginative and culturally rich learning environment.
2. Effective communication skills, collaborative approach, consensus building, negotiation skills and desire to out perform yesterday’s achievement should exist.
3. Culture of school must be taken into consideration before coming to a conclusion. All individuals must be treated with act of fairness, dignity and respect. Barriers to student learning should be identified and removed.
4. Dynamics of diverse school community reflectiing varried socio-economic background should be recognised and respected.
5. Risks must be taken in order to explore various options and practices. Operational procedures must be designed and managed to maximise opportunities for successful learning; problems must be confronted within a time frame and effective conflict resolution skills should be put in place.
6. A professional code of conduct of ethics should be evolved. Ethical principles must form hallmark of decision making process and a caring school atmosphere should be encouraged.
Responsiblities are convergence of several dynamic forces in school leadership to sustained and permanent growth.
Principal
1.
Admissions
2.
Examination
3.
Teachers
Payroll, Finance
4.
Appointment
of faculty and staff, disciplinary actions
5.
Human
Resource Management, staff facility
6.
Teachers
trainning and interaction with DPS Society and ADS
7. Asigning duties duties within the campus and managing staff reporting to Principal
8.
Parent
interaction in specific cases
9. Creation, Management and maintenance of school infrastructure and assets.
Vice
Principal
1.
Time-table,
allotment of arrangement classes, remedial classes under Learning Support Center, all Preps. Coaching for IIT-JEE/AIEEE/CPMT
2.
Staff
attendance and maintenance of Personal Files/ School Files/ Staff Register
3.
All
educational/ academic activity related to every student and teacher from Class
VII to XII.
4.
Academic
and Administrative Council
5.
Curriculum,
annual plan and execution of academics
6.
Girls
Hostel
7.
Mess,
staff and all purchases
8.
Staff
supervision and evaluation. Library and all labs
9.
Center
for development of Science and Maths
10. CCE/ CBSE-International curriculum development skills in school teachers
11.
Teachers
Diary
12.
Interaction
with parents of girls in Hostel
13.
Accorn- monthly news letter and Nektar – annual magazine
14.
PTA-Council
meetings and implementation of decisions
15.
Siksha
Kendra/ Charity and all activity related with SANKALP
16.
M.O.D
monitoring and duty allotment
17.
Disciplinary
and Anti Harassment Committee
Sr. Head
Master
1.
Communication/liaison
and Public Relations
2. All educational/ academic activity related to every student and teacher from Class Nursery to VI
3.
Teachers’
Diary
4.
Fees
collection
5. CBSE related works and Affiliation. Starting of CBSE’s international curriculum
6.
Government/
HRD interaction
7.
Budgeting
and purchase of books/ dresses
8.
Security
of school campus
9.
Infirmary
10.
Interaction
with parents of dayscholors boys and girls
11.
Promotion
of Center for development of Languages
12.
Department
of Music, Fine Art, Dramatics
13.
Writing
of schools’ history in log book on daily basis
14.
Web-site
and network management of school
15.
Store
and inventory.
Head Master
cum Dean Student Welfare (H.M cum DSW)
1.
Discipline
of entire school
2. Boys Hostel completely, induction program, receiving of boarders when school opens after vacation and dispersal of boarders during breaks and holidays
3.
School
Sports field and track events
4.
Assemblies
5.
Checking
of uniforms and dress code
6.
All
Cultural Programs. Debates/ Declamation/ Quizes
7.
Overall
development of boarding students
8.
Promotion
of Center for development of Social Sciences
9.
Interaction
with parents of boys, boarders
10.
Excursions
/ Study Tours
11.
Transport
and all issues related with it.
Precepts
Democracy in school administration
All the heads and faculty are to practice democracy in DPS Bhagalpur. There should be a collective effort to give strength and dynamism to the school’s system than promoting self interest. Managemnt perception is to establish norms of democracy and consequently take the school towards positive growth. The democratic way of life is to be based upon the assumption of respect for human personality, thought, pluralistic style of life and independence of expression.
Please bear in mind that we intend to develop distinctive personalities and this cannot be nurtured in isolation. It germinates and grows only when there is a free interplay with other personalities. Full and free participation within a given group and among groups, is the best way of promoting desirable individual development in a complex, Cosmo political and interdependent society that we have in our school. While wholesome individual development is the basic goal, associated living is the better means of achieving it. The test of associated living in every social and Political organization is the effect, which it has upon the individuals who are touched by it. If it enhances and enriches human personality it is desirable; if it tends to destroy or narrow opportunities for development, it is undesirable, to the ideal.
