Area

Middle leaders

Senior leaders

Focus on learning and teaching

Middle leaders are, above all, close to children and learning; that is the heart of the work. Be clear about how you keep in touch with learningacross your team and be resolute in protecting the time you allocate.

As a priority seek to generate and lead a debate about learning. Open up issues of lesson length, structure and research into learning processes and styles.

Be open to new ideas about what works best. One way is to take a really tricky lesson or concept and ask a team to redesign and ‘road test’ it together. This encourages shared planning, observation and partnerships which go beyond the usual subject alliances.

Keep it simple. Make learning the key school priority – both learning for pupils in the classroom and the professional learning which enables teachers to

improve.

Find ways to enable middle leaders to observe lessons… both within their own

teams and across subject boundaries, to offer feedback and stimulate reflection.

Try a staff ‘hot spot’. In one school in a weekly staff briefing a department

spends ten minutes sharing an effective teaching and learning strategy.

Generate positive relationships

As an effective middle leader you need to be able to get to know the people in your team…, identify and acknowledge their strengths, recognise their worth and potential and, through this, empower them to take risks and improve. Make sure that you also acknowledge and value the work of teaching

assistants and other support staff.

Be seen to act upon good suggestions… rather than just acknowledging them

and then doing nothing about it. In this and other ways, be an active listener with your team and colleagues.

Wipe out the culture of negativity… and focus on strengths rather than

weakness.

Just as you expect middle leaders to find time to talk individually with

their teams, make sure that you do so also. Model the behaviour you expect

from others. Provide positive feedback, listen, recognise potential, explore the

bigger picture together.

Build coaching relationships… where middle leaders can rehearse how they will

respond to situations, help them to generate alternative ways and see different perspectives.

Have team-building activities… so that the middle leaders get to know you as people and leaders engaged in learning. Encourage a range of formal and informal activities.

Provide a clear vision and high expectations

Articulate and exemplify what

high expectations mean… in the team, in each year, at each level. Nobody is ever opposed to high expectations, though, in practice, they often mean quite different things to different people.

Share the team’s short and medium term vision and revisit it regularly.

Make it real by relating this, in practical terms, to what is and could be happening in classrooms. Ask: how does this look and feel today? How will it look and feel when it is put into practice for pupils, staff, parents and the wider community? What do we need to do next to get there?

Don’t be afraid to change working partnerships…, to move staff and responsibilities around to improve results and raise expectations.

Make success for all a reality, not rhetoric. State and restate that there is no limit on potential, that well-directed hard work can make children smarter.

Work systematically to break down the common misconception amongst pupils that hard work is only for those who struggle.

In this way,create a culture which values high expectations… as a right of every child and seeks to exemplify what these mean in practical terms. Build dialogue between departments to challenge low expectations and regular

dialogue between the leadership team and team leaders to review monitoring and pupil data.

Provide regular opportunities for middle leaders…, ideally with another member of staff, to visit other schools to observe lessons, find new ideas and recalibrate expectations.

Improve the environment

Use professional development time… to ask staff to think: if I were shown a silent film of this block/subject area/school, what impression would it make?

Would it tell me what was important?

Open up dialogue about display areas, policy and the ways in which display is more than an attractive covering for dingy walls. Ask: how does this environment value and support learning? Create displays that give the message ‘We learn here.’

Teach display as part of an in-service day and as a matter of course when inducting new staff. Look at the often outstanding work in primary schools and learn from this. Develop the specialist skills of support staff in this area.

Set up pupil trails to highlight environment. Concentrate on classroom layout, resources for independent learning, an environment which supports and

informs learning. Feed back the best of what you see as a basis for action and development of agreed principles and expectations.

Encourage creative inter-subject projects to cross-fertilise thinking… and challenge use of display and classroom layout.

Open up the school canteen for breakfast and show News 24. Make it a civilised place. Incorporate topical news in morning assemblies.

Provide time and opportunities for collaboration

Move department sessions around team bases… and provide some time for the ‘host’ to share an element of good practice.

When you meet, plan a clear, thoughtful agenda… and keep to it. In big teams, a bulletin or newsletter allows you to communicate basic administrative information to your fellow professionals. Overall, be clear in separating maintenance and development.

Running an effective team doesn’t always mean doing more. It’s good to engage in some ‘plate clearing’ from time to time. To do this, simply ask: What should we stop doing?

Recognise publicly that people learn most from working with people who are different from themselves. Make collaborative learning a school priority.

Agree to stop talking about ‘meetings’ wherever you can and get to something which is more specific…, for example a development workshop, a learning review session, a staff forum.

Use CPD funding imaginatively. Open up discussion in school on tension between the need to keep teachers working directly with children and the need to provide them with opportunities for coaching, team teaching and observation during the school day.

Distribute leadership; build teams

Agree your priorities for development together… and make sure you keep a clear focus on learning. Involve the wider team in planning sessions and give

other staff opportunities to take a lead.

Try to bring out the leader in everyone. Invite the team to take leadership in areas of research and personal interest.

Create department roles that are flexible. Change the focus every couple of years to bring freshness to the role and flexibility to the team as curriculum changes and vision evolves.

Help middle leaders to focus on learning and their team priorities… by informal support, regular review sessions or, if more structure is needed, allocation of non-contact time to specific activities, such as observation and review, coaching or walkabout.

Build a sense of middle leaders as a team… through annual residential or off-site conferences or seminars. As senior leaders, make a contribution in covering classes.

Recognise there is good practice in everybody… and bring this view together in an atmosphere and culture where it is everyone’s responsibility in school.

Engage the community

Be clear that the area of work in which you are engaged needs to be presented as part of the wider picture of the school… to parents, governors and the community. Don’t assume that others will do this on your behalf. Find out where responsibility for community/media relations lies within the

leadership team and be proactive.

Look for opportunities for wider partnership with employers and

companies… to make curriculum in your area both immediate and relevant to children. Seek out parents/carers with particular expertise in working as

volunteers in the classroom or in contributing relevant specialist areas of knowledge.

Involve governors in your work…, either in enlisting them as volunteers, in using them as critical friends or in drawing on their specialist knowledge.

Emphasise that middle leaders must look into their own team, out across the school and beyond to the wider community. Make this an expectation of all.

Share the wider values of the school with the community… and so provide a context for middle leaders’ work in this area.

Create an e-learning community… or publish handbooks which allow parents access to curricular and departmental information.

Evaluate and innovate

Identify areas of innovation… and build these into the team development plan.

Keep asking the question… ‘how will we know if this has made a difference to the children here?’

Undertake a fortnightly pupil progress check… that goes beyond just looking at books. As subject leader, set aside time to talk with children and test their

understanding and knowledge. In modern languages, for example, things can look good in an exercise book but understanding and capacity to apply knowledge may not be at the same level. Unless you talk to children on a

regular basis and in a structured way, you won’t find out.

Recognise and expect that middle leaders are… leading edge practitioners.

Give permission for risk-taking. Value and articulate the importance of well-considered innovation and celebrate its success.

Encourage middle leaders to seek out new ideas… and resources in the classroom to add to the school’s intellectual capital. Ask them to explore: what good thinking is out there? How do I bring it into school? How do I get other people to use it?