Leading in Isolated Schools with Jess Wilson

Jenny Cole: 1:02

Hello and welcome to Positively Leading the Podcast. I'm Jenny Cole and it's my pleasure today to be joined by Jess Wilson, who is currently the Deputy Principal Catered to at Doomadgee Primary School in Queensland. Welcome, Jess. Thanks, Jenny. Thanks for having me. Jess, I'm really curious to hear a little bit about your leadership journey, because 2024 was your first year as a Deputy Principal. Could you share a bit about your leadership journey? Because 2024 was your first year as a deputy principal, could you share a bit about your journey up until this point?

Jess Wilson: 1:32

Yeah, certainly. So. I graduated about 10 years ago from James Cook University in Townsville and after I graduated I went straight overseas and I taught in London for two years, which was a really exciting adventure. And then, when I returned to Australia, I found a job in a school in Townsville and I had some amazing opportunities there. But after about 10 years I was ready for some leadership opportunities. So I ended up out at Doomadgee and it's been an adventure, to say the least.

Jenny Cole: 1:59

For those of us who aren't that familiar with Queensland where is Doomadgee? And when you say out here, how far out.

Jess Wilson: 2:06

Doomadgee is in the Gulf of Queensland, so it's right up the top there, about six hours north of Mount Isa, and it can be pretty remote in terms of the wet season because we get flooded in.

Jenny Cole: 2:17

Yes, and my guess is you're in the middle of wet season about now, so has it been a wet, wet season?

Jess Wilson: 2:23

Not yet. We've had some few storms and a little bit of weather that's sitting around, but nothing that's trapped us in yet.

Jenny Cole: 2:28

And for those people who are perhaps listening from outside Australia, that's about as remote as you can get. So 10 years at your previous school, lots of opportunities. You had some lead teacher and you were leading a whole range of things. We'll talk about that in a moment. But what prompted you to go so remote and what has it taught you in the time that you've been there?

Jess Wilson: 2:53

So we were just looking for an opportunity to do something that was really different and I went to a careers fair in Brisbane and the first, I suppose, stall or person I ran into happened to be a deputy principal from Domogy State School. And the way that she sold the school and the community and the whole adventure I just knew it was something that I wanted to be a part of. I'm really lucky. I've got a very supportive partner and he worked for Queensland Ambulance Service for 20 years and he was looking for something totally different. So he's also working at the school and has come out here with me and it's been a great adventure.

Jenny Cole: 3:28

Fantastic. So first year as a deputy. What does that entail? What do you lead? What does a day in the life of a deputy at Doomadgee look like?

Jess Wilson: 3:37

I think that's what I love most about the rollout at Doomadgee State School. A day in the life of a deputy is something different every single day, so we can go from doing instructional leadership and working in classrooms with teachers to serving lunch at the kitchen, to doing the bus run, to being out and about in the community. So it's a really flexible role where we get to be involved in lots of different parts of the school, which is really exciting work to be a part of, and my guess is that's what was different to you being in a teaching role is that you now see all aspects of a school's operations.

Jenny Cole: 4:11

What did you have no idea about before you got into that role?

Jess Wilson: 4:15

It really does give you an opportunity to see the bigger picture in terms of our education department. It's really easy in a classroom teacher role to be quite stuck in that my classroom and my kids and what that means for me but when you're in a leadership role, it's just amazing to see what a big operation this department really is and the impact that it has in terms of finance and strategic operations, management, staffing, hr. It really is a massive organization.

Jenny Cole: 4:45

And it's the sort of thing people will often come to me and say I need to learn more, and sometimes you just can't learn it until you are literally on the job.

Jess Wilson: 4:55

Absolutely and, I think, rely on the people that are there to support. So I've found, since I've been out here, there's always someone on the other end of the phone who can point you in the right direction or give you a contact to someone that you need to talk to. So you don't need to know it all to start off in leadership. It's just about knowing who to contact and ask for help.

Jenny Cole: 5:13

Yeah, and just asking for help, and knowing that there's no shame in asking for help. Everybody starts somewhere and you're absolutely right, there's someone on the end of the phone always. It might not be the first person you ring, but you'll get there eventually who's done it before and who can point you in the right direction. Let's talk a little bit about your leadership style. You describe yourself as highly relational and someone who leads with heart. What does this look like? How do you foster meaningful relationships with staff and students? Let's start there.