School’s performance is a reflective illustration of how the work of this school has evolved from its philosophy of life and education. In formulating school’s philosophy we had prominently considered the nature of individuals with whom we are going to work and the community that we will have to serve. I hope all of you are aware that DPS Bhagalpur regards human beings as dynamic and purposive with a capacity for astronomical growth and ability to evolve through experiences. It’s for all of you to judge where do we stand today. It’s for you to honestly assess on which pedestal of the ladder of Management’s vision you have brought the school in these six years of its existence.
The purpose of promotion of democracy in performing teaching should be to develop and promote democratic way of life that would in turn induce sustained capacity building. We have to concentrate on following seven principles: -
a) The curriculum and pedagogy in school should center on overall development of every student
b) Respect and promote Cosmo-political interplay of culture between students and teachers through more of dramatics, declamation, debate, music and art competition.
c) Organize school programs to reveal relationships of learning and progress of every individual
d) School should promote dignity through participation. By this statement I construe that every teacher has important role in leading school in progressive forums. In Indian context of democracy a teacher is not only a lead actor but also helps students play their role and is adequately concerned with the whole production. Believe you me; democratic education should involve every individual teacher in the whole program of school. No teacher should be allowed to work in isolation. The authorities in school and teachers should take it as a shared concern and define school’s principles and vision; put them into active practice and implement every direction intended towards holistic development of students.
e) School and faculty should play a pivotal role in transmission of intellectual traditions, technical skills, competence in language, develop attitude and sense of commitment, accountability, way of life, national integration, fostering international understanding, Indian culture and traditions.
f) Affect 100% discipline with 200% affection.
g) Creating individuals who act as a yardstick to measure achievement and aspirations of our Nation.
Principal & Administrators
Any thing that can be accorded the epithet of being “greatest profession” in this world is nothing but “teaching”. A Principal of school is first a teacher and then a Principal. Teaching is a gracious pearl of divine bounty and is the most pious service to mankind. Indian system of education believes in salvation through knowledge and a guru is the only fulcrum to it. Never forget that Nations are enlarged replica of their teachers. Nations have rarely failed due to any other aspect except for their faulty and crumbling education system. As a leader “you need to be educationally alive as a teacher to be able to perform good as a Principal”.
A principal is a leader who espouses the cause of education with elant ease. Trust me leadership skills are learned and perfected in a life time. The recent reform movement in education has forged a stronger linkage between schools and their leadership resulting into school leader assuming the role of a “prime learning officer”. A leader like you needs to constantly learn from his experiences of success and failures in order to perfect capacity building in DPS Bhagalpur. As an educational leader you are expected to promote success of all students by facilitating development, articulation and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by entire community and meets the requirement of Human Resource Development in India.
Fullan (1991) made the statement that “the role of the principal has become dramatically more complex, overloaded, and unclear over past decade”. Whatever he has said is true but let the Principal and administrators not be “remains of bygone grace”. I feel that Principal has to be a “transformational leader” coupled with “educational leader”. Findley and Findley (1992) said that “if a school is to be an effective one, it will be because of the instructional leadership of the principal” but I do not subscribe to this statement to a certain extent. In being an “educational leader” your sensitivity towards “reforms” remains constantly evolving and simultaneously it kindles holistic development.
To me Instructional leadership encompasses “those actions that a principal takes, or delegates to others, to promote growth in student learning” and comprises the following tasks: defining the purpose of schooling; setting school-wide goals; providing the resources needed for learning to occur; supervising and evaluating teachers; coordinating staff development programs; and creating collegial relationships with and among teachers. T. D. Bird and J. W. Little have distinguished vividly between “educational leadership” and “instructional leadership”. They say that educational leadership describes those initiations that attempt or tend to preserve or produce a favorable educational ethos within the school, while instructional leadership refers to the specific branch or educational leadership that addresses curriculum and instruction. We want you to create ethos and a sustainable culture of education in DPS Bhagalpur.
Analysis and conclusion of parameters of education will never reach the accuracy, inference and predictability of true Science due to inherent compulsions of our incomplete and potentially ever shifting “Values”. You would acknowledge that indicators of education are limited and at times they are even misleading. If Education is catalyst for accelerated growth of social change; then innovative, hardworking and efficacious leadership has potential to catapult any school into arena of eternal success. I think in DPS Bhagalpur you need to have more of educational leadership than instructional leadership. Educational leadership in the school established in backwaters of Bihar is essential as majority of these students are first generation learners and it will be easier for you and your team to train these young minds for quality citizenship. Evidently in school there is an apparent gap between what is required and what one ought to do.
