Improving School Governance Using an Action Learning Approach (IGUANA) aims to develop a methodology and tools to support ‘training for good governance’ in schools by implementing and validating a school learning community.

Camilla Child, Principal Consultant and Researcher at the Tavistock Institute, recently travelled to Lithuania to help the local research team there explain and launch the IGUANA pilot in schools. Anita Juškevičienė, their researcher, compiled this slideshow of photographs from the trip:

There was a target number of ten schools piloting the IGUANA project in five EU countries. We know the number already currently exceeds 25. It is based on a pedagogic model of ‘emotional and organisational intelligence,’ supported by Web 2.0 tools to promote co-working and sense-making. There are assessment and training modules in, for example, emotional wellbeing, resilience, flexibility, group behaviours, learning organisations, and evaluation. It is also piloted and validated by the EU School Heads Association.

TIHR has contributed to the design the ‘organisational intelligence modules, and to the learning community with particular focus on the action learning and peer review elements, and interface between school leadership and governance. We are supporting reflective learning through the action learning element by offering support to pilot schools.

Camilla Child and Juliet Scott, both faculty of the TIHR’s P3C programme, are consultant/researchers and can be contacted for further details.

The IGUANA project is led by the Study Centre on Peoples and Cultures, Catholic University of Portugal CEPCEP.

This project received funding from the European Union’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency’s (EACEA) Lifelong Learning programme 2007-2013.