Welcome back

Welcome to Week 2 of Improving Schools through Effective Leadership.

Last week, we explored some of the key features of effective school leadership and how your own leadership style might equip you to become a more productive and authentic headteacher.

Great leadership starts with you knowing yourself and being yourself. Knowing who you are generates great leadership confidence.

Coming up

This week, we delve deeper into the characteristics of effective schools and their leadership. You will have the opportunity to explore:

• Transformational leadership theory
• Research on authentic leadership
• The importance of behaviour and body language of school leaders

Throughout the excursion into theory and research, we’ll draw out the practical implications of these studies for best practice in educational leadership and you’ll have the chance to apply your learning in a case study scenario.

In the second half of the week, the focus will shift again to explore the importance of a model of leadership which is increasingly prominent in research – learning-centred leadership.

You’ll have the opportunity to draw out the implications of your knowledge of this model in a series of lesson observations through which you will be able to make a judgement about the effectiveness of the school and whether the headteacher is an effective leader.

Finally, we’ll look at what all of the research and best practice tells us about effective schools and how school leaders behave in those institutions.

To start with though, let’s have a look at diversity in educational leadership.