Being an Associate Dean 🔌🔗

I’ve always wanted to be active in the school beyond teaching in the classroom. I knew that I wanted to take on a role that let me see a different side of the school, to get more familiar with how processes run, and understand how teaching fits in the wider school life. I was happy to do this in any area that came up within the school, and each year, towards the end of the year, roles always come up.¹ I knew that it would be a push for a second year Ako Mātātupu teacher (still an LAT!) to apply for any role beyond being a classroom teacher.

Applying for a role ‘that you should hope you don’t get’.

At MRGS, we have five houses: Ngata, Rutherford, Cooper, Hillary and Sheppard. Each house has three deans associated with it. The first two are the Dean and Associate Dean and the next is the Academic Dean. The first two and the later role stand apart from each other in terms of the work that is required of the role and the amount of time spent in the Dean’s Centre. Sometimes deans are associated with particular year levels, but at MRGS the two Deans are the heads of house and act as a pastoral support for the house. The Academic Dean is responsible for ensuring that students are supported academically.

At the end of 2022, an Associate Dean role was advertised (in fact two Associate Dean roles were open). I spoke to many of my colleagues at MRGS prior to applying for the role. Much of the feedback was “Yes, you’d make a great Dean, but just not yet”, and comments along the lines of “Deans do so much work, are you sure you’re ready?”. Part of me wanted to apply just to show the school that I was interested in taking on these roles in the future if anything came up, and I wasn’t sure what I’d be getting myself into if I was given the opportunity to be an associate dean.

One of the last people I asked about the role was my HOD. I told her that I wanted to apply for the associate dean position because I was keen to show the school that I was interested in different positions within the school. Her advice was (in the nicest possible way): “Apply, but hope like hell you don’t get it!”²

Interviewing, getting and accepting the role!

I prepared for the interview by trying to answer all the questions they could ask a teacher about pastoral care for tauira, as well as generally having good answers for any questions that might come up. I often try to have answers in STAR (Situation, Task, Actions, Reflection) format, so I have examples that I can use ready to go. I also like to view questions that previous Deans, Head of Departments or Deputy Principals might see, so I am ready for any left-field questions.

On the morning of the interview, I said to my colleague Miss C, I have an interview for the Associate Dean role this morning and “I’m anxious about the interview”. She said wow, that’s amazing. I said to her, “yeah, but I don’t know if I’ll get the job”, she pointed out that they wouldn’t be interested in interviewing me if I didn’t get an interview and told me that they don’t automatically interview everyone. I was then more anxious. I thought to myself, great “what happens if I do well in the interview?”

The interview went well. The questions were a mix of what would you do in this situation (“You’re the only one in the Dean’s Centre and x, y and z happen; what do you do?”) and how do you see your place in the school. It was fairly short, maybe 15 or 20 minutes. I walked out feeling good, but I refocused on my remaining days of school placements (I was at Western Springs College but took an hour off to do my interview). I feel like my answer in particular to the situational question: “First I would look for support…” really did the trick, and was the question that was really aligned to what we would be doing on a daily basis.

My first week being a dean.

I was very anxious going into to work with my new role. I confided my major concern about the role to L, my mentor, this was wanted to be a good Dean, and I don’t know if I am right now. “What does it mean to be a good Dean?”, Laura asked. I said that “I need to be able to take a statement, and I need to be able to do a pastoral.” I have felt like I am about two times as busy as I was in 2022. This is both good and bad. While I initially enjoyed working 0.6 FTTE last year, I found the pace to be fairly easy once I had done my first two terms.³ Where I found it easy to find time to do personal admin, marking, planning, or many other tiny tasks teachers do last year, I’m finding the time I have remaining for those activities gone this year, so far.

I also was also totally reliant on other Dean’s or DPs to do my job initially. Because I didn’t have the skills in taking a statement or doing a pastoral, I was asking every time I needed to do something in the Dean’s Centre, or any time anyone asked me to do something. This feels quite foreign even though I’ve only been teaching for a year, you often get left to ‘get on with it’ in the classroom⁴, you need to know what you are doing in the Dean’s Centre, because the stakes are higher and we are dealing with whanau and trying to be impartial in our approach to working through pastoral care issues.

Thoughts on being a dean after a term.

It makes you a better (and worse) teacher.

• Better: Dealing with things in the classroom rather than referring to Deans. As a Dean myself, I do not want to refer things that are happing in my classroom to the Dean’s Centre. Of course, if it is serious enough, I will send students to the Dean’s Centre, but I know that creates a lot of work for the Dean’s Centre, and it might not be the best for establishing a relationship with the students directly, or making sure you are respected in the classroom.
• Better: Chatting with parents and giving up worrying about communicating with parents. It is liberating to be in a position where you don’t need to worry about calling home. I am less worries about when to call or what to say to parents. Things don’t always go to plan on the phone, and they aren’t as tidy as email (which is more of a one way message), but often you can get on the same side, and understand where a caregiver is coming from – it is very powerful.
• Better: Forming deeper relationships with tauira. You understand the reason why some tauira end up in the Dean’s Centre, and understand that relationships in the classroom are key to students being in class and learning better. I’m also lucky to teach Y9s that are in my house, so I see them in the classroom and in the Dean’s Centre, which builds on that relationship.
• Better (and worse): The role gives you extra kudos in the classroom. Good if used wisely (still having a decent pedagogy, still caring about student welfare), bad if you don’t understand why other teachers struggle with classroom management. This is a point that I picked up from reading Running the Room: People who have positions of power in the school have very little classroom management issues because of their position and attribute their classroom management to their own skills rather than their position.⁵ They then find it had to see why others don’t have the ‘knack’ for classroom management .
• Worse: ‘Three step’ plans and ‘default’ teaching. One negative aspect to being a dean is the amount of time given to the role, and the negative impact that has on your teaching, which I’ve written about on my post on my default teaching style.

What makes a good Dean?

Being a good dean is less about the processes (taking statements and doing pastorals) and more about working as a team and with students. The real mahi comes from developing relationships with tauira, colleagues and whanau. Creating good relationships with colleagues inside and outside the dean’s centre makes it easier to do you role effectively. While it may be hard to measure exactly how good a relationship you have with a students and whanau; I can see the impact it makes on the behaviour of tauira in school and their demeanour towards school. This ultimately creates a better environment for ako to take place.

References

Footnotes

^[1] I think that this is one of the many benefits to being in a bigger school. There are so many roles and responsibilites that go around, that you can apply for, and they have a higher turn over of roles.

^[2] She was keen for me to show the school that I was keen to take on something within the school, but knew that the Dean’s role was a lot of work. She has always been supportive of me, and I cannot say how great a leader she is for our department.

^[3] On Mondays I had one class (Y12) during P4 – what a way to start the week! I’m actually ‘teaching’ 0.5 FTTE now, rather than 0.6 FTTE last year. My other 0.2 FTTE is made up of official time spend at the Dean’s Centre. I should also have 0.3 FTTE as mentoring and non-contact time. I mostly achieve this (I have 5 periods designated away from the Dean’s Centre, and two mentoring sessions a week). While I am supposed to be away from the Dean’s Centre, it often doesn’t make sense to have a non-contact at the end of the day. I’m now also busy at Intervals and Lunchtimes, where previously I only had duty once weekly.

^[4]I should say here that my support network has been amazing, and while I was mostly left to teach my classes, and questions I did have would be answered, and any support, even a friendly ear was always there.

^[5]I should be careful not to overstate this. Some students are not aware or have forgotten I am a dean, and you still need to have routines and structure to have a good learning environment; good classroom management is not all based on the students’ deference to your position.