“One of the best weekends of my life… In any field, if you are looking for a way to develop the relationships and tenacity of your leaders, take them to Bowles. It is a life changing weekend and year on year I have seen colleagues change before my eyes in the hands of the Bowles skilled instructors.” Diana Osagie Education Partnership
About the Education Partnership programme
For the fourth year in a row Bowles hosted a development event for aspiring Head and Deputy Head Teachers. The event has been designed in partnership with Ankhara Lloyd-Hunte from the Education Partnership and Diana Osagie. Through the Bowles activities, they developed awareness that they have within them the ability to undertake and excel at the professional challenges ahead of them. With Ankhara’s and Diana’s guidance they have developed a strong understanding of the importance of values-driven authentic leadership. While the Bowles instructional team has facilitated many inspirational journeys, this group of highly driven educators always stands out for us because they leave such a positive impression behind them. We wish them every success. Each will be a true asset within any school in which they work and ultimately for the young people whose lives they will influence.
The objectives of the programme
This programme is designed to show participants that they are capable of far more than they might believe. The overall aim is to grow individual courage and perseverance as a leader. Specific programme outcomes are for individuals to:
- Understand what constitutes a Great Team
- Gain experience of leading a Great Team
- Build a network and share experiences
- Leave with a sense of belief for the challenges ahead
Powerful activities are linked to input sessions, debrief sessions and facilitated discussion sessions. All of these sessions are carefully geared towards exploring with them the difficulties they are likely to face given their cultural background and the environments they will be working in.
In order to achieve the specific outcomes listed above, the programme is a combination of the following key elements:
- Input Session – Leading Great Teams.
- Complex experiential activities with highly constructive debrief discussion.
- Discussion on working in competition with other teams or in conjunction with them.
- Powerful debrief discussions exploring:
- responsibility within a High Performing Team
- communication and its power as a leadership tool
- supporting staff
- self-reflection
- What helped you to be courageous & carry on to succeed
Did the Bowles programme achieve these objectives?
Below is a selection of the post-course evaluation comments and learning outcomes .
“I do not need to have all the knowledge, just be able to source it, work to the teams strengths.”
“I will now be more aware of how to manage a team. In addition I will reflect more on my leadership style.”
“For me the most important thing was to overcome certain fears. I learned that you can do anything (almost) if you have team support and I will use this everyday.”
“Be more myself, do not be afraid to take on challenge of any nature, listen more, be more assertive and most of all believe that I can do and just get on with it.”