I believe as a Principal you can establish yourself only through practise and by example. Here democratic process will play an important role in establishing your credentials and authority. You should act as a consultant to the teachers and staff of the school. You need to promote ability to think and work like a team amongst your staff. Your authority should always entail gracious interaction and participatory beleifs in Educational Reforms.
Today, DPS Bhagalpur stands on the crossroads of reforms. Appointment of Vice Principal, creation of various educational committees for enhancement and accelerated growth; is an effort to fix accountablities on faultlines and is a clear indication of things to come. Import of reform should be understood in right perspective. Remember implementation of educational change involves “change in practice” with umbilical cord remaining intact with the “historically established norms”. I am looking for three dimensional change in the practices of education without altering the core values. Changes in beliefs and understanding are center to achieving lasting reforms and refining knowledge.
In our case curtailing poor performance in DPS Bhagalpur, tightening the focus through greater autonomy is of paramount importance and necessary at the beginning of the turnaround process. You would face dilemma at the initiation stage, whether to seek majority stake holders opinion or be assertive and go ahead with implementing policies for educational reforms. Less educated parents of students here should be taken into stride to understand the purpose of reform we have initiated so that in the long run the impact of our initiatives are lasting and parents learn to benefit out of it. This change will create leaders for the immediate future. Remember leaders developing other leaders is at the heart of greater sustainability and long term growth. There has to be a leadership succession thought and constancy to purpose of reforms. Please believe that good school principals are keystone of good schools’ practices.
Desirable
1. Leading from front. Set standards and transform them into practice. This construct of “leading from front” has a strong educational, social and political appeal. Vivid and jointly held purposes help faculty and administrators with an increased sense of certainty, security, coherence and accountablity.
2. Work out a collective bargaining regulation that would act as facilitator of reform and make roads for evolving of your leadership quality smooth and effective.
3. Make yourself and your team 100% ACCOUNTABLE for school improvement as it is central theme of present requirement.
4. Articulate and Translate Management’s vision into action. Vision should not remain static and unattended for all the time.
5. Infuse and develop “organisational culture” in conjuct with school’s vision. Organisational culture can be said to be a “shared philosophy, expectations, beleifs, ideologies, feelings, assumptions, norms, culture and values amongst school’s human resource”. Always remember a “leader” imports strength to succeed from the environment in form of information, people and materials. Administrators are evaluated on basis of the results they achieve, therefore the organisation’s culture is an important precept because of the collective result it produces.
6. Establish rites and rituals. The rites and rituals already established needs to be strengthened for school to grow uniformly with sustainable strength. Norms of collegiality, constancy to purpose of improvement, connection reinforce and symbolize what the school is all about.
7. Be punctual and maintain “zero tolerance” with staff on issue of “punctuality”. If staffs become punctual in school programs and class a sizeable amount of success towards a quality school is achieved.
8. Maintain and promote highest degree of motivation. Remember “motivation” is a critical determinant of performance and outcome in any organisation. Motivation is said to be “those processes within an individual that stimulate behaviour and channel it in ways that should benefit the organisation as a whole”. Rekindle the dormant traits of a “quality teachers” by assigning targets and rewarding profusely. Your thought and practices will act as a “foot print” on school’s reputation and its history.
9. You should reflect clarity in instructional, community and visionary leadership. To be a successful school we have to focus on “authentic pedagogy” and “student learning”.
10. Maintain clarity in thought and delivery of command.
11. Systematic capacity building in school. UNDP defines capacity building as a “long term continual process of development that involves all stake holders”. The principal is the key figure in promoting an environment within the school that is conducive to student learning.
12. Set examples by sterling performance. If you want your team to be exceptional then you cannot afford to remain a mute spectator. You have to establish high standards and expectations for all staff and students for academic performance and responsibility for behaviour. Discipline systems to ensure a safe, orderly and growth oriented procedures.
13. Display the highest ethical and professional behavior and standards when working with students, parents and school personnel. Serve as a role model for students so that they emulate you in their life ahead.
14. Establish discipline in the school. People will hate you for being disciplined but remember you with immense respect for having brought a positive change in their life and being instrumental in making them successful.
