Suggested Reading >> Leading the Learning

Middle leaders in all schools face some significant challenges.  There is general recognition that successful middle leaders can bring about transformational change in pupils learning and general well-being whether they lead subjects, support teams or lead particular whole-school initiatives.

The role of the middle leader has changed in recent years, and now demands a range of skills and competencies including:

• the ability to enthuse and encourage colleagues to change the ways they work
• highly developed monitoring and evaluation skills
• effective prioritisation and planning
• skilled coaching and mentoring
• the ability to negotiate and to work collaboratively

All teachers, including leaders, need to become increasingly reflective about their practice. They need to be prepared to share their own good practice and be willing to learn from others. Increasingly leaderds at all levels ned to work collaboratively within and between schools to set up learning communities.

Some of these skills are quite common among middle leaders, but some others are far less common. In particular, we may all need to develop the skills needed to work collaboratively within a learning community and the role of coaching as a leadership tool is not widely understood.

The following resources may provide useful reading for leaders at all levels in our schools, helping you to develop effectively to meet new challenges.

The School Effectiveness Framework is soon to be launched in Wales. This framework identifies effective leadership as one of the keys to improveing pupil outcomes. In particular the framework indicates the importance of leaders being visionary and strategic, effective at deploying resources to match needs and effective at collaboration.

Transforming Schools: (Estyn) is a discusion paper produced by Estyn to stimulate debate about how best schools can be changes to better serve pupils. The role of effective leaders of learning is highlighted here.  In particular, the report indicates that leaders in future will have to:

• transcend organisational boundaries to understand and work effectively with a wide range of partners who contribute to all aspects of pupils’ learning, health and well-being;
• improve teaching and learning through motivating and influencing pupils and staff in a changing situation;
• use people’s time, resources and accommodation in more ambitious and creative ways;
• provide greater flexibility in distributing responsibility amongst staff;
• give priority to performance management and to developing all the people who work in schools in accordance with organisational priorities; and
• develop and nurture management teams that work effectively across sectors.

Leadership for Learning is a discussion paper produce by HMI (Scotland). It provides a useful counterpoint to our own school effectiveness framework, indicating how different countries, both of which will depend on education to allow their peoples to prosper, place a similar emphasis on the role of leaders in improving young peoples life chances.

Leading Professional Learning (Michael Fullan) is a short article where Fullan discusses the values of professional learning communities and some of the dangers people face if they do not take the trouble to establish them thoroughly.

The Campaign for Learning has produced a good guide to leading a learning community. While this guidance is not specific to schools, it provides good guidance about ways in which leaders can develop their staff, incuding some consideration of the role of coach and mentor in effective CPD.

Leading in Learning (DCSF) provides a case study in working collaboratively across departments. The work is set in the context of development of thinking skills in key stage 3 classrooms.