In collaboration with the Diocesan Director, the school improvement advisor (SIA) for Catholic primary schools identified that there was a recruitment deficiency in the Catholic sector leadership pool.
Using both the Diocesan Director’s knowledge and intelligence from the local authority’s support visits, effective practitioners were identified and targeted as future leaders. Specific professional learning programmes were devised. This ensured that those identified were able to demonstrate sustained effective practice. These practitioners are utilised effectively and contribute as models of best practice across the Diocese. As a result, a pan-Wales network supports the professional learning through the modelling of best practice.
Additionally, this leadership pool is utilised to support schools where leadership vacancies exist. Aspiring head teachers have been deployed to schools where the head teacher is absent. In the best examples, these individuals have successfully led schools through Estyn monitoring visits and local authority intervention/support programmes. In addition, leadership secondments are used cross-authorities. This enables leaders to share best practice.
The impact of leadership takes high priority for school improvement advisors and features prominently in the agreed agenda for school visits. As a result, the School Improvement Team are able to evaluate the leadership capacity for all schools. Each SIA contributes to a professional discussion which highlights, by exception, schools whose performance falls short of the local authority’s expectations.
The local authority is proactive in the identification of schools that may require additional support and uses an innovate system (School Profiler) to evaluate school performance with contributions from across the council’s services. Swift multi-stakeholder action is taken through a well-planned, democratic process with clear priorities for improvement, under agreed terms of reference. School governors lead these groups who feel empowered to make rapid improvements. This helps to ensure the local authority avoid formal processes for schools causing concern wherever possible.
The local authority commissions and supports additional work to develop aspiring, new and experienced leaders at all levels. For example, the authority has supported a project that enables aspiring deputy headteachers to swap schools for a year and gain valuable experience in a school in a notably different context. Peer mentoring and coaching strategies are used effectively with new and experienced senior leaders in schools.