15. You should be able to infuse sense of commitment and belongingness in faculty for your leadership and school leading to “positivism”. Positivism is a view of knowledge as objective, absolutely true and independent of time, circumstances, societies, cultures, communities and geography. Another tradition of positivism is empiricism, which reflects that knowledge of the world can only be acquired through the senses and through experimental experiences.
16. Promote Collaborative Leadership and culture. Create a supportive and collaborative environment. If you are able to induce collaborative culture, individuals will support one another, display collegiality, trust, openness, professionalism and a desire to serve all students. The capacity for change and improvement is enhanced as teachers relinquish their personal positions and engage their colleagues in professional dialogue, identifying classroom issues, sharing and exchanging ideas, participating in identifying problem solutions and working devotedly together to implement them. The mutual exchange of resources in a collaborative atmosphere in school increases consequently promoting pluralistic development.
17. Promote an academically oriented, orderly and purposeful school climate.
18. Ensure accountablity in staff to guarantee quality and results. Remove barriers that devoids teachers of “pride of teaching”.
19. Encourage “critical thinking”. Critical thinking shifts classroom design from a model that largely ignores thinking to one that renders it passive and indispensible. To understand classroom content, it’s important to understand its implications.
20. Undertake effective supervision of instruction by regularly visiting class-rooms, inetraction with students and providing a conducive learning environment. This will promote sense of belonginness instead of “deficit thinking”.
21. Regularly monitor what is being taught, learned and practised.
22. Ensure safety and effective delivery of commitments made to stake holders.
23. Maintain effective supervision of curriculum development and constant innovation.
24. Organise training programs frequently for teachers.
25. Use effective communication with community of Bhagalpur and potential districts from where majority of students come for admission.
26. Properly schedule school programs and activities.
27. Communicate frequently with parents regarding complete school program, students achievement, behaviour and initiatives undertaken for holistic development of students.
28. Should cultivate attitude to lead in an atmosphere of constant and volatile change.
Vice Principal (VP)
Vice Principal acts as a Principal in absence of a Principal and supports him in implementing directions and polices drafted by school Management. VP assists Principal in the governance and leadership in school. VP should be responsible for student discipline, classroom observations, performance evaluation, facilitating parent interaction and effusing growth oriented atmosphere in the campus.
In India, as a follow up National Policy of Education 1986, the Programme of Action 1992 recognizes the mandate of women’s studies as a critical input to promote better understanding of women’s contribution to social processes within societal, technological and environmental change. In the present time there has been a strong departure from old traditions of having males as administrators. Many good public schools across the globe have started looking for female adminsitrators. My experience says women are easily adaptable to change due to a large degree of sensitivity and commitment in them. Remember successful people always believed that life was a “theater of learning” and the only key to success.
School is a potent vehicle for perennial change in society and you as Vice Principal are precursor to that effort. Highsmith and Rallis in their book on Leadership infered “as a group, women are more likely to evidence behavior associated with effective leadership”. Carol Shakeshaft concurred in classic 1989 work Women in Educational Administration, “women are more likely to possess characteristics associated with effective leadership and effective schooling’.
Without any bias to gender I do agree with the statement of Shakeshaft. Women usually perform better in challenging and tender situations when it comes to education because of their God gifted character of being a “mother”. As a women VP you can empower unique leadership style by connecting leadership management to pedagogy. I feel you are more likely to encourage the empowerment of teachers, establish instructional priorities, be alert to the social and emotional development of the students, promote and place emphasis on teachers’ personal effects on the lives of children.
You should take initiative to pay adequate attention to vision building for the school. You will need to use your trait and experience to improve interpersonal relations between the staff and administration. If you recall our traditions in Indian homes; an ignorant mother raises her children without any formal knowledge of teaching. This is true just because, women have a natural trait and characteristics of rearing children with care and affection. I believe Teaching requires “affection” for development of “coordinate senses” and “sense of acknowledgement” for promotion of “emotions and commitment” in young minds. Women are better placed when it comes to nurturing young minds are concerned, in comparison to men.
You would appreciate that VPs effect on school outcomes is subject to many unpredictable variables but still I know for sure that your efficacious presence will bring out a sea change in perception amongst school’s stakeholders. You under the guidance of your Principal and with unconditional support from Sr. H.M, H.M, Faculty and staff of DPS Bhagalpur will be in position to shape organizational conditions necessary for a sustainable change.
