The Best 3 Qualities That All Top School Principals Share

The world’s top school principals and administrators all have 3 things in common: they’re great communicators, care deeply about their students, and are adept leaders. These three qualities make them the best at what they do, bringing their schools to a new level regarding safety and quality. We will dive deeper into this subject in the article below and help you become a better principal and positively impact your school and students.

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1. VISION AND ADEPT LEARNING

An effective principal maintains a clear vision and remains adaptable to evolving trends, fostering continuous improvement among teachers. Even after years in the role, there’s always room to enhance the school’s quality with new methods. Staying informed about emerging techniques, such as student safety measures and screen monitoring for online teaching, is crucial.

A principal’s attitude and vision shape the school’s direction and success, which includes carefully choosing tools for screen monitoring, content filtering, and student safety to protect students online while enhancing their learning experience. As the school leader, asserting control over what students are exposed to is essential. That is why every modern school- and principal must use tools like Blocksi, combining classroom screen monitoring, content filtering, and double K-12 threat detection.

2. COMMUNICATE

As a principal, you interact with many different people, including parents, students, and staff members; therefore, you need to make sure that you communicate any necessary information to them appropriately – the way you would address a student would be different from how you would speak with a parent or staff member.

Nothing makes performance suffer more than unclear communication. It doesn’t matter if it’s a staff member, faculty member, parent, or student; they will not be able to do what you need them to do if they don’t know what you are trying to communicate.

Active listening is one of the best skills a principal can cultivate and use. This means being able to hear/see things beyond your point of view and checking your own understanding of things. Successful principals intentionally focus on listening and understanding things from another person’s perspective.

Effective listening and communication are some of the most important skills in leadership positions. A leader must be able to hear what those working under them are saying and develop effective ways to go about creating solutions.

In short, an effective school principal, without a doubt, has fantastic communication skills.

3. CARE ABOUT YOUR STUDENTS

Unfortunately, in the past year, the number of students who have considered attempting suicide or self-harm has increased significantly. One of the main reasons this happens is because students encounter harmful content on the web, whether by stumbling upon a prohibited website, or receiving hurtful and destructive messages from their peers online.

Entertainment and social media are saturated with violent images and videos of physical assaults, gun violence, and gore. Exposure to, and participation in, virtual violence might not lead to aggressive behavior for all children and adolescents. But watching violent programs and playing violent video games can lead to increased hostility, aggressive feelings, emotional desensitization to violence, and ultimately, aggressive behavior.

These effects can potentially be lessened by reducing the amount of screen violence to which children and adolescents are exposed, particularly early in development. One method to prevent such activity is limiting students’ screen time, filtering the content they consume, and preventing them from encountering such harmful material on their devices.

One study on third, fourth, and fifth graders linked children’s screen limits to overall wellness. When parents monitored media use, children had reduced exposure to media violence and negative messaging, and improved sleep, school performance, social behavior, and reduced aggression.

Again, another good example of easy implementation of this is Blocksi, where you can simultaneously view all of your students’ Chromebooks and devices and monitor their actions on the web while filtering out inappropriate content. It also allows you to message them directly, whether it’s all of the class, a specific group, or just one student.

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The truly great principals understand their role goes well beyond the school’s walls. They are advocates for all students and teachers, regardless of where they attend school. Principals pay attention to trends within and beyond their school and work to implement positive changes whenever possible. They also prefer to delegate responsibilities to those who are willing and capable of handling them rather than doing everything on their own. And lastly, the best principal or principal administrator will always put the needs and desires of the students first above all else.

SOURCES

[1] Protective Effects of Parental Monitoring of Children’s Media Use A Prospective Study