MOUNT Gambier High School principal Chris Edmonds is one of three South East school leaders who will embark on an educational journey to Sydney in January next year.
Mr Edmonds will attend an Australian-first Harvard University leadership education program aimed at developing his instructional leadership and management skills ahead of the 2020 school year.
Through case studies, faculty-led sessions and facilitated discussion groups, The Principals’ Centre in Australia: Leadership for School Excellence program will provide educators an opportunity to become more effective school leaders.
Participants will develop a personalised leadership plan to help extend learning at their high school’s.
The program will focus on areas of critical importance to Australian school leaders including instructional leadership, school culture, leadership development, strategy and family and community engagement.
“School leaders are currently under a lot of pressure to deliver change and improvements,” Mr Edmonds said.
“The education system itself is still based on a lot of traditional models of expectations and recording, but there are a lot of demands on our system.”
Mr Edmonds said he was excited to be selected for the program and hoped to bring skills back to the secondary school in time for a new cohort of students.
“I like to think of myself as a life long learner,” he said.
“I hope to improve my own professional reading and leadership skills through being involved in the training development opportunities.
“It will allow me to better prepared to deal with some of the up and coming challenges.”
The leadership program includes a range of school leaders and principals from government, independent and Catholic schools in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.
Penola Primary School principal Anna Copping and Millicent North Primary School principal Graham Slarks will join Mr Edmonds for the four-day program.
“We do not get these opportunities much and there are so many demands in schools so I thought I would give it a go,” Mr Edmonds said.
“I am looking forward to using it to change our thinking structures across the school.
“We have an excellent staff here at the school and I am impressed with how our leadership team and our staff are thinking about these changes.
“I am excited to get involved and improve my current practices and things that are not working before moving towards setting new goals to improve both myself and the school.”
