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Middle Leadership & Team Development · £5.99

Trusted Leaders,
Confident Schools

Middle leadership guide for heads of department (PDF)

From subject expert to team leader: how to hold former peers to account, build a department people speak honestly in, and turn data into teaching, without adding a single hour of administration.

£5.99The whole playbook, 60 pages

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Read before publication by serving senior leaders, in school.

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Schools that have bought from Empower Educators include Nottingham High School, Northampton High School GDST and Sutton Valence School.

  1. 1 Establish
  2. 2 Connect
  3. 3 Challenge
  4. 4 Develop
  5. 5 Evidence
Cover of Trusted Leaders, Confident Schools

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Middle leadership is the hardest promotion in a school: the job changes completely, the training rarely does, and the people being led were colleagues last term.

This booklet is written for that first year and the ones after it: establishing authority without borrowing someone else’s, challenging without souring a team, and producing evidence that is a by-product of good practice rather than an extra task.

Written to
DfE NPQ frameworks, the Ofsted inspection toolkit & KHDA
Intended for
middle leaders, department INSET and SLT policy review
Extent
60 pages · 55 sections

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Contents

All 55 sections

Taken from the book’s own contents page, so the page numbers are the real ones.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

— The Five Daily Non-Negotiables p3
— The Architecture, at a Glance p4

THE CASE

01 Foreword — The Hardest Job in the School p5
02 What the Frameworks Actually Ask p6
03 Where Middle Leadership Breaks p7
04 The Standards: DfE & the NPQ Frameworks p8
05 What Ofsted Actually Looks For p9

THE THEORY

06 Part I — Authority Without Position p10
07 Part II — Psychological Safety p11
08 Part III — How Teams Actually Improve p12

THE PRACTICE

09 The Five-Pillar Architecture, at a Glance p13
10 Pillar 1 — Establish p14
11 Pillar 2 — Connect p15
12 Pillar 3 — Challenge p16
13 Pillar 4 — Develop p17
14 Pillar 5 — Evidence p18
15 The First Ninety Days p19
16 The Scripts: What to Say p20
17 Holding a Former Peer to Account p21
18 When Someone Is Underperforming p22
19 The Meeting That Isn’t a Briefing p23
20 Building a Professional Learning Community p24
21 Data to Action Without the Bloat p25
22 Lesson Visits People Don’t Dread p26
23 Myths vs Facts p27
24 The Ten Most Common Mistakes p28
25 Middle Leadership in Practice — Scenarios I p29
26 Middle Leadership in Practice — Scenarios II p30

FOR LEADERS

27 Implementation Roadmap — the full year p31
28 When a Department Is in Difficulty p32
29 Measuring What Actually Changed p33
30 Developing Your Middle Leaders p34
31 Make This Your School’s Own Policy p35
32 Questions Leaders Actually Ask p36
33 Twelve Questions to Sit With p37

THE TOOLKIT — PRINT & USE

34 Template 1 — Accountability Conversation Record p38
35 Template 2 — Ten-Minute Department Walk p39
36 Template 3 — Termly Department Review p40
37 The Lanyard Cheat Sheet p41
38 The 45-Minute INSET Workshop p42
39 Staffroom Poster — Five Pillars, In This Order p43
40 SLT Self-Audit Checklist p44

CLOSING

41 In Closing — The Multiplier Effect p45
42 References and Evidence Base p46

THE UAE CHAPTER — A STANDALONE SECTION

43 The Framework You Actually Work Inside p47
44 Head of Department Is a Regulated Role p48
45 The SDP and the Thirty-Day Clock p49
46 Self-Evaluation That Holds Up p50
47 Leading a Team That Turns Over p51
48 What a UAE Inspector Looks For p52
49 Making It Survive the Summer p53

THE PRACTICE — CONTINUED

50 The Monitoring Cycle, and Where It Stalls p54
51 The Conversation Most Middle Leaders Avoid p55

FOR LEADERS — CONTINUED

52 What Good Middle Leadership Looks Like p56

THE TOOLKIT — CONTINUED

53 Two Middle Leadership Tools Worth Printing p57
54 Thirty, Sixty, Ninety Days p58
55 The Evidence Base p59
Next: Inspection

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Your download is ready straight after payment. Downloading it ends the 14-day right to cancel; a file that is faulty or not as described is always refunded. Refunds