Transcript THE ROLE OF THE SUBJECT LEADER

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Developing the ICT
Subject Leader
Refocusing on ICT as a subject
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Presenters:
David Short, Park View School, Chester-le-Street
Neil Stanley, Liverpool John Moores University
For the British Computer Society
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Teacher Education Working Group
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Leadership v Management
Source: Key Stage 3 National Strategy: Subject Leader Development Programme DfES 0389/2002
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The Role of Subject Leaders
Defined in a number of publications
• DfES Teacher Standards Framework (DfES
0647/2001)- specification for subject leaders
• The National College for School Leadership Leading from the Middle Programme (for subject
and specialist leaders)
• Good Teaching, Effective Departments Report Ofsted (HMI 337)
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The Role of Subject Leaders
The primary leadership roles of subject
leaders are:
• To raise and maintain standards in their
subject.
• To secure and sustain improvement.
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The Role of Subject Leaders
A subject leader needs to know the answer to
these questions:
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How well are we doing?
How do we compare with similar schools?
What more should we aim to achieve this year?
What must we do to make it happen?
• How do we check that it happens?
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The Role of Subject Leaders
Three core roles for subject leaders
• Making judgements about standards of pupils’
achievement;
• Evaluating teaching and learning and setting
priorities for improvement;
• Leading sustainable improvement by identifying
targets for improvement, by developing and
leading strategies to achieve these targets and by
quality assuring the curriculum.
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1. Judging Standards
• Subject leaders make secure judgements
about the standards of pupils’ attainment,
rate of progress and personal development
in their subject, on the basis of evidence.
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Judging Standards means
• Analysing and interpreting data on pupils’
attainment in the subject.
• Reviewing with teachers their assessments
of progress for classes, identified groups
and individuals.
• Sampling pupils’ work.
• Discussing work, progress and attitudes
with sample groups of pupils
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2. Evaluating Teaching and
Learning
• Subject leaders understand what makes teaching
effective in their subject.
• They accept they are accountable for the quality of
teaching.
• They systematically observe colleagues teaching
and have the skills needed to feed back
constructively and objectively.
• They monitor the planning of teaching in their
subject.
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Evaluating Teaching and
Learning
• Evaluating schemes of work to ensure that they
focus on effective teaching and learning.
• Observing teaching and feed back to colleagues.
• Reviewing teachers’ planning
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3. Leading Sustainable
Improvement
• Subject leaders are confident in their role as
leaders of their subject team and understand how
to inspire and enthuse colleagues.
• They create the capacity for change. They
encourage teachers to review and improve on their
practice.
• They work to ensure that the improvements made
are embedded in the subject team’s practice.
• They ensure that the review, construction and
resourcing of the curriculum bring about
improvements.
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Leading Sustainable
Improvement
• Leading the department in discussion about
priorities for the subject
• Agreeing targets for raising pupils’
attainment
• Developing a strategy for the improvement
of the subject
• Leading the improvement of teaching
quality.
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What is the real role of an ICT
Subject Leader in a secondary
school?
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Complete Your Checklist
We don’t see things as they are,
we see things as we are.
Anais Nin
(probably quoting from the Talmud)
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Which boxes did you tick?
Infrastructure?
Technical support?
Managing support staff?
Purchasing equipment?
Staff training?
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Key questions
• Which of these areas are your main focus
– ‘subject leader’ or ‘jack of all trades’
• Are some of these areas a shared
responsibility?
• Who else is responsible for these areas?
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Models of organisation
• Small school
• Medium school
• Large school
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On this slide Esther Holland, a deputy headteacher in
Lewisham describes the changes made to the management
of ICT in her school.
To reduce the size of this presentation it is not included
here but can be viewed in the separate file School1.mov.
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• Why have they changed?
• How have they changed?
• How far have you got?
• Where do you need to get to?
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Your experiences
• Do any of these models fit with your own
experiences?
• Does your experience cover any part of the
models described?
• Are you happy with your model? If you
want to change the model, how might you
go about it?
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External Factors
• At KS3, targets exist for ICT and pupils will be
formally tested at the end of Year 9.
• Priorities and accountability for success are the
same as Maths, Science, and English.
• Do you have the management time to achieve
success within the climate of your school?
• The implications of workforce reform may bring a
change of expectation to teachers within the ICT
department?
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• Bibliography
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Thanks to
Esther Holland, Northbrook School,
Lewisham
Other members of the Working Group for
their inputs