Arriving in crisis
After six incredible years at the helm, Dale Bailey is retiring as Tumu Whakarae | Chief Executive of Te Uru Amokura | Springboard Trust on Friday 28th August.
Dale was appointed to the role at Christmas 2019, pushing his start date out to the end of February 2020 to finish up with existing clients. Three weeks later, the pandemic arrived.
“The first meeting of our leadership group was very dark, because people had stopped going out. We were out for a beer, and it was St Patrick’s Day. There was nobody in the pub.”
“It became clear to me quite early that we were in a place to support school leaders who were going to be dealing with amazing challenges, no more so in Auckland, because we had more lockdowns than the rest of the country, with more impact than anybody else. This was terrible for us as people, but our role was to support and grow leaders, and that was the focus of what we did during this time. We really leaned into Zoom and made it all online, because we had to. It was the only way.”
“A number of the principals in that first year came back to us and said the Springboard people were the most consistent, the most connected, and they continually sought to see how the principal was going. They were getting instructions from the ministry, but having Springboard consistently there felt like real support, in a way little else was at that time. It really had a huge impact on the way we evolved the programme. That sense of connection, a trusting partner, a safe place for conversations, a place for making sense.”
A career in education
Before joining Springboard, Dale’s career spanned much of the education sector. “Starting as a teacher, really loving the connection with young people, particularly adolescents, as they become young adults and go off into the world.” From there he moved into ERO – the Education Review Office, “seeing the system-level activities,” then into careers guidance, “looking at the way people navigate beyond school,” and later to Te Papa, “really understanding the public education that museums do, and the lifelong learning and connection to other parts of our society.” Alongside his career, Dale currently chairs the board of SPELD NZ, which supports people with dyslexia and related learning differences.
From satisfaction to proof
Dale describes two arcs across his six years: first, building the organisation’s capability to adapt through the pandemic; and more recently, deepening the evidence for the difference Springboard makes.
“That has been shaped in my time at ERO. It was really learning about evaluation, going and visiting schools, and seeing schools that were able to chart their progress.”
“One of the things that I started with was I’d heard principals say how marvellous it was to come to Springboard, and the sceptical side of me said, it can’t be that good. I leaned in, and everybody I talked to really reiterated this. So I was quizzical, could it be as good as everyone was saying?”
When Dale first came into the role, programme evaluation looked at whether principals enjoyed the course and whether it was a good one. “What I began to think is we need to expand the scope of our evaluation. Are we making a real difference, or is it just like a piece of tourism, that we enjoyed the experience and it had no impact on us?”
“I think now we’re in a much stronger position to say yes, these are having sustained impact, and we can show what we know about that. We’ve gone back four years and asked principals, what have they done since. We’ve used a social return on investment to analyse where we can change. We’ve got really good measures of the growth of skills and self-assessment through our rubrics.”
“For example, the Impact Lab social return on investment says for every dollar it costs, we get $5.70 return. I saw they were going to build a big motorway extension, and they were saying it was $1.50 return for every dollar. So that was a valid investment.”
What volunteers bring
Dale describes the model as a genuinely neutral exchange, one where neither party benefits more than the other. “The shared learning that comes is great for our schools, for our young people.”
Dale points to the strategic clarity that capacity partners help principals find. Often bogged down by workload and competing priorities, principals get real value from having someone alongside them asking what will actually help through greater change, what matters most, and what can be set aside for now. “And giving permission for that. To be a principal is a very, very hard job.”
“Our volunteers come out with admiration for how hard it is to work in education. They learn a lot about working in quite a diverse environment, because many of the schools they work with are way more diverse than their business experience. Coaching, mentoring, and helping people scaffold around their learning is a number one leadership skill.”
It’s a chance for volunteers to put that leadership skillset into everyday practice, walking alongside a principal in a real setting.
“Your depth of being persuasive is greatly enhanced by working as a capacity partner in the Springboard programme.”
How the job has changed
“We have seen an acceleration of expectations from the community that they’re no longer willing to accept one-size-fits-all. Whether it’s an issue of neurodiversity, different ability, or cultural differences, they’re expecting, quite rightly, schools to respond in a much more personalised and individualised approach. That has created an avalanche of work.”
“Our young people are exposed to a wider range of influences than we ever were. It’s a complicated society compared to what I grew up in. Schools must navigate that in very different ways. And so those skills I mentioned earlier- persuasion, explanation, articulation of a bigger goal- I think they’re really very important. That’s at the heart of strategic thinking.”
Our purpose statement
“It’s really encapsulated by our purpose statement: strong strategic school leaders, thriving tamariki mokopuna. They’re written in two bits because there are two parts to a whole. The investment in strategic leadership in schools, the ideas that come with that, the tools that allow people to understand. But unless it’s making a difference for our young people, it’s not working.”
Education, Dale points out, is the longest social engagement the state invests in anyone. Fifteen years, from the start of school to the end.
“When I finished training college, 40+ years ago, our last session was given by the director of the college, who spoke about the great challenges in education that we would be working on.
Sadly, they are still the same. Māori and Pasifika education, low income, rural and remote schools, impact of poverty. We would now add to them identity and neurodiversity.” Those challenges have proven resistant to change, and after forty years in the sector, Dale says he can’t wait any longer for that to shift.
“My old CEO used to say, ‘ What’s the call to glory, what’s the aspiration?’
I think in education it’s always about our young people. I think our schools can be, in these changing times, real beacons of social cohesion and aspiration, and have the skills to lift us up and take us forward. My view of teaching, education, and schooling is one of the greatest callings, because it’s such an investment in the future.”
Looking to the 30th anniversary
“We’ve got to around 900 principals through the SLPP programme in the first 20 years, and each year we’re going to have 200-300 principals in the Beginning Principal Programme coming through. By the time we get to the 30th, most principals, if not all, would have had some intersection with our strategic thinking process. That collective impact of better strategic leadership across the schooling system, I think, will be fundamental. We’re just on the cusp of a tipping point.”
Confidence in what’s next
“It’s the high-quality feedback from our school leaders. They are very loyal and very supportive of what we do. That’s coupled with really strong evaluation evidence, so we know what we do makes a difference, and we can prove it. We’ve worked hard to diversify our revenue base, and we have some really fundamentally long, deep partnerships with our philanthropic partners. We’ve entered into a contract arrangement with our partners at Evaluation Associates and the Ministry of Education, for the first time ever, a Crown contract, to work with the Beginning Principal Programme.”
“It feels to me a good time to pass on the Tumu Whakarae role to Ellie.”
“Our team is very forward-thinking. We don’t want to rest on our laurels.” Dale’s confidence in the road ahead rests just as much on the people around him: a board he describes as hugely skilled and deep thinking, evenly split between educators and corporate leaders, wholly focused on what will make a difference for schools.
What comes next
Dale is heading off shortly to travel, connecting with family heritage in Scotland, England, and France, and taking some time out to think again. Closer to home, he’s looking forward to spending more time with his two grandsons.
He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.
These are fitting words for someone whose career, at every turn, from the classroom to ERO to Springboard, has come back to exactly that.
“What I’ll miss the most is the ‘what are we going to do next’ kind of attitude. Talking to some really wonderful school principals, understanding what drives them.”
We’re incredibly grateful for Dale’s remarkable career in education and feel fortunate that he chose to spend six of those years with us, leaving Te Uru Amokura | Springboard Trust in such great shape as he hands it over.
Ngā mihi nui, Dale, for your amazing mahi. We’ll definitely be recruiting you into the volunteer pool.