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VIEWS & OPINION Developing the next


generation of senior leaders Comment by CIARA LAMB, specialist content editor at The Key


As a senior leader, you'll likely always be looking out for up-and-coming talent among your staff. Recognising and developing talent within your school can help to retain your aspirational leaders – it shows them they’re appreciated and that your school is invested in their development. It can also help you reach your school development goals – with more distributed leadership, you'll be able to upskill your staff and limit the burden on your senior leadership team.


So what can you do to show your middle leaders that you recognise their potential and what actions can you take to grow that potential within your school?


Give middle leaders the space to make their own decisions Before you give leaders additional projects, make sure they have room to develop and gain experience within their existing role. For this, it's important to have leadership structures that your staff can easily understand and follow, so your middle leaders aren’t skipped over. For example, a teacher may take an issue directly to the deputy headteacher, rather than the head of department. This would mean the middle leader misses out on the opportunity to gain the experience they need to develop. You’ll also need to make sure you clearly communicate these structures to staff, so everyone is on the same page. Also remember to allow middle leaders to make mistakes. If you're always jumping in to fire fight, they won't have the room they need to


grow. Let them take ownership of their decisions and make mistakes, so they can ultimately learn from them.


Identify stretch projects from your SIP Formal training courses and qualifications are great for developing understanding, but to really develop your middle leaders you need to provide opportunities to put that learning into action. Start by identifying projects in your school improvement plan (SIP) that


middle leaders could lead on or be involved in. This way, you can make sure resources are allocated and that there are accountability structures in place. It also means they'll be able to have a tangible impact on the development of your school. You'll want to identify projects that will build on an individual's interest and help them develop a key skill that you've identified as an area for improvement. To avoid overburdening your staff, make sure you calculate the


workload investment needed for additional projects and that they have time allocated to do this.


Offer mentoring and coaching to accelerate progress You can help foster a culture in your school where staff feel supported and listened to by offering them mentoring and/or coaching. Ideally, you'd want to offer both, as they support development in different ways. Peer mentoring sessions offer a non-judgemental place for staff to support each other by sharing challenges and offering informal advice. Whereas coaching is about specific improvements and has a clear goal.


Encourage leaders to take part in networking opportunities Events or activities that are explicitly for networking can be seen by staff as an additional burden. You can't require leaders to engage in peer networking, but you can encourage it. For example, emphasise that it doesn’t have to take up too much time and that there is a range of formats networking can take (such as social media, online events). It could also be helpful to explain some of the benefits that you or other senior colleagues have gained from building networks.


Solving the teacher recruitment pandemic


Comment by PROFESSOR GERAINT JONES, Executive Director and Associate Pro- Vice-Chancellor of the National Institute of Teaching & Education


Latest government data shows initial teacher training applications are down by 24 per cent compared with January last year. It looks probable that last year’s sudden rise in teacher training applications was a one-off reaction to the Covid pandemic and, after a welcome sabbatical year, the ‘teacher recruitment crisis’ flag is flying once again. But this time it is flying even higher, as numbers in the classroom are set to grow by 20% over the next decade. Recognising this increasing demand, government has come forward


with measures - including the recent Levelling Up White Paper, with its proposals to offer retention payments to help schools in new ‘Education Investment Areas’ keep the best teachers in the highest-priority subjects; and to look overseas in its iQTS pilot. Yet extra money has been thrown at new teachers since the new


millennium – with little to no impact on recruitment or retention rates. Bringing in teachers from abroad is also not new, and hasn’t plugged the hole. So what’s a better alternative to these kinds of short-term initiatives?


Turning the corner on recruitment To turn the corner in teacher recruitment, we must first make training


March 2022


attractive, so that it punches its weight alongside other popular and aspirational professions, and is acknowledged to be the rigorous, challenging and professional programme top graduates desire. Teacher training also needs to modernise. If we rely on the traditional


route of a year-long PGCE, with mandatory in-person lectures, we instantly screen out a number of our potential recruits. At the National Institute we offer an “any time, any place” model that allows trainees to take a fully online course and can be funded by employer or apprenticeship routes. This flexibility is proving incredibly popular and, unlike the national trend, our enrolments have risen by 200% since last September.


Building a culture of retention Next, we need to build a culture of retention. With one in six teachers quitting the profession after just a year, and a further quarter leaving within three, meaningful change is needed to keep teachers in the classroom. Why? Well, for one, teaching is exhausting, and planning and delivering outstanding lessons demands a consistently high energy response. To address this, teachers should deliver up to a maximum 75% timetable – that’s roughly 19 hours a week and sufficient for delivering excellent planning, marking and extra-curricular activities without burn out. A culture of reward would help too. Greater investment in CPD to


enable teachers to develop their craft throughout their careers will help drive up standards and motivate colleagues to improve. Linking professional development to teacher pay increases will quickly shift the culture in the sector to one which values training, while also offering a positive incentive to stay in the profession. And with better standards and training, maybe we can ease up a little


on inspection and league tables, and trust teachers to get on with their jobs. The current regime creates great pressure, that is too often passed down to teachers in the classroom. Those leading education would do well to take a step back from


focusing on year-on-year rises in educational standards, to the long-term improvements in the profession that will deliver them, and to making a commitment to development based on training and trust.


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