1st Edition
Doing Middle Leadership Right A Practical Guide to Leading with Honesty and Integrity in Schools
Are you a new or aspiring middle leader? Or have you been doing the job for a while but want some practical tips to ease workload and support your staff? This book draws together real experiences of middle leadership, both good and bad, and offers practical tips to help you find your voice, support your team, act with integrity and work with the Senior Leadership Team to improve your school.
Covering all aspects of middle leadership including leadership styles, pedagogical approaches, the role of social media, how to tackle difficult conversations, staff wellbeing and much more, the authors will help you avoid common pitfalls, navigate highs and lows, and develop a school environment that enables both students and staff to flourish.
For any new, experienced or prospective middle-leader Doing Middle Leadership Right provides a professional insight into how to lead with humanity at the centre of your practice. It puts staff and their wellbeing first – focussing not only on how to have the highest standards for both students and staff but also how to lead ethically.
Introduction 1. Ethical Leadership and Managing Change 2. Quality Assurance: Balancing Accountability and Humanity 3. Difficult Conversations (How to Have Them, and Not Cry) 4. Curriculum Development: the Theory 5. Curriculum Development: the Practicalities 6. Teaching and Learning 7. Assessment 8. Teaching to the Top 9. Behaviour Management 10. CPD and Coaching 11. Social Media 12. Flexible Working 13. Positive Disruption 14. Common Pitfalls, and Debunking Myths 15. Conclusion
Biography
Lyndsay Bawden is a trust-wide English lead and a former HoD, Lead Practitioner and SLE. She works with SLT and English teams to provide CPD, mentoring and coaching, curriculum design and to support with improvement strategies.
Jade Hickin has been a teacher of English for over ten years and is a former Head of Department. She is currently working as a Trust-Wide Lead Practitioner for English as well as the Whole-School Lead Practitioner for Teaching and Learning in a MAT.
Kaley Macis-Riley works as the Head of English, Drama and Whole-School Lead for Literacy at a school in Derbyshire. Alongside her teaching commitments, Kaley runs an education consultancy business, HoDandHeart, offering CPD to teachers and leaders globally.
"Doing Middle Leadership Right is an honest and incredibly useful account of the roles and responsibilities of middle leaders. It is excellent that colleagues in these roles have more information and insights than they had in the past. And this book by Lyndsay Bawden, Jade Hickin and Kaley Macis-Riley is carefully evidenced and brilliantly brought to life with compelling case studies. DMLR is going to make a real difference to the knowledge and confidence of middle leader colleagues. Highly recommended."
Mary Myatt, Education adviser and Writer
"Middle Leadership is a dizzying rollercoaster ride and this book reflects that. It takes you on a whistle-stop tour of contemporary educational thinking, rich in examples and case studies of those who are doing the job daily, and giving the reader bite-sized insights to take away and think over. For anyone new to a head of department role, this book will be helpful in making sense of the jargon and buzzwords that can bamboozle us and will hopefully help them sort out what really matters in the role from the surrounding clamour to attempt to do it all.
Doing Middle Leadership Right is written with humour and humility. The book may list three authors but their work has been supported by dozens of others who are cited throughout the work and whose ideas come together in these pages."
Mark Enser, Head of Geography and Research Lead, Author of The CPD Curriculum
"This book enters the world of education literature at exactly the right time as conversations about the need to improve middle leadership training, support and CPD abound. After all, middle leadership is a role that so many aspire to and yet so many find themselves fulfilling without training and, sadly, often without guidance. This book is thus an essential read for all - regardless of experience.
Packed with sage advice, relatable case studies and tangible action points, this is a book that I wish I’d had in those early years when beginning my middle leadership career. The authors have done an incredible job of covering every area of middle leadership; from curriculum development to flexible working, from difficult conversations to teaching and learning theory. It will challenge, reassure and inspire you in equal measure."
Kate Stockings, Head of Geography
The authors offer practical advice on how to be an effective leader that can support school leaders in varying contexts. Their passion for caring leadership is evident in each chapter and reminds leaders of the importance of caring for their schools and their stakeholders.
Sonya D. Hayes, PhD, Teachers College Record