Jess Wilson: 5:43

I think it's start off with spending time, so I really am working very hard at being as visible as I can be in the classrooms and as visible as I can be in the community. In a school like Doherty State School. Our community is our heart and it's really important that we are involved in that as much as we can be, and it's about listening to what people need to be able to support them at their role. Teaching is a really hard gig and I've only been out of the classroom for 12 months and I don't forget that hard work and what it takes to be able to lead little people to learn, so it's really important that leadership listen to what teachers need in order to support them.

Jenny Cole: 6:20

And on the flip side of that, sometimes people new into leadership who still remember what it feels like the pain of being in classrooms. Sometimes the danger of that is you are too helpful and too accommodating, do you find yourself?

Jess Wilson: 6:36

ever slipping into that trap? Yeah, definitely. I'm a really driven person and I've just recently been listening to your podcast with Pete Stebbings around what that means, and sometimes for me that does mean that I do too much for others who are more than capable of doing those things themselves, and that can lead into this the expectations that I will constantly be doing things when I shouldn't be so this year, I really need to focus on what's my work and what's other people's work and how I can support them to get that done.

Jenny Cole: 7:03

Yes, yes, because we all find ourselves sometimes at the end of the day thinking why am I doing this? This is not actually my work to be doing, but it felt good at the time to take it off someone because, again, you know how busy teachers are. Yeah, absolutely, I suppose. So my next question was about setting boundaries. As someone who's really driven and obviously a hard worker and a real person who's really keen on learning, how do you set boundaries, either with kids, parents, teachers.

Jess Wilson: 7:35

Firstly, I think it's important to have really high expectations of everyone, and once you have those expectations, you'll find more often than not that people will step up to meet those expectations. It's personally around work. I try to set some boundaries about what time I come to work and what time I go home and making sure that when I'm home, I do some things that I really enjoy, whether that's just walking the dog with my partner or doing a hobby that I like doing before I sit down and do any further work. Yeah.

Jenny Cole: 8:01

In small communities it's sometimes much harder to have a boundary around home and work, because you will often socialise or see people from work. Again, how do you navigate that?

Jess Wilson: 8:13

To be honest, I'm really enjoying it because I've come from a town that was really big and we often didn't live near the people that you worked with or you wouldn't have seen them on the weekend, so it's a really good opportunity for Dave and I to build some relationships and make some new friendships while we're out here. So it's really been a part of our adventure.

Jenny Cole: 8:29

In the information that you sent to me, you said that you really prioritise the importance of kindness and courage and honesty. Give us an example of what that may have looked like last year, like a real life example of kindness and honesty and courage.

Jess Wilson: 8:44

Well, that's a tricky question. Again. I think it's just about making that time to listen to people, particularly when they're having a hard time. Like, we are a very great team, we are a very close team and it's very evident when you come out to Doomadgee State School that the staff are in it together and they really care about each other. So just taking that time to sit with someone and listen to what might be on their shoulders at the moment, I think, really helps our team become more effective.

Jenny Cole: 9:12

Yeah, I'm still curious, though. My worry about people who are really relational and who put things like kindness first, is that notion that some people might get walked over? You might be too kind or you might be too accommodating? Is it just about having high expectations? Is that the balance? Kindness, but high expectations?

Jess Wilson: 9:32

Yeah, I think you're right. I think it can be really tricky to have a balance and I know there's been a few times where I think that that balance hasn't been right for me and I have been a little bit too far on one way and there's been some mistakes from that. We're really lucky out at Domoji that we get to work with HPT and Heidi McGlashan, because Heidi has given me the processes that I need to be able to run effective teams and I can rely on those processes when I'm discussing my decisions with people, particularly around how to run a staff meeting or a one-to-one line management meeting. That process that Heidi and HPT provide us really gives us that structure to have those difficult conversations and ensure that while we are caring about our staff's wellbeing, we're still achieving our goals and working towards our strategic plan.

Jenny Cole: 10:20

Absolutely. I've got this saying that processes and procedures keep us safe and when we've got the safety net of an agenda or norms or all of those sort of processes, people can then feel safe to share and to have courage. What you sent me, that you're really keen in supporting graduates and developing new teachers and new leaders Talk to me a little bit about the work that you do in that area, because I'm assuming that you've got plenty of early career teachers in your school.

Jess Wilson: 10:48

Definitely, because I'm assuming that you've got plenty of early career teachers in your school. Definitely so. When I was in Townsville working at Annandale State School, I got the opportunity to be a supervising teacher and I got really involved with James Cook University around how we best support them to be great teachers, because that's what our kids need and deserve, and since then I've been able to extend that collaboration, since I've come out to Doomadgee State School. So last year we worked with James Cook University. As part of their they did a bit of a road trip out to Mount Isa and along the way they stopped at lots of rural and remote schools and Doomadgee State School was able to present to the graduates that were coming out as an opportunity to encourage them to do a rural and remote placement or consider Doolmiji as their first job once they graduated.

