Leadership for sustainability

Taihape Area School Case Study: Sustainability

Note the statements in the clip that summarise various stakeholders’ beliefs about what is necessary for changes to be sustained. These include:

The unity of a school community in their commitment to change: “I don’t believe it will fall over if individuals leave … Now I believe there’s a strength within the staff and a strength within the iwi to continue and make it happen” (teacher).
Student and community ownership of change: “It’s only sustainable if the kids and their whānau and community believe in it. If it’s something that’s driven by leadership and the staff … we’re just servants of the community … But if it’s done in partnership with the students, and it’s been done for them and they believe in it, they’ll retain that … and they’ll demand through servanthood and through leadership that it is retained” (principal).
Teacher ownership of change: “We continue to look forward, move forward, with the concept of student first, student requirements first, and I don’t think we’ll ever lose that” (teacher).
Thinking ahead: “We’ve now got two [iwi] reps on the board … We learnt that because of succession … when one comes off, and leaves it, there was a long gap before we could fill it … we realised from an iwi perspective that it would be better for us to always have two, so that when one comes off you’ve got time to get a learner … so you’ve got your tuakana and your teina.” (Te Kauhua facilitator).