I am confident that you would leave your signature imprint in the soul of every individual connected with the school so that they stand emancipated and liberated in education. As a VP you will be undertaking a journey for evolving “leaders for student learning”. You have liberty and freedom to perform under the able guidance of your Principal, Dr. Rakesh Srivastava, with tremendous years of quality experience. The following act you will have to perform in order to fructify edifice of vision on which DPS Bhagalpur is founded: -
Desirable
Translate vision into action. Work for effectiveness and efficiency.
1. Bridge the past with present effectively and with abundance of caution and concern. You are a witness and active participant to paradigm shift in leadership concerns. I would like you to emphasize my thought of “promoting worth of every individual and traditions established” synergizing with concerns of school’s holistic development. When schools have traditions in place it gives all the stakeholders a foundation to weather challenges, difficulties and change.
2. Establish and refine rituals in school. Rituals are procedures that are infused with deeper purport. Rituals make our common experiences uncommon events. Schools have scores of routines from entry in school to dispersal, but if these routines can be connected to school’s mission, ethos and values they then tend to transcend fickle boundaries of monotonous routine; they summon spirit and establish cultural ties with ours and students lives, permanently. For example greeting and goodbye are value embedded rituals in any school and they remain embedded in students mind entire their life.
3. You will be working closely with your Principal on daily basis to keep alive smooth operation of the school. Please promote collaborative leadership.
4. Instill confidence in Supporting Committees to optimize results. Effective VP’s are expected to be effective instructional leaders. You should profusely demonstrate knowledge about curriculum development, staff development and teacher evaluation.
5. Clarify perceptions of philosophy and determine the overall objective of the school.
6. Be role model for students and teachers by conducting yourself gracefully. Always acknowledge responsibility.
7. Establish democratic way of functioning. Encourage participation of teachers to pool in ideas of development in pedagogy and administering of education.
8. Resolve conflicts between individuals. Approach controversy with caution and political astuteness.
9. Help teachers in planning effective remedial instruction under “Learning Support Center”. Evaluate teacher performance, effectively.
10. Ensure punctuality in school and timetable immaculate.
11. Pen down visual/photographic and written history of school.
12. Develop emergency response team, as they are imperative for any developmental perspective.
13. Manage and measure work: Clearly assign responsibility for tasks and decisions; set clear objectives and measures; monitor processes, progress, and results frequently; design feedback loops into work.
14. As Chairperson of Academic Council and Secretary Academics to PVC enhance instructional dimension of school and its faculty. This aspect of school leadership has become core of reforms. Remember instructional leaders are not reticent about using their role authority to “make things happen”.
15. Capacity building. It’s a process by which you enhance ability to identify and meet developmental challenges and inturn strengthen knowledge base, abilities, skills and behavior of individuals helping institution to achieve set goals. Develop second line of educational leaders, as they will carry forward your hard work ahead.
16. Guarantee quality and results. This will come when you instill sense of accountability in faculty. If you were able to generate sense of accountability then you would be reinventing role of “VP”. Try to establish rigorous and fair system of accountability for every person in the campus.
17. You must factor the knowledge of other effective schools and effective teaching into our own educational philosophy and beliefs.
18. Make Staff Welfare Committees active, effective and operational.
Sr. Head
Master/ H.M
No strategy of educational reconstruction will produce the desired result, unless it is laced and administered with vision and driven with efficiency. The person who plans with vision could be the Manager but the person who executes with responsibility is virtually the Headmaster ably guided by the Vice Principal and Principal. A school becomes effective because of its educational leaders and not because of inflated ego or protocol of Management. Headmaster is a man of faith of Management, Principal and VP.
The duties of HMs are extension or articulation of Principal and Vice Principal. He acts as a Supervisor as well as administrator. Supervision means overseeing teacher performance and proper implementation of authority of Principal and Vice Principal. Administration primarily encompasses discipline amongst students but Supervision is no more defined as detection or faultfinding. HM is more of a guide, instrumental for bringing about positive change in the faculty and the students. He must supervise their work, check irregularities, check inefficiency and ensure regular and prompt implementation of decisions.
Desirable
1. Set high standards for students and staff. Be fair and consistent in policies and actions. Learn to delegate authority and ensure accountability in return.
2. Act as an interface between staff, student and Vice Principal/ Principal.
3. Establish procedure to evaluate performance of students. Ensure frequent evaluation to map every student’s developmental coordinates.
