Want to be a Middle Leader at School? Read This First
Teaching is a noble profession, but that doesn’t make ambition a dirty word. At some point in their careers, most educators will start to wonder how they can put their talents to the test and take on new responsibilities. For your typical classroom teacher, the next rung on the ladder is a middle leadership position.
If you’re thinking about your own prospects, you need to arm yourself with the right information before you start angling for a promotion. Read on to find out all you need to know about the exact role of middle leaders in schools, plus everything you need to know about their importance to schools’ day-to-day functioning and longer-term strategies.
What are middle leadership roles?
Typically, an incoming middle leader will take responsibility for a particular function or stream of school life. This will mean that a portion of your working time will take place outside of a classroom and involved in discussions about strategy and school improvement.
In a secondary school, a middle leadership position will normally be one of:
- Head of Year
- Head of Subject
- Pastoral lead
- SEN Coordinator
In primary schools, a middle leader will have a job title like:
- Phase leader (e.g. Head of Key Stage 2)
- Literacy/Maths Coordinator
- SEN Coordinator
What does a middle leader do?
It would be putting it mildly to say that a middle leader has a lot of plates to spin. A Head of Department or curriculum coordinator is responsible for overseeing the administrative duties like budgeting and procurement.
They will also be closely involved in people development and performance management. A department head is a leader, and will often be the first port of call for the team members working beneath them when they need advice, guidance or assistance with a problem.
A Head of Year is responsible for the pastoral care of the pupils in that year group. This takes excellent behavioural management skills and a thorough knowledge of safeguarding best practice. They are also responsible for providing direction to form tutors and liaising with parents.
If that didn’t already sound like enough to be getting on with for one lifetime, a middle leader is also typically privy to conversations with the Senior Leadership Team about the school’s overarching vision and strategy. This requires a keen understanding of data. Middle leaders regularly update SLTs with their department or year group’s performance, requiring an understanding of benchmarks like DfE local and national school performance figures.
As the most prominent layer between the school’s top brass and the class teachers, effective middle leaders relay the SLT’s top-level strategic decisions to the rest of the staff and embed them in daily practice.
And that’s not the end of it. After all these duties are dispatched, a middle leader is still a teacher. Even a longstanding head of year will still be committed to a large amount of contact time each week. As one might imagine, a day spent flitting between planning lessons, sitting in on SLT meetings, teaching your Year 10s and reassuring worried parents might leave one feeling a little worn-out.
Why are middle leaders so important?
The frenetic schedules of middle leaders are testament to just how integral they are to keeping schools running smoothly.
Middle leadership has been described as ‘the engine room of sustainable change’ for schools. Middle leaders are a headteacher’s eyes and ears, providing crucial insight into what’s really going on across a school. They’re also the people who translate the school leadership's visions into the tangible processes that add up to progress.
As every middle leader knows, the role pulls in many different directions. You’re a role model - both for pupils and more junior staff; you’re a crucial source of information for headteachers; you’re a data analyst; you’re a strategist and you’re a classroom educator. That’s a lot to shoulder, but without it, schools would not be able to plan beyond the end of each school day.
In the words of former Chief Inspector of Schools Sir Michael Wilshaw, ‘these people are the people who make things work’.
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However you choose to advance your career, we’ll be here to offer all the advice and professional development opportunities you need. All you need to do is get in touch.
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