New scheme to boost middle management in challenging schools
Excellent school middle leaders will be placed in underperforming schools in a drive to raise standards.
One hundred exceptional middle leaders will be placed in some of the most challenging schools across England in a move to raise standards and improve the quality of teaching and subject leadership, Schools Minister David Laws announces today (25 February 2015).
The secondment programme will invite up to 100 ‘outstanding’ middle leaders - such as heads of department, subject or year group heads - to apply to spend a year in underperforming schools, including those in deprived, coastal and rural areas.
The 1-year scheme will enable schools which face some of the greatest challenges to benefit from the skills, expertise and knowledge of strong middle leadership to help raise attainment. It will also provide an important professional development opportunity for participants with a view to training the excellent school leaders of the future.
Schools Minister David Laws said:
"We know that strong leadership and high-quality teaching are vital to improving pupil outcomes. That is why we launched the Talented Leaders initiative last year, placing ‘outstanding’ headteachers into struggling schools. Today we are announcing a new programme to do the same with ‘outstanding’ heads of department and subject leaders.
"This new programme will allow schools facing some of the greatest challenges to benefit from the skills, expertise and knowledge of an exceptional middle leader who can drive improvements and raise standards.
"We want to encourage the movement of high-quality middle leaders to the areas which need it most, to help close the attainment gap and build a fairer society in which every child is able to reach their full potential."
The initiative forms part of the government’s wider ambition for a school-led system in which strong schools and leaders work with other schools to share best practice, knowledge and experience and raise standards in all schools. Many top academy chains already share their best staff between schools to improve performance.
The first cohort of middle leaders will spend a year on secondment in underperforming schools to share excellent teaching, diagnose issues and put in place an improvement plan to ensure long-term sustained progress.
Today David Laws announces an ambitious national programme to support 100 middle leaders from ‘outstanding’ schools to work in schools across the country. This will include the secondment of 30 excellent middle leaders to work in challenging schools in the East of England, as announced by the Prime Minister last week.
The new scheme follows the launch of the Talented Leaders programme in September last year to recruit top-performing heads and aspiring heads to turn around some of England’s most challenging schools.
David Laws will host a reception this evening, at which Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will deliver the opening speech, to celebrate the first cohort of outstanding school leaders on the Talented Leaders programme who will start in their new schools later this year.
Heath Monk, CEO of The Future Leaders Trust, which is running the Talented Leaders initiative, said:
"The Talented Leaders programme is about giving more children a great education. We needed to find exceptional school leaders who will commit to relocating to a new school for 3 years and I’m happy to say that we have done that. They are skilled and passionate about seeing their students succeed.
"It has also meant finding the schools that need more support and we’ve been working alongside local authorities and academy trusts to identify them. We are now matching our Talented Leaders participants with these schools, and it’s great to see that our first Talented Leaders programme head has already been appointed. The work of school improvement is challenging but by sharing practice and supporting each other we intend to transform every school that is part of Talented Leaders."
As a further step towards tackling underperformance, the government will also today announce that £10 million will be available for the school-to-school support fund in 2015, taking the total investment to more than £20 million over 2 years.
This funding will enable an existing pool of exceptional leaders - through national leaders of education (NLEs) and teaching schools - to support underperforming schools across the country in addition to leading their own ‘outstanding’ schools.