4. Supervise in a fair manner discipline and attendance.
5. Demonstrate highest ethical and professional behavior.
6. Keep the VP/Principal advised of faculty not meeting contractual obligations.
7. Maintain adequate inventory in school.
8. Ensure discipline in school campus and in school busses.
9. Create a think-tank. Ideas are what drive an organization towards constant improvement. Identify specific areas of concern and brainstorm solutions.
10. Support individual professional growth and sharing of best practices through peer coaching irrespective of personal loyalties or affiliations.
11. Ensure 100% communication in English within the school campus and in school busses.
12. Create a democratic learning community. Imaginative leaders move the organization smoothly from established practices towards emerging parameters of educational development. Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”.
13. Promote creativity through dramatics, music, art, creative writing, painting, quizzes, debate, declamation and sports activity.
14. Organize frequent Inter House competitions to instill spirit of achievement.
15. Promote desire for competitions in students with other schools.
16. Organise Swimming Pool activity.
17. Organize cultural nights to promote music and dramatics.
18. Plan and evolve “special classes” for students of boarding under Learning Support Center.
Academic Council
Concept of Academic Council is being placed to effectively contribute to the enhancement of quality educational practices and explore determinants that are responsive to indentified or emerging needs of quality facilitators. Academic Council will function as a bridge between Principal/ VP for execution and planning of syllabus, timely completion of course content, Home Work, Class Work Plan, Prep, CCE and development of instructional parameters. VP will chair the Academic Council meetings once in every month to review performance of teachers in delivery of pedagogy. She would in turn send a report to Principal and PVC for their information.
VP is empowered to take decisions regarding ways to improve on quality and content. A Coordinator is being appointed from these teachers who will act as a bridge between her and the various subject members nominated to the Academic Council. This council will also evaluate and monitor progress of students in school with special emphasis on boarders. They would activate “Learning Support Center” and lay down prep plan for evening and make it effective and stimulate educational interest of the students. In summary Academic Council should evolve and mature into center for promotion of academic excellence in the school.
Sr. HM and HM cum DSWL will be special invitees to Academic Council. Vice Principal will also act as Academic Secretary of DPS BHAGALPUR to PVC.
House Masters
House Masters play a crucial role in shaping residential houses in a boarding cum day schools like DPS Bhagalpur. Culture of residential houses is effectively being given direction by respective House Masters. To start with the most important role a House Master is expected to play is that of a fruitful “Leader”. He should be able to effectively provide leadership in planning and developing intellectually stimulating activities in the House in concert with students in boarding and faculty. A House Master has to work collaboratively with the House Warden to model and develop a quality educational experience in boarding.
In hours of crisis House Masters will be responsible for addressing issues that is at the core of the problem. He will be working closely with Dean Student Welfare and provide academic and social counseling to students. He will be responsible for general discipline of the students.
It’s mandatory for House Masters to conduct House Meetings once in a month and monitor development of individual boarders in their house. They are to be there in Dinning Hall during meals so as to ensure proper discipline and maintenance of hygienic conditions. All the exits and entry slips have to have approval of respective House Masters on or after holiday/outing or vacation.
Teachers
A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame. The teacher who has come to the end of his subject, who has no living raffic with his knowledge, but merely repeats his lessons to his students, can only load their minds. He cannot quicken them, Sri Rabindra Nath Tagore.
The role of teacher in school is basic to development and sustainable progress of any school. If you travel down your memory lane you would feel that your teachers were the ones who really made the difference in your life and you still relish their interactions and remember them till date. I am of a firm opinion that I am obliged to my parents for my birth but I am indebted to them as they taught me how to put my birth to some use in this world.
We are interested in having teachers who promote “active disbelief” in what they are teaching in process of education in classroom and are simultaneously able to “model respect” in their knowledge. If you are able to generate “active disbelief” in students regarding your content then your 100% effort to develop “inquisitive students” is achieved. For any student to be a “good learner” he has to have an “exploring mind”.
Today’s teachers as you are, have an extended role to play and that’s of empowering students to emerge as competent youth, worthy to take on challenges of a constantly changing world. It’s pertinent that you too keep yourself adapted and are aware of the requirements of what that’s the future global citizens need to inculcate in order to make a mark for themselves. You have to raise your bar of teaching every day in order to constantly enhance quality of delivery of education. The reputation and rise of DPS Bhagalpur is directly proportional to your effort and commitment towards ethos of you being a good “teacher”. You should make yourself accountable for performance of students; henceforth you would be evaluated at frequent intervals.
