education leadership | Schools Week

DfE to offer new headteachers ‘targeted support’ during first two years in post

The Department for Education has announced a “targeted support package” for new headteachers, offering additional training in the first two years of headship. School leaders and experts welcomed the measures, but warned they must come with funding attached amid stretched school budgets. The extra training will be offered to those who are either currently taking […]

Substance over style is the key to great school leadership

Researchers’ shift in the consensus on school leadership is welcome, but the conversation doesn’t end here. A focus on the expertise of school leaders – rather than their individual traits or generic management competency – is a better route to improving education, argues Tom Rees The renewed debate around school leadership is an important one. […]

How to lead a successful multi-academy trust

There are lots of ways MATs can improve their schools, writes James Toop, but there’s one common factor needed to underpin it all School improvement can only occur with great leadership. This is especially true when we are talking about groups of schools like multi-academy trusts, but the more I learn about the MATs that […]

School leaders: tips for successful difficult conversations

Tough conversations with colleagues and subordinates are an unfortunate but necessary aspect of leadership. Sonia Gill, an expert in such talk, explains how to make the best of them If you’re like some of the school leaders I’ve met, you’ll find difficult conversations tend to come at you from every angle many times a day. […]

Headteachers: take back control of school audit culture!

The endless papertrails modern school life seemingly requires are now actively making things worse for our overworked teachers. Becky Allen explains how to change all that Teaching should be the best job in the world. It has all the components of a satisfying profession: autonomy, impact, purpose and a sense of human connection. So why […]

Emma Sheppard, founder, MaternityTeacher PaternityTeacher project

Emma Sheppard is on a mission to make it easier for parents to stay in teaching – and to move into leadership roles – and one way she intends to achieve this is by making it acceptable to bring babies to conferences. There’s pressure on Sheppard on the day we meet. First, I’m showing up […]

Unions: Schools need more help with handling complaints

The unions want schools to have more help to deal with complaints, after the government ended a useful customer satisfaction survey that ran for just three years. The Department for Education’s ‘Complaints about schools’ survey ran from 2012 to 2015, and examined how the department was dealing with problems when a local response had not […]

DfE fails to hit female leadership coaching target

The Department for Education is almost a year behind on its target to link 1,000 women teachers with 1,000 coaches, through its scheme to encourage more female school leaders. Launched by the DfE and National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) in March 2016, the Women Leading in Education (WLE) programme promised to 1,000 connections […]

CEOs, CFOs & COOS: How MATs struggle to recruit executives

Multi-academy trusts with more than five schools increasingly need senior finance, operating and executive officers, but school leaders lack the “reference points” to recruit them, as many have never worked with such roles before. The National Governance Association’s ‘Welcome to a multi-academy trust’ guide states that larger MATs (defined as having between five and 10 […]