Jess Wilson: 11:33

Since then we've now extended that opportunity to QUT and so this year myself and a number of our teachers will be traveling down to Brisbane to participate in their roadshow event and encourage them to come and do their placements up here. So that's really exciting. We find that once we get people to come out to Doomoogee and see how amazing the community is, see how amazing our staff and school is. They really want to stay and be a part of what we're doing out here. So that's our focus for 2025. The brand new teachers that we do have out here are great. They've got lots of enthusiasm. They're great at making relationships with our students and what we really focus on is that instructional leadership, so supporting them in those instructional coaching cycles to be able to improve their teaching practices to ensure some better outcomes for our students.

Jenny Cole: 12:24

And that leads me to think you said a bit earlier, you try to be really visible and you try to get out into classrooms and you're obviously doing a real instructional coaching model. How do you fit that in? It's really easy to get sucked into the administrivia. How do you make sure that you've got time for that support, the instructional coaching or even the one-on-one meetings? I definitely try to make that my priority.

Jess Wilson: 12:47

So when I'm looking at planning my day, I think about what things I can do at home coaching or even the one-on-one meetings. I definitely try to make that my priority. So when I'm looking at planning my day, I think about what things I can do at home or outside of school hours and push those things to the side so that when I'm here at school I don't have to be in my office. Because I love working with teachers, I love working with kids, so the opportunity to get out and about is really important for me. We have an amazing collegial framework out here, so learning walks and talks are a part of our practice. We do them every fortnight, so that gives me a great opportunity to get into classrooms. We also have watching others work, where we get to have our teachers go into other classrooms and watch each other work, and we're even looking at sending a number of our teachers to other schools so that they can observe some great practice. So we're really about observing practice and being a part of that.

Jenny Cole: 13:34

Do you find that easier with new career teachers than it perhaps is with those who've been around for a little while? Are the new ones more open to the observation and feedback? Curious to know your thoughts.

Jess Wilson: 13:48

From what I've experienced, teachers in both camps seem to be engaged in our instructional coaching and learning walks and talks and watching others work. Our staff out at WG are really enthusiastic and they're really keen to ensure that our kids are getting a great education out here, because they deserve it. So we find that most of the time our staff will jump at any opportunities they can get to improve their practice.

Jenny Cole: 14:11

And talk to me about learning walks and talks. What does that look like? Watching others work is pretty self-explanatory, but talk about the learning walks and talks.

Jess Wilson: 14:19

So it's focused around Lynn Sherratt's work clarity. So we go into the classrooms once a fortnight and we ask students the five questions for students and observe any other practices while we're in there. So in addition, we might have some other focuses, things like what the third classroom, what their learning walls might look like, or we might be looking at their REDCAT usage or how they're using an explicit teaching model, and then we feed that information back to the staff and we also feed it back to the staff and we also feed it back to our leadership team as a way to determine what professional development we're looking at for the rest of the year to improve teaching practice.

Jenny Cole: 16:21

Excellent. So you're talking to students about the quality and the impact of the teaching and learning. Yeah, excellent, wow. And what about feedback? How, in watching others work in what you've just described, feeding back that data to teachers is really interesting, but what about watching others work? Is there a feedback kind of loop in there? So people are getting some feedback about what's working and what's not, or even able to reflect on their own practice.

Jess Wilson: 16:49

Yeah, definitely. Teachers are given the opportunity to then meet with the person that they've observed and have a discussion about what they've seen and share that information back, which I think is really powerful, because being able to work with your colleagues and get that sort of feedback is really beneficial to not only the observer but the person that has observed as well. So that happens after each watching others work, and when we have been sending some of our teachers away to see work at other schools or professional development, there's always an opportunity for them to come back to a staff meeting or a sector meeting and share what they have seen, and that forms a part of our action plans and our professional learning. So that cycle is quite well embedded here.

Jenny Cole: 17:28

Brilliant. I hope people listening implementing something very similar. It's not unusual for me to go into schools where teachers have been there for an awful long time and have never seen outside their own school, and I just think it's so. Observing other people's classrooms is just about the best professional learning anyone can do. Absolutely, I know that both student and staff well-being is pretty central to the work that you do. Talk us through any initiatives or practices that you implement in your school to keep the focus on wellbeing.

Jess Wilson: 18:01

Yeah, staff and wellbeing out at Domoji is really important.