Desirable
1. As a teacher you need to achieve excellence coupled with equity and social justice by adhering to imparting quality education equally to all students without any iota of discrimination.
2. Be immaculately dressed as you are a role model and first point of contact and impression maker of DPS Bhagalpur. Your reflections of perfection will create an image of school in the minds of students and community of Bhagalpur.
3. Reflect highest standard of discipline, dignity and democratic practices inside and outside the campus, for your actions will roll opinions of all the stakeholders of school either way.
4. Use school bus to commute to and fro so that you know each child informally first and formally thereafter. When a student is able to identify himself with you emotionally, informally in school bus he will automatically communicate with you formally inside the campus. This smooth transition either way will make you a more effective teacher, as you would be able to establish individual contacts with them. School busses are extension of school campus.
5. For being a good teacher you need to always catch attention of students and that can be best achieved when you start your informal communication channel outside the campus.
6. Attend morning assemblies regularly so that students who are not being taught by you still know you by your name.
7. Whenever you get an opportunity you should ensure giving them examples of moral principles and the benefits they would accrue out of it.
8. Instill sense of belonging in every student for Social Values.
9. Maintain teachers diary honestly. A teacher dairy may not be a true reflection of what you have done in school but it will always act as a book for self-satisfaction. Sanctity of teachers’ diary lies in its regular maintenance and constant evaluation by VP/Sr.HM.
10. Be punctual in class so that students learn to tally their watch with your arrival. Your act of punctuality will make you stronger in commitment and will entail constancy to purpose in your career. Be a role model as time is the only crucial element and essence in our lives.
11. In classroom maintain eye-to-eye contact with students so that they have a feeling of being “cared” and “considered”.
12. Ensure two-way communication in class to maximize effect in your teaching. Allow students to actively participate in your delivery of educational content.
13. Prepare yourself well with the topic and subject before entering your teaching session.
14. Before opening your lecture ensure that students are motivated and attentive to you. This can be achieved by your gracious presence, immaculate conduct and little bit of effort towards toning down the atmosphere with anecdotes, narration of any event in assembly or elsewhere, or by cracking of jokes.
15. Do not make your teaching style monotonous. Use different methods of teaching and styles so that students remain glued to your delivery of content.
16. Explore opportunities to interact with students to induce creativity, motivate and provoke positive thinking.
17. Ensure that you and your students speak English in class and inside the campus. Make students learn etiquettes how to represent themselves in school like wishing teachers and staff with “good morning Sir/Madame” etc. Inculcate in them values of discipline. Serious and repeated misconduct should be brought to the notice of H.M cum Dean Student Welfare and thereafter VP/Principal.
18. As a class teacher appoint monitors for different duties. This act of yours will instill onus of responsibility and belief of being desired in students.
19. Induce a learning environment by involving students in creating and decorating classroom board with works of great people. Number of students should be divided into five groups so that every group gets a chance of “creativity” at least once in a week. The group that puts up the best performance should be judged by you and be rewarded every Saturday or Monday with announcement of their names class wise in assembly by the Principal/VP/HM.
20. You should use more of visual aid in teaching, as it’s easier for students to retain content of subject that you have taught. Science teachers should ensure more of practical and make best use of labs. Social Science or language teachers should frequently take students for trips to sites of historical importance. To me Science is related to understanding and leading a good life in this era of technology and social science makes students relate with social dynamics and culture.
21. Encourage reading habits by frequently updating students and informing them about the latest literary pieces available in the market.
22. Identify the gifted and slow learners and modulate your teaching accordingly so that the performance of every student is uniform. Some students may be good in education and some may love to excel in sports, music, art or painting. Try to bring out the best in every student with elate ease.
23. Establish rapport with students by communicating positive values. Communicate with parents frequently as they are one of the important stakeholders in “triangle of education”.
24. Keep yourself updated with ever evolving changes in educational parameters and work on improving readiness level of all students.
25. Promote National Integration in every student. Your pedagogy should instill obsession for Nation.
26. Master on Duty, House Masters and Wardens should promote healthy Mess Habit in boarders. Appoint Prefects to monitor Mess/ Dinning Hall habits. Ensure proper upkeep of dinning hall, kitchen, store clean, proper placement of utensils. The cooking of food should be in hygienic condition. Seating and servicing of food should be without any noise. Proper discipline should be ensured. Arrange light music and recycle of waste so that the meal experience of students is relishing.
