When Whitehall House Senior College, Dublin, ceased being an establishment offering girlsonly Leaving Cert courses and became a centre for PLCs and adult education programmes, principal Fiona Hartley decided they needed help - fast. "We had to make huge adjustments and forge a new identity," she explains. "We had to undergo major shifts in attitudes."
Help came in the form of Patrick Diggins, director of the Teachers Centre, Drumcondra, Dublin, who sat down with the college's 30 staff and helped them to examine their value systems. "We looked at what we valued in our professional lives and at how what we wanted to do matched up with the needs of the college," Hartley recalls. "For example, it was a huge leap for us to work with the long term unemployed. There was no longer a school uniform, students called us by our Christian names and the discipline was completely different." According to Hartley, the planning process has given teachers, who in the past have tended to work in isolation, the opportunity to work collaboratively. Ultimately, she says, it contributes to greater job satisfaction. However, not everyone enjoys working in this way, she warns. "You have to respect that and give people the opportunity to opt in or out."
"It was a challenge," confirms the college's staff development officer Annette Flynn, formerly a teacher of Leaving Cert geography and English. "When you start on the process you do need outside help. All change has an element of threat but it depends on how it's handled. The process is demanding and takes time but it does improve communication. If someone has a problem, we now have a forum in which to air it. It makes the job more interesting - you feel you have an input and you have more contact with other staff. In the past we used to do our jobs and go home."
