By Gavin Mackintosh-
A team of bright education experts will be providing extra guidance and support to headteachers to aid the recruitment of the next generation of school leaders, the Department Of Education has announced.
The advisory group, which will be led by Malcolm Trobe, an education specialist and former General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, will lead a review into updating the Headteacher Standards, which underpin best practice for heads and school leaders in recruitment, appraisal and training.
The group is drawn from a wide pool of talent. its overall aim being to ensure that standards are of more practical use for heads and school leaders, encouraging them to be adopted more widely in the sector. This will include addressing how they relate to the variety of leadership roles in the school system. Many schools need stronger and more innovative leaders to help them effectively deal with the variety of pupils they come into contact with in schools.
Headteachers also need to be highly equipped with the necessary skills to train teachers to be the best they can be in an age where academic standards are being raised but the supply of teaching assistants is being axed. This puts more burden on teachers to deliver the required standard of academic excellence in schools, many of which pose different challenges. Under the fresh scheme to support headteachers, a panel with varied skills and experience will spread themselves wide across several schools
Amongst the team of experts is Emma Knights OBE, is Chief Executive of the National Governance Association (NGA) – a leading charity for guidance, research, advice and training for school governors and trustees. The former joint CEO of the Daycare Trust has also had roles in the Legal Services Commission, Citizens Advice and the Local Government Association. As well as leading projects on child poverty and educational attainment, the accomplished chief executive regularly addresses legislators and the media on governance issues, as well as school governors, trustees, clerks and school leaders.
She was a governor at a secondary school in Warwickshire for 7 years and is a founding trustee of the Foundation for Leadership in Education. Also on the list of expert team is distinguished Tom Rees, who is the Executive Director for School Leadership at Ambition Institute -, which is a graduate school launched in March 2019 for teachers, school leaders and system leaders serving children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Rees is also the Education Director of Northampton Primary Academy Trust. A former Advanced Skills Teacher with 17 years of school leadership across different contexts, counties and countries, Tom brings a lot of experience to the table when it comes to guidance and advice.
Minister for School Standards Nick Gibb said:
Strong head teachers are key to driving up academic standards in our schools, helping teachers thrive and ensuring pupils realise their potential. That’s why it is important that we support school leadership across the entire school system.
The advisory group that meets today is made up of a wide range of talented and knowledgeable experts who have unrivalled experience in the world of school leadership. The group will play an essential role in helping us to ensure the support heads and school leaders receive is consistent, and of the highest quality.
The latest version of the Headteacher Standards was published in January 2015 and included a commitment to review the standards after five years.
The review will seek to establish that the standards continue to effectively serve the education sector in England. This will include ensuring they reflect how the sector has evolved since the last review, alongside how the standards can be best embedded in the sector.
Malcolm Trobe, Director of the National Professional Qualification for Executive Leadership Programme, ASCL said:
I am very pleased to have been asked to chair the review group on Headteacher Standards. There have been several changes in the educational landscape since the standards for headteachers were last reviewed in 2015 and it is essential that these changes are taken into account as part of this review.
Both the profession and society rightly have high expectations of those that lead our schools and it is important that the standards accurately reflect those expectations. I very much look forward to receiving and reviewing the evidence that is presented to the group as we consider how we can best represent the standards expected of our school leaders.
Leora Cruddas, Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts said:
I am delighted to be working with Malcom Trobe to lead this important work. Standards articulate the profession’s self-understanding and the expectations of the state, the public and parents.
School leaders are holders of public office and the standards are one of the ways in which we hold ourselves to account and are accountable.
The group will report to Ministers with recommendations for the updated standards by November 2019, with the standards to be revised for the beginning of the academic year 2020/21.
The advisory group is made up of union representatives, educat