“Changing Times…..Changing Leadership”

National Middle School’s Forum15 October 2007

Toby SaltStrategic Director, School Leadership Development

Future Leadership Roles

From Victorian – 21 Century

There has never been a more challenging or better time to be a head:-Heads have:-

► More funding► More influence► More capital investment► More diverse workforce► More delegated responsibilities and authority► More jobs to choose from► More investment in leadership► More focus on the whole child and the

community

◄ More workload

◄ Ever higher expectations

◄ More projects to lead

◄ More complicated to lead and manage

◄ More accountability

◄ More people not wanting to be senior leaders

◄ Greater expectations of personalised leadership and escalated promotion

◄ Erosion of Local Authority capacity concern about standards and Children’s Services agenda

A Golden Era?

Demographics - an opportunity or a threat?

How can we make the job more attractive to potential heads?

How can we make the job more sustainable for current heads?

How can we make the job more effective at improving outcomes for children?

What Next ?

“ The days of the indispensable, singular leader are numbered…”Harris, A & Chapman, C (2002). Effective leadership in schools facing challenging contexts

“ Leadership in a modern organisation is highly complex and it isincreasingly difficult – sometimes impossible - to find the traits ina single person…in the future we will see leadership in groupsrather than individual leaders ”

Crainer, S & Dearlove, D (2005) The future of leadership

“ The task of leading a school in the twenty first century can no longerbe carried out by the heroic individual leader single handedly turning schools around ”

Gronn, P (2003) The new work of educational leaders. Changing leadership practice in an era of school reform

PWC – some key recommendations

“ Proactively promote new and emerging leadership models ”

“ Review policy and practice in relation to accountability in order to facilitate greater distributed leadership ”

Review governance

Streamline policy

Developing people, diversity and succession planning

Adopt a new approach towards leadership programme and qualifications

Mainstreaming innovative, experience based CPD

"Independent study into school leadership" 1/07 wwww.dfes.gov.uk/research or wwww.teachernet.gov.uk/publications ref RR818A 

Models of School Leadership

Traditional Leadership

Headteacher supported by deputy and/or assistant heads

Predominately single school though may have collaborative arrangements with other schools May have some degree of distributed leadership

Traditional Leadership

"Independent study into school leadership" 1/07 wwww.dfes.gov.uk/research or wwww.teachernet.gov.uk/publications ref RR818A 

Managed

Greater degree of distributed leadership

Inclusion of non-teaching staff on SLT e.g. financial, business, inclusion, HR, premises experts. Mainly single school though may have collaborative arrangements with other schools. Includes co-headship models.

Traditional Leadership

"Independent study into school leadership" 1/07 wwww.dfes.gov.uk/research or wwww.teachernet.gov.uk/publications ref RR818A 

Models of School Leadership

Multi-agency managed

Greater degree of multi-agency working

More diverse workforce on school premises

Different lines of accountability for staff

Potentially greater sharing/ collaboration with other schools

More potential for new division of leadership role

Multi-agency staff on SLT or post with specific ECM related responsibilities

Traditional Leadership

"Independent study into school leadership" 1/07 wwww.dfes.gov.uk/research or wwww.teachernet.gov.uk/publications ref RR818A 

Models of School Leadership

Federated

More formal collaboration arrangements between schools

May lead to appointment of executive head or SLT for whole federation

May have single governing body

May include other providers e.g. WBL and FE

Traditional Leadership

"Independent study into school leadership" 1/07 wwww.dfes.gov.uk/research or wwww.teachernet.gov.uk/publications ref RR818A 

Models of School Leadership

Traditional Leadership

System Leadership

Consultant leaders

School Improvement Partners

Executive heads (temporary appointment e.g. in failing schools)

National Leaders of Education

Virtual learning networks

Virtual schools and virtual heads

"Independent study into school leadership" 1/07 wwww.dfes.gov.uk/research or wwww.teachernet.gov.uk/publications ref RR818A 

Models of School Leadership

Distributed Leadership (Most heads say they do it) ……

What it is not

2. Always be available …. Your school depends on you

1. Know absolutely everything that’s going on in your school

3. Control your pupils and staff

4. Plan every last detail

Distributed leadership is :

DisciplinedDevelopedDoableDurable‘Deep’Distinguished

The 4 Ds

Distributed DelegatedDevolvedDumped

It isn’t….Dispersed !

time tablefinance

Every Child MattersExtended Schools

Healthy SchoolsCPDHealth & SafetyExams

SEF

Gifted & talented

Parent partnership

School Improvement Plan

Building Schools for the future

Time tables

Nutritional standardsTarget setting

premises

“The first rule of leadership is that it is shared”

Brighouse & Woods (1999)

“A good leader is also a good follower” American proverb

Distributed leadership is

InclusiveEvolvingContextual

“There is no blueprint of how to achieve distributed leadership...it needs to be contextual and respond to the capacity, climate and development priorities of each school or groups of schools.” Arrowsmith (2007)

We need to create more diverseand specialist leadership and management positions in schools

Inclusion& extended services

Inclusion& extended services

How Creative might you be?

Toby SaltStrategic Director,School Leadership Development

toby.salt@ncsl.org.uk

www.ncsl.org.uk

0115 872 2595