Leadership Development Programme
About the programme
Accredited November 2019 – Project Leadership
Our children and young people deserve the best possible start in life and West Lothian Council are committed to achieving this outcome through the provision of high quality education and inspirational leaders in all of our education establishments. Development pathways for teachers ensure that the council identifies and motivates the right people to achieve qualifications and assume leadership roles.
West Lothian Council is nurturing leadership and management capacity at all levels through a flexible and participative range of development tools. The “West Lothian Introduction to Leadership Programme” is helping teachers to start their development as school leaders at an early stage of their career and supports the principle of distributive leadership, or leadership at all levels in schools. The programme allows people who are currently working at project leadership level and have further leadership potential to be identified, ensuring that they get the appropriate development opportunities to support them in their current role and prepare for future roles in middle school leadership.
This activity supports a national drive to promote and encourage coaching as an effective means of developing people, with a particular emphasis on leadership. The programme also aims to give an appropriate context for coaches to build up their skills and to further develop the culture of coaching in West Lothian.
Engagement activity with the National CPD unit identified an apparent gap nationally in the development opportunities available for class teachers to support their transition into middle leadership positions. The starting point for the course development was to simplify the Standard for Headship to make it more appropriate for middle leadership levels. The Programme has been developed specifically for classroom teachers who wish to continue their careers in school leadership and who have the potential to become Principal Teachers or Principal Teacher Curriculum and to support participant’s progression from “Project” to “Team” leadership. It is now in its fourth year was recently subject to an extensive review.
The aims of the programme were developed by the team which included staff from primary and secondary schools and the council’s Education CPD officer. All stakeholders were consulted through the development stage of the programme including senior council officers, head teachers, depute head teachers and class teachers. The aims are revisited each year as part of the team’s planning cycle at the beginning of the session.
The identified aims of the programme are to:
- increase leadership capacity
- create contexts and increase support for distributed leadership
- establish a coaching culture in West Lothian
- offer opportunities to develop coaching practice
- offer an enhanced professional development opportunity to both participants and coaches
The programme is based on the following principles:
- the programme consists of a number of key elements which all contribute to successful learning
- high quality professional dialogue is at the heart of professional development and encouraging an effective coaching relationship is critical
- coaching brings professional benefits to both the coach and participant
- the face to face session inputs form a comprehensive introduction to school leadership and management
- the tasks and coaching session allow knowledge and understanding to be deepened and opportunities to develop skills to be identified
The course is delivered via eight twilight sessions which are planned in advance. Each session covers an aspect of leadership and management that is relevant to the candidate’s stage in their learning. Guest speakers present to the group and have included West Lothian Council’s Depute Chief Executive, Head of Service and various head teachers and depute head teachers. The sessions also include activity based learning tasks, networking, remit analysis, case studies and problem-solving scenarios and the candidates can be asked to work in home groups, individually and in pairs.
Partnerships with schools are an essential part of the course and schools provide support, a context for the project that the candidates undertake and a named coach for the year. There is also an introductory session on coaching for those line managers who have no formal training in coaching to support this. The staff who have undertaken the West Lothian Coaching Diploma are now being given the role of coach to the leadership candidates.
The course is thoroughly reviewed at the beginning of the session and an evaluation is carried out at the end to ensure continued relevance to the changing national and local educational environment. Schools are integral to the success of the programme and are involved in ongoing support for each of the candidates. Candidates also submit a leadership project report, a reflective commentary on the impact of the project, a list of evidence that is available as part of a portfolio to support their claims and a formal self-evaluation. Headteachers also provide an endorsement of the candidates progress as part of the final submission which is also included as part of the review process.
This course has recently been re-accredited, with the following improvements noted:
- A focus on readiness for leadership.
- Enhancing teacher professionalism through embedding the co-creation of vision and values.
- Foregrounding relationships as critical to change.
- An increase in participant-led self-evaluation.
- Facilitating teacher empowerment through situating the course in a range of career pathways.
- Enacting national policy shifts related to professional learning, with particular reference to the National Model for Professional Learning and GTC Scotland’s Professional Learning Planning Cycle.
- Encouraging self-care for our professionals.
Participants’ projects reflect the key drivers and themes of the National Improvement Framework and impact has been noted in the local authority’s validated self-evaluation programme.
We are in a strong position now to re-align with the new GTC Scotland Professional Standards as well as work closely with the Forth Valley and West Lothian Regional Improvement Collaborative.
The programme also received a Bronze COSLA Award in 2014.
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