Dr Tom Hesketh – Director RTU/Special School Strategic Leadership Forum The Educational Leadership Landscape

Dr Tom Hesketh – Director RTU/Special School Strategic Leadership Forum

The Educational Leadership Landscape


Key Policy Area

• Institutional effectiveness• Systems effectiveness• Optimising reform agendas• Policy/implementation alignment

- Closing the gap

- Equity and Excellence


Improving School Leadership (OECD)

• Re-defining School Leadership responsibilities• Distributing School Leadership• Developing Skills for effective school

leadership• Making School Leadership an attractive

proposition


Leadership Development

• Wide ranging (emergent – seasoned)• Multiple providers• Multi-faceted• Multi-focused• Driven by the Centre (Workforce Planning/

Supply issues)• Informed by best global practice (OECD)


Global Shifts• Standards• Systematisation (inc. especially preparation for

Headship)• Leadership Academies• Towards instructional leadership (ie. Leadership for

Learning)• Supporting, evaluating and developing teacher

quality• Systems Leadership• Equity (Closing the Gap)


Leaders who can:• Achieve balance between the educational standards

agenda and the whole child agenda• Motivate and develop staff to successfully tackle

variability in performance (both within and between schools)

• Ensure both sustainability and succession planning• Optimise the promise of the reform agenda• Successfully lead schools in a C21st context

characterised by relentlessness, complexity, accountability and opportunity.


A Need to Articulate

• The kind of leaders which the schooling system needs (now and into the future)

• The kind of challenges which these leaders will face

• How leaders can best be developed• How best to identify and grow tomorrow’s

leaders• How the investment in leadership development

can be optimised


How can these leaders best be identified/developed• Systematic action at a systems level and at the level of

the individual school (or school clusters)• ‘Continuum’ of provision (emergent-seasoned)• Early identification of leadership talent/potential • Concentrated preparation/support for those undertaking

new roles• Intensive support/training for all new leaders (1-3 years

past appointment)• A key responsibility of the Head as a leader of leaders

(and leadership development)


• Targeted provision

– Established heads

– Heads in challenging circumstances

– Re: future agenda(s) (learning collaborations;

extended schools; federations)

• Systems leadership opportunities

• Fit for purpose Pedagogies

Dr Tom Hesketh – Director

High Quality Professional Development for School Leaders

looks like

Career long

(on-going) (holisti

c)

(Seamless)

(Cohesive)

Stages related InductionExperienced

Current & future focused

Accredited

Self DirectedWork BasedPlacements

Open to all (Equity)Optimisation

Action Learning

Anchored inevidence

Standards BasedProgression MC1

Needs Related (Personal Institutional, Systems)

Practitioner LedPeer Led

Systematic

Quality AssuredImpactful Learning Focused (OECD)

(Leadership for Teacher Practice Focused Efficacy)


“The organisation of the school must be kept mobile to its inner life. To one whom is accustomed to wind up the machine and trust it to run for fixed periods, this constantly shifting shape of things will seem unsafe and troublesome. And troublesome it is, for no fixed plan can be followed; no two schools are alike; and the same school is shifting, requiring constant attention and nimble judgement on the part of the school leader”.

Documents

Dr Tom Hesketh – Director RTU/Special School Strategic Leadership Forum The Educational Leadership Landscape