Jess Wilson: 18:04

Because we are in such a rural and remote location, we need to ensure that the staff we have here are well and that they're happy while they're here at work. So we do have a student and staff wellbeing framework and there's lots of different parts of that framework, but things like we have regular wellbeing morning teas. We have opportunities for staff to that's just an opportunity for staff to all come together and, you know, have some morning tea and have a bit of a chat about things that are happening. We do have some debriefs if we ever have a kind of an incident where we need staff to come in and we all kind of have a discussion around what happened and what support we can put in place. We have a pretty extensive professional development calendar, which really one gives teachers an opportunity to improve their practice but also gives them an opportunity to go out of community and have that break from living in a rural, remote community and then coming back in and sharing what they've learned. So that's a really important thing, a task that we have here at Dumuji.

Jenny Cole: 19:03

That is. It's so important and I think those of us who spend most of their lives in the city sort of don't realise that. I recently spent some time at a pretty remote school and everyone's given a week to be off community and they can plan their professional learning around that. And the first time I heard about that I thought well, that feels a bit strange to me, that feels a bit indulgent. That's a lot of money and time and effort and a week away from the kids. But after a couple of days on community I can see how essential it is to take a break when you're living in a fishbowl.

Jess Wilson: 19:37

Absolutely, it's really important.

Jenny Cole: 19:39

So your growth and development has been fuelled by taking some risks. You work overseas. You're now up in a remote area of Australia. What advice would you give to those people who are perhaps sitting in a classroom thinking, oh, I don't know if I should move or not? What advice would you give people who are contemplating what next?

Jess Wilson: 20:04

I think my partner has always said to me say yes and see what happens. And across my 10 years at Annandale State School I said yes to just about everything. And look, I did some things that I didn't like and I found that out pretty quickly, but I also did some things that I really loved and I think it really gave me that opportunity to fine tune what place I wanted in education. I did a little bit of leadership when I was in Townsville and some of it I loved and some of it I didn't love, and so when I knew that I still wanted to be a part of the classroom and a part of leadership, I knew that going rural, remote, was an opportunity for me to do both of those things.

Jess Wilson: 20:43

At the same time, and that's definitely happened out here at Tumutji. So if you're sitting in that chair thinking about what next, just say yes to the next opportunity, and you never know what might come up.

Jenny Cole: 20:53

I love that because it's 10 years in one school is a decent amount of time, but it certainly sounds like you didn't have the same year. 10 years in a row. What were some of the things that you said yes to? That really didn't float your boat and what did you say yes to that you loved?

Jess Wilson: 21:09

So a few things was. One thing I really loved was being a writing coach. So I got some training through Seven Steps to Writing and I got to coach the school through implementing a writing framework to support students and that was work that I really loved. Some other things I did classroom profiling. So I'm a trained classroom profiler and I love that because I get the opportunity to support teachers to improve their practice, but I also get to see some amazing teaching and learning that's happening in classrooms as a profiler, so that's really exciting. Some things I probably didn't like there was a couple of roles that I did. That it's not that I didn't like them, it just wasn't the leadership that I wanted to do. So it gave me that opportunity to work it out what I really stood for and what I wanted to be as a leader.

Jenny Cole: 21:52

And so, what do you want to be as a leader? What do you want to be known for?

Jess Wilson: 21:56

I want to be known for being visible. I don't want to be known as someone that sat in my office. I want to be known as someone that was out there and supporting teachers and involved in high quality teaching and learning, because that's how we give our kids the opportunities that they need to be amazing citizens, and I want to be involved in that.

Jenny Cole: 22:17

And you know you speak to most people and they say I want to really make a difference, but you said it in such a way which is about high quality teaching and learning. It comes back to those high expectations. You know I can care about you and I really support you, but I'm going to make sure that you've got high quality education for our kids because they deserve it. I love that. Well done you. Is there a leadership course or something that you've done, some training specifically in leadership that you've really taken something away from?

Jess Wilson: 22:45

Yeah, so I think at the moment I've just started the Aspiring Principals Leadership Program that's run through the Education Futures Institute, and so that's been an amazing opportunity for me to go out and meet some other leaders and just talk to them about how they are leading, because out here at Doergy, as you know, that it's just me and a couple of other deputies and it's easy to do things certain ways out here, but what we want to make sure is that we are creating leaders that can be leaders anywhere and teachers that can be teachers anywhere. So getting that opportunity to go out and speak with other leaders is really important to develop my own personal knowledge and practice and be able to bring that back to the school.

