CBSE says that school principals should be ‘Pedagogical leaders’. What exactly does it mean?

What is Pedagogy ?

It is the study of how knowledge and skills are exchanged in an educational context, and it considers the interactions that take place during learning.

In brief it is the study of  teaching and learning process.

What is Leadership ?

Leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a company or organization common goal.

When we combine Pedagogy and leadership it becomes ‘Pedagogical Leaders’.

The role of Pedagogical Leaders :

Pedagogical leaders will impact in teaching and learning by establishing school norms of continuous quality improvement.

Pedagogical leaders should influence the enduring importance of  Parent’s involvement in children’s learning and also has to be very proficient in using the school data for evaluating the effectiveness of  learning program, and meeting school standards to optimize the learning environments.

Pedagogical leadership, on the other hand, is the management of personnel learning, and its implementation is defined by each leader’s own learning concept.

Characteristics of a Pedagogical Leadership  :

1. Constant Learning -has to create a environment where it teaches the teachers & students that they not only need constantly educate themselves and importantly they need to keep sharing their knowledge with the team.

Just modeling good listening skills and talking about the positive aspects of doing this will incorporate this characteristic into any lesson.

2. Pedagogical Leadership should radiate Positive energy – It is proved that the leaders who radiates a positive energy is likely to attract those who want to be around them and will be more successful in leadership roles

3. Believe in your own Team – If someone who truly believes the leader and with  few words of encouragement from leader can do for a person and they work out of the box for the task to accomplish

4. Pedagogical Leaders sees every obstacle as an opportunity—any successful Leader takes on challenges and looks at them not as a burden or something that is insurmountable, but as someone exploring their best options.

This has to be incorporated into a lesson through presenting problems that need to be solved. The leader not only has the task of presenting the problem, but must actively engage his team to explore possible solutions that will ultimately resolve it.

The Principals  shall therefore now have a crucial role to play in the evolution of the teaching-learning ecosystem as the Head and pedagogical leader of their schools.

CBSE expects the role of school pedagogical leader, the Principal is expected to undertake the following:

a.  Lead, Guide and Support the teaching and learning processes in the school by
focusing on classroom specific requirements for transacting the curriculum, so that
both teachers and students perform at their optimal best.

b.  Direct the entire focus of all school activities towards the students’ learning and acquiring of necessary competencies. Every activity taken up by the school therefore should be mapped for the academic competencies, and for life skills, values, etc.,being acquired by the student.

c.  Prepare annual pedagogical plan of the school by designing and developing annual plan for the school by giving equal importance to scholastic and co-scholastic areas.

d.  Promote innovative pedagogy, with special focus on integrating art, sport and ICT
(Information and Communication Technology) with education, and use active and
experiential learning methods in the classrooms.

e.  Ensure joyful learning at all levels through use of such innovative pedagogy.

f.  Develop school specific resources for teaching and learning, in the form of lesson
plans, e-content, use of mathematics and science kits developed by NCERT, etc.

g.  Ensure proper in-house training of teachers in the school to enable them to
unleash their own unique capabilities and creativity in their classrooms.

h.  To be up to date with all new ideas and tools, etc. being used in education at the
global level and constantly innovate the pedagogy of the school.

i.  To make efforts to learn from the best practices of other schools, by arranging for
discussions with Principals of such schools, or through observation visits of teachers to
other schools.

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