School Support Staff – Enhancing Leadership for the Future

Enhancing Leadership for the Future (ELF) is a 3 module leadership learning programme for School Support Staff Team Leaders specifically designed for individual leaders, in non-teaching roles, who line manage two or more people.

The programme has been designed to explore highly effective leadership within successful teams and the role played by individual leaders in establishing a strong, vibrant professional culture. In a time of relentless change, the only certainty is that new challenges and opportunities will emerge within any organisation. Highly effective leadership, in the future, will demand a mastery of a modern set of leadership behaviours and attitudes.

Enhancing leadership for the future aims to:

• Explore the essential competencies and practices for high-impact leadership
• Develop knowledge and understanding around 3 key concepts for leadership
• Consider the characteristics of a strong, vibrant team culture
• Support participants in creating a vision that inspires members of their team community
• Examine how leaders build capacity within every member of their team

This programme offers the knowledge and skills to enable leaders to create and articulate a vision for increasing capacity for improvement and to design and implement an appropriate strategy for whole team improvement that is focused on maximising success and improved outcomes. It addresses the ‘big picture’ of what contributes to team success and the role played by leaders in optimising cultural conditions that maximise learning through focusing on results.

Key areas of learning

1. Clarity Precedes Competence

Key Learning Question – What must a leader do to build confidence in their own leadership?

We can not be competent or confident in any role without having a clear understanding about the role, itself, and what is needed to achieve success.

• A Leader’s True North – What is the type of leader that I want to be?

• Understanding the role of leadership beliefs – What values and beliefs do I bring to this role?

• Leadership Wisdom – Introducing 3 key concepts of knowledge and understanding

• Key Functions – Being clear about the functions needed for success as a leader

2. The Competencies of Success

Key Learning Question – What are the essential competencies needed for success as a leader?

Being successful as a leader requires an individual to master a range of essential competencies

• The No 1 competency of a successful leader – What is needed to be the best version of myself
• It’s all about perceptions – How does a leader increase self-awareness and responsibility?
• Am I leading a team? Understanding the different types of network that exist in organisations
• The principles of a high-performing team – Being clear about what matters

3. Leading a high-performing team

Key Learning Question – What is my understanding of the developing nature of the team?

A leader must be clear about their own principles and beliefs for a high-performing team and then set about embedding these principles with those they lead.

• Key practices for leading a high-performance team – How I see the team that I lead and it’s future direction.
• Being a future’s thinking leader – What will shape the future developments of this team?
• What stops a network from being a high-performing team? – Identifying common dysfunctions
• It’s all about culture – How do we create and sustain a strong and vibrant team culture for future greatness?

Considerations:

1. Who is the Enhancing Leadership for the Future Programme for?

• Current leaders in non-teaching roles
• Staff aspiring to leadership
• Individuals that have been identified as part of succession planning
• Other members of a school’s Leadership Team

2. Format of programme

Delivered in virtual classrooms…Using Zoom as the platform

Programme structure

The programme will take place in live online sessions.

Dates and Timings

• Module 1 – Wed 12th March – 09:00 to 10:30
• Module 2 – Wed 14th May – 09:00 to 10:30
• Module 3 – Wed 11th June – 09:00 to 10:30

Feedback from our 2024 cohort:

It has allowed me to stop and think about what type of leader I want to be as well as what type of leader I don’t want to be. Great to have the opportunity to stop and reflect. I liked Andy’s passion around reflection.

Reflection and Clarity of what I should be doing, need to be doing and want to do.

Change my approach in meetings (e.g. best version of self), understand delivery of role of leader – supporting and enabling staff more, instead of doing for them. Challenge /promote an alternative non class based operational view in SLT meetings.

Being able to communicate more clearly with my team, improve my listening skills

Andy Hind is a former Head Teacher, with over 30 years of leadership experience, Andy is now a senior consultant with Enhancing Learning Ltd, an independent consultancy company, as well as a qualified facilitator for all national educational leadership programmes.

Andy is driven by a passion for improving the quality of professional development for all participants and currently supports over 600 organisations, worldwide, with their journey to improve leadership and management. His role is in supporting and advising Head Teachers/Heads of Service, Senior Leaders and Middle Leaders in their efforts to improve the quality of education provided to every young learner.

Through a range of inspirational, thought-provoking and challenging approaches, Andy looks to assist organisations in looking inwards, reflecting on their current status, identifying an appropriate and strategic vision and growing towards being genuinely effective learning organisations.