Jenny Cole: 23:26

So what are you noticing? That you're doing better at Doomadgee than perhaps not. That you're judging when you're talking to your peers, but what do you think? Oh, yeah, we do that really well out at Doomadgee. And on the flip side of that is what are some of the things that you've thought? Oh, if I have to lead it anywhere, I would need to be a little bit better at that. So what are you doing well? What still needs some improvement?

Jess Wilson: 23:49

I think out here at Dumadji we have a really sharp focus. So we have an AIP in place and it's really clear where we're going and all of our work is directed towards that. And so we're working towards making sure that every decision we make as a leader leader it's got something to do with our AIP and that we're driving that forward because that work's really important to improved outcomes for our students. I think something out here that's really different is that we sometimes feel like we're constantly reacting to things because things come out of the blue more suddenly here than they do at a school in a city, like if we have really really bad weather or we lose all our communications or there's other things that can happen. In a community like Doomadgee. That means we have to react really quickly. So sometimes it feels like our well-developed processes and procedures can go out the window when something comes out of the blue.

Jenny Cole: 24:43

Yes, Nothing teaches you how to be more well. Sometimes reactive is good. Sometimes, being able to pivot really quickly and make strong decisions is absolutely what you need. But if you're doing it day after day, week after week, it can be exhausting, can't it? Yeah absolutely Okay, we're just going to finish off. I don't normally do a lightning round or anything like that. Instead, I'm going to ask you just a couple of questions. Best advice that you've received as a leader.

Jess Wilson: 25:12

I got it from a book recently. My brother and I do a book club where we both read the same book and talk about it over the phone, and the one he just suggested was how to Think Like a Freak by the Freakonomics Group, and in that book it said don't be afraid to say I don't know. And I think, as a leader, it's really important that we model that and say I don't know, but also follow up by saying that I will find out for you.

Jenny Cole: 25:33

Yeah, great advice, particularly to those perfectionists out there and also those I mean you know, by the time you get to a leadership role, you've done an application. You're really used to trying to put your best foot forward and show people that you're worthy of this promotion and you don't want people to know that you don't know. And I think it's one of the dangers that new people fall into is that they pretend they know everything and then they get themselves into a pickle. So great advice Don't be afraid to say you don't know. And the advice you gave earlier, which is ring somebody if you don't know because somebody else has the answer Great. You're only a year into the job, but something that you would do differently if you had your time again.

Jess Wilson: 26:17

Something I'd do differently, I think I wouldn't be so eager to do it all at once, I think you do feel as a leader, particularly in an environment like the Medjoo State School, where things happen really, really quickly, feel like I have to do everything all the time. I don't need to do that. I have got an amazing team. We've got some great processes and procedures in place, and I probably think I need to rely on those a little bit more heavily in order to make sure the things that we're doing are done really well.

Jenny Cole: 26:47

Just to finish off. We've talked about your staff and you obviously care a lot about student wellbeing. How do you look after your own wellbeing?

Jess Wilson: 26:57

Well, I just suppose there's things that I really like to do, so I try to fit them in as best as I can. I've got Dave and I've got some dogs, so we like to take them out for a walk and stuff. I'm currently teaching myself to sew because my grandmother was an amazing seamstress. So I've got some gorgeous little nieces that don't mind wearing my half crafted outfits at the moment. So I try to really be cautious about doing a little bit of work on the weekend, but making sure that I fit in some of those things that I like so that when I come back on Monday I'm ready to start the week where I'm feeling I've had some time to myself.

Jenny Cole: 27:30

Yeah, two really great leisure activities walking the dog and sewing are both very mindful. It's very hard to do anything else when you're doing one of those things and time can fly and all of a sudden it's three or four hours later and you've created something dress for your niece or whatever. Yeah, excellent advice. You know do something for yourself before you do some work on the weekend. Jess, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you. I'm going to put in the show notes your LinkedIn profile so if anyone wants to get in touch with Jess, maybe even have a conversation about what it's like living in a remote area, and perhaps if anyone's got the urge to go and live and work in a remote area, I'm sure Jess would be happy to have a conversation with you. Just before we finish, is there anything that we've not talked about that you'd like to mention today?

Jess Wilson: 28:19

I don't think so. Just thank you for the opportunity of being a part of this. I've been listening to your podcast and I've found some really useful information from them already, so definitely a great podcast to be listening to any new leaders out there.

Jenny Cole: 28:31

Awesome. Thank you everyone for listening in on today's podcast with Jess Wilson. We will be back in your ears next week, so we would love you to rate and review if you've enjoyed this podcast. Otherwise, we shall see you next week.

 

Click on the link above to collapse this text.