27. All Housemasters along with house teachers should religiously hold house meetings on one Saturday every month in Plaza to evaluate performance of their House in academics and sports. Proper minutes of those meetings should be maintained and reported to H.M and V.P regularly. The number of houses are being restricted to four.
28. All teachers should visit their houses in Hostel at least once in a fortnight while students are in the dormitories. The Hostel Wardens are to maintain records of such visits of teachers and report to H.M and Dean Social Welfare for boys and VP for girls on monthly basis in B/W. The visit should not be cosmetic. It should extend care and proper interaction with students. Teachers can go in a group of 4 to maximize effect. This is compulsory and there should not be compromises on this issue of fruitful visits.
29. You should visit sports activity area frequently instead of sitting in staff room. All school functions are compulsory and any absence should be treated by Principal/VP as “acts of serious defiance” and should draw proper administrative action. There should not be any scope for compromises.
30. You need to be alive to the needs and requirements of students in the school during every minute of your presence in the campus.
31. Reflect instructional leadership, community leadership, visionary leadership, cultural leadership and accountability in your character and conduct.
Conduction of successful
ceremonies, evolving of school’s Culture
Every ceremony in school entails cultural value and goes down as part of making of history of school. Ceremonies, traditions or rituals work effectively if it communicates deeper values and purposes, is well organized and run, and has a touch of grandeur and sense of belongingness. To me ceremonies in school are like statements inscribed on rear view mirror of cars, “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear”. Our past is closer to us than it seems to appear; it affects every student and us more than what we tend to recollect and enjoy. These ceremonies of culture do shape every student’s present and outlines their future. Never forget a well-defined strong culture plays an important role in exemplary performance of any enterprise and achieving of dreams that may appear distant for organizations and may not have a culture for conduction of their life in routine.
Beneath the conscious awareness of everyday life in schools there is a stream of thought and activity forming element and pattern of school’s culture. Cultural patterns and traditions evolve and take root over a period of time. They are initiated much before the school doors are flung open to students. Culture becomes indispensible part of every student’s upbringing. A rich culture amplifies the energy, motivation and vitality of school. Trice and Beyer (1985) said, “Successful ceremonies often combine meaningful set of elements”.
Special elements in ceremonies can include the following aspects: -
· Draft out do’s and don’ts for the ceremony
· Minutely plan and assign duties to faculty and students. Involve students so that they learn the nuances of staging of programs
· A special and value linked purpose
· Proper theme and occasion based invitation cards
· Symbolic clothing and adornments
· Symbols, signs, banners, buntings, or flags
· Proper color coordination and decoration in making of stage in consonance with subject of the ceremony
· Stories of history, accomplishment, unusual effort
· A distinctive manner of speaking or presentation
· An invocation of deeper purpose and values
· Attention to who is invited and where they sit
· Recognition of those who have shown exemplary commitment
· Appropriately chosen and varied music
· A carefully selected, attractive setting
· Value filled language and commentary in shape of fillers
· Meaningful symbols and artifacts befitting occasion
· Recounting of myths, legends or stories about the school
· Adequate publicity of event through press and media. The press release should hover around theme and purpose of the ceremony
· Proper choice of Quality food
· Successful ceremonies are carefully designed and arranged to communicate values, celebrate core accomplishments and build a right sense of community
A system cannot estimate its success or failures; an independent person sitting on the outskirts can notice and asses from outside. I have been watching performances since inception of first sesion and now I feel drawn to affect change with support of Principal and his faculty. The outside view is invaluable but inside view is equally important. Make a honest self assesment of achievements of school. In case of DPS Bhagalpur the rate of success has been abysmally slow in comparison the independence and benefits extended.
If all of you recall world’s ancient history, brave mariners frequently set out to discover unknown territories with only vaguest of ideas up their sleevs about where they were heading. Thousands of vessels perished in their atempts to navigate unknown frontiers. Fortunately in present day world we have tried and tested methods that have withstood trials and tribulations of time. Our navigational system in DPS Bhagalpur would now be SHAM illustrated above. All the strategies briefly discussed will be core to developmental initiatives in school and the ultimate objective of every one at DPS Bhagalpur should be “Holistic Development of every Individual Child”.
my best wishes and trust is with you all for a milestone performance in session 2012-13. come let us join hands and undertake the journey with a commitment for vsion of management of dps bahaglpur. let us ensure growth in every child and community connecetd with the school.