Accessing the online event

Following registration for this event you will receive an email from Eventbrite confirming your place. If you did not create an account at the time of booking or someone else booked on your behalf, you will need to create an Eventbrite account. Open your booking confirmation email, select ‘Claim Your Order’ and then choose a password. Make a note of your email address that was used to make the booking and your new password – you will need these to access the Eventbrite page containing the link to the event.

A minimum of 48 hours before the event begins you will receive another email from Eventbrite containing a direct link to the event and to the Eventbrite Online Event page. Login to Eventbrite, using the same email and password you used to create your account. You will now have access to the online event link and any pre-event materials. This link must not be shared with other people.

Please test the link the day before the event to make sure you can connect. If you need help please email info@otsa.org.uk or call 01865 647999 in good time before the event begins. We will be unable to help during the event itself. Please note, if you unsubscribe from Eventbrite before the event takes place you will not receive any further emails from Eventbrite and therefore will not receive the email with the link to the event.

We do not provide refunds if you are unable to access the event due to technical issues that are beyond our control.

Participation in the online event

In all cases, at the beginning of the session to confirm your identity please ensure that your camera is on, your username matches the name you registered with and that you register in ‘chat’ with your first name, second name and organisation. This is for security and registration purposes and we may remove, without refunds, participants who have not confirmed their identity as described above.

Our online events aim to be interactive and you will be expected to have your camera and microphone on, although your microphone should be muted. We may use ‘Raised Hands’, ‘Reactions’, ‘Chat’, ‘Polls’, shared whiteboards and shared screens during the session. We may also use ‘Breakout Rooms’ to allow you to work in a smaller group.

This event will not be recorded for copyright and privacy reasons.

Accessing the online event

Following registration for this event you will receive an email from Eventbrite confirming your place. If you do not receive the email within a few minutes, please check your junk or spam folders and check that the correct email address was provided at the time of booking. If you did not create an account at the time of booking or someone else booked on your behalf, you will need to create an Eventbrite account. Open your booking confirmation email, select ‘Claim Your Order’ and then choose a password. Make a note of your email address that was used to make the booking and your new password – you will need these to access the Eventbrite page containing the link to the event.

A minimum of 48 hours before the event begins you will receive another email from Eventbrite containing a direct link to the event and to the Eventbrite Online Event page. Login to Eventbrite, using the same email and password you used to create your account. You will now have access to the online event link and any pre-event materials. This link must not be shared with other people.

Please test the link the day before the event to make sure you can connect. If you need help please email info@otsa.org.uk or call 01865 647999 in good time before the event begins. We will be unable to help during the event itself. Please note, if you unsubscribe from Eventbrite before the event takes place you will not receive any further emails from Eventbrite and therefore will not receive the email with the link to the event.

We do not provide refunds if you are unable to access the event due to technical issues that are beyond our control.

Participation in online events

In all cases, at the beginning of the session to confirm your identity please ensure that your camera is on, your username matches the name you registered with and that you register in ‘chat’ with your first name, second name and organisation. This is for security and registration purposes and we may remove, without refunds, participants who have not confirmed their identity as described above.

Our online events aim to be interactive and at times you may be expected to have your camera and microphone on during the session, although usually your microphone should be muted.

We may use ‘Raised Hands’, ‘Reactions’, ‘Chat’, ‘Polls’, shared whiteboards and shared screens during the session. We may also use ‘Breakout Rooms’ to allow you to work in a smaller group.

This event will not be recorded for copyright and privacy reasons.

Payment is required at the time of booking by credit card, debit card or Paypal. Unless otherwise stated, a ticket gives admission to one person at face-to-face and online events. In the event that you share an online event link with other people who then attend the event, including sharing your screen, or you arrive at a venue without a ticket and we are able to admit you, we will invoice you or your organisation for additional tickets retrospectively.

Refunds

No refunds will be given with less than 30 days notice.

In the event of a refund request, please note that the Eventbrite booking fee of 6.95% plus 0.59p per ticket is not refundable.

To keep our event fees as low as possible, we are not able to issue invoices for payment by cheque or bank transfer and we are not able to reserve places without payment.

We strongly recommend that you take out ‘event ticket insurance’ which may cover the cost of your fee should you be unable to attend the event.

Technical Difficulties

Should an online session encounter any technical difficulties we will do our best to continue with the session, this may be on a different online platform. In the event that we are unable to do this we will rearrange the session, if you are unable to attend the new date a full refund will be given.