'Intensive Interaction in a Special School: The Leadership Challenge' - interesting quotes from a chapter by school Principal Ric Day.

Ric Day is the Principal of Woody Point Special School in Queensland, Australia. He has has been a leader in a variety of roles within special education for over a decade as a Principal, Deputy Principal and Head of Special Education Services. 

Below I set out a series of quotes from his chapter 'Intensive Interaction in a Special School: The Leadership Challenge' in the new book Delivering Intensive Interaction Across Settings: Practice, Community and Leadership (Barber & Firth, Eds, 2019).

'In all schools, and probably all organisations, we need strong relationships and high trust. Intensive Interaction ... asks us to be more vulnerable than many other teaching approaches. Therefore the strength of our relationships and levels of trust need to be higher'.

'We must carefully consider how we sell our ideas to our staff and communities. We must build a narrative to help our teachers connect their practice with making a difference for students.'

'While anecdotal evidence is often poor research it is usually a good motivator ... I’m not in any way trivialising the importance of quality research, data gathering and analysis and using evidence to make good decisions. That is very much the job of good educational leaders. My point is simply that research and data should act as the compass that guides us on our journey, but we should not rely upon it solely to be the wind that fills our sails.'

'Leadership is an exercise in moving a community forward by taking others with you'.

'I think it’s beneficial to have the involvement and commitment of staff at all levels of the organisation. Members of the leadership team, teachers, teachers’ aides and therapists should all be involved at some level. Everybody has something to contribute.'

'As leaders we must create the right culture, for cohesive teams to exist and to build purposeful peer interactions. We must make sure that we maintain high expectations, recognise contributions of team members, and create feedback rich environments'.

'Essentially, I believe that in order to mobilise a workforce you need to make people feel something. Thinking alone doesn’t cut it. Intensive Interaction comes with its own intrinsic reward, practitioners already feel something when they interact with students and generally my experience is that they want more'.

'In my experience a school that has a strong commitment to Intensive Interaction typically has a school culture that is student centred and deeply respectful toward all students'.

'The most wonderful thing about school culture and Intensive Interaction is their symbiotic relationship. While the school culture I have described above will contribute to the effective implementation of Intensive Interaction, the implementation of Intensive Interaction also most certainly contributes to a more positive school culture'.

'At the outset I stated that leadership is difficult, and it is. It requires us to be a great many things to a great many people. It requires us to be careful guardians of change, skilful users of data and esteemed researchers. However, I believe that above all else it is the empowerment of practitioners, the development of a positive school culture with high trust relationships and the creation of a collegial and collaborative community of practice that are the keys to successfully embedding Intensive Interaction across a whole school community'.

Read more from Ric's chapter in the book 'Delivering Intensive Interaction Across Settings' Kindle Edition - £0.99 from Amazon 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07NRGFS3R/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550225112&sr=1-5