Last Friday, a delegation of Head Teachers and leaders of School Improvement in the North East headed to Leeds for Ofsted’s first regional conference since it set up its new regional structure. Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw addressed the audience, outlining many of the education challenges facing the North East and Yorkshire and offering three solutions: “leadership, leadership and leadership”.
Leadership in education takes many different forms. From leadership in the classroom by teachers to system leadership delivered by Heads working across many schools. This morning, leaders from across the North East gathered to discuss perhaps the most difficult level of leadership to get right and often the most overlooked or undervalued - middle leadership.
The event, organised by Teaching Leaders, a national education charity focused on developing outstanding middle leaders in schools in the most challenging contexts, aimed to explore how the role of middle leaders is changing within schools and the impact of high-performing middle leaders in transforming outcomes in schools. Earlier this week, the Government announced that they would commit a further £9.9 million to fund the Teaching Leaders programme for the next two years and double the number of participants.
Speaking at the graduation of the fourth cohort of middle leaders to complete the programme, Schools Minister David Laws stressed the close correlation between high-quality leadership and pupil achievement, stating that:
“Analysis of Ofsted findings by McKinsey show that for every 100 schools that have good leadership and management, 93 will have good standards of pupil achievement. For every 100 schools that do not have good leadership and management, only one will have good standards of pupil achievement. “
Research into the hallmarks of high-performing schools highlights the huge contribution of middle leaders to raising school performance and improving Teaching and Learning by acting as models of great teaching, helping other teachers to improve, and challenging underperformance. Evidence would suggest that increasing the quality and effectiveness of middle leadership can have the greatest impact in our most deprived communities. Currently the North East, Yorkshire and Humber region has the lowest proportion nationally of secondary schools in the most deprived areas judged as good or outstanding for teaching (29%) compared to a national average of (65%). However, the Sutton Trust estimates that “having a very effective, rather than an average teacher, raises each pupil’s attainment by a third of a GCSE grade.”
Discussion at today’s Teaching Leaders event concentrated on how to unlock the potential of middle leaders to drive improvements in Teaching and Learning in their departments and beyond. In particular, participants were enthusiastic about the opportunities offered through more effective collaboration at all levels to deepen knowledge, create new approaches, spread good practice, expand expertise, expose talents and challenge conventions.
Teaching Leaders are in the process of opening a North East office and they are currently recruiting for an Associate Director for our region (you only have until midnight tonight to apply if you are interested). North East fellows will benefit from an intensive programme, face-to-face coaching, local evening training and geographically-focused networks providing opportunities to meet and share learning with peers.
SCHOOLS NorthEast is aware that in many areas of the region, clusters of schools have established new Middle Leaders programmes and networks that are focussed on addressing local challenges and creating mechanisms for cross-school (and sometimes cross-phase) peer to peer support.
Improving the quality of middle leadership was an aim and feature of the successful London and City Challenges. To inform the region’s plans for a North East Challenge, SCHOOLS NorthEast is very interested to find out more about any effective approaches taken in your school or cluster of schools to improve middle leadership and what would help to accelerate progress in this aim.
We would also like to know of any barriers and challenges faced in recruiting and retaining middle leaders, particularly for schools in challenging contexts. Email your views to think@schoolsnortheast.com .
To find out more about Teaching Leaders and the programmes they offer click here.