This week, the Secret Teacher talks about what they see as a shift in terms of leadership culture within schools since Covid.
For the benefit of those from outwith the profession reading this newsletter, the Secret Teacher has provided a definition of the ‘leaders’ that they refer to in the main piece.
You’ve got a headteacher and then you’ve got a team of deputes, which is usually less than half a dozen. There are also leaders across departments, so each department’s got a leader.
In many schools – not in all Scottish schools, but in many – they’ve got a faculty structure now as well. That’s an additional layer. In English, for example, it would be a language faculty, so you would have an English leader, a Modern Language leader and a faculty leader.
You’ve got a few different layers of leaders, but mainly deputes and subject heads.
Before the pandemic, partly due to the promotion opportunities offered up by Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish Attainment Challenge, particularly to staff in schools in less wealthy areas, I took on two leadership roles – one leading, for example, the development of literacy across the school.
And there was a certain status quo, in my view, then: leaders, or promoted staff, breathed a collective sigh of relief at no longer having to contend, first-hand, with the conveyor belt of class after class after class, like classroom teachers do daily.
