LEADING TEACHERS: ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

(A snap shot of schools around the state, June 2008)

The Blueprint has had a significant impact on the way in which schools are now led.

Consequently, many schools have realised that Leading Teachers must now play a role that is significantly more than just leading and managing a portfolio. They are now advertising for their Leading Teachers to take on responsibility for broader, college-wide areas that are determined by the school’s strategic planning processes.

Increasingly, schools are advertising for LTs who are termed learning educators, educators, or even teaching and learning coaches.

Schools now have the opportunity to recognise the changing demands on school leadership, and when advertising for Leading Teachers for the next few years, need to be clear how these roles might be played.

Educators are Leading Teachers whose role is to work collectively and individually to plan, develop, implement and review the key improvement strategies and actions of the School Strategic Plan and its AIPs.

All Leading Teachers in the school constitute the Leadership Team that is responsible for progressing the Strategic Plan, and individually they take responsibility for one of the three elements of the Strategic Plan, i.e.

  • Improve student learning
  • Enhance student engagement and well being
  • Improve student pathways and transitions

In doing so, Leading Teachers are expected to

  • Participate in and contribute to discussions re issues arising from aspects of the Strategic Plan
  • Create and develop effective teams that will assist them to further the progress of their element of responsibility
  • Lead, manage and mentor leaders of these teams, e.g., co-ordinators, domain leaders, team managers etc.
  • Ensure thatteachers in these teams are supported to improve the learning, engagement and well being and transitions and pathways
  • Ensure that PoLT informs the practice of all teachers in their teams
  • Ensure that all teachers in their teams understand and apply VELS, assessment and reporting requirements
  • Ensure that any Strategic Plan Key Improvement Strategy and associated action (e.g., improving literacy and numeracy) is implemented through their teams
  • Ensure that the key elements of a performance and development culture are implicit in teacher practice, ie, that teachers mentor and are mentored, that they observe each others teaching practice, reflect on data and feedback together, build professional goals and strategies and learning plans, trial teaching practices etc.

The new agreement in its roles and responsibilities statements for Leading Teachers confirms all of the above

So what roles do Leading Teachers play now in schools? The spreadsheet represents what happens ina sample of schools in which VASSP does project work.

Some comments need to be made by way of clarification.

  1. Leading Teacher Educators, or Learning Educators, as they are known in two of the schools that use this terminology conform to the model above. They are responsible for the curriculum, pedagogy, engagement, pathways and transitions for the group of target students for which they are responsible, whether that be at a year level (as at one of the schools) or a sub-school.
  2. Sub-school leaders, or Heads of School play a very similar role. They are simply named differently. If this model is developed, then there may be no need for an overall curriculum, teaching and learning or P and D leader.
  3. There is still a need for specific domain. Fewer schools are designating Leading Teacher positions as KLA leaders, except if they are targeted for literacy or numeracy, in which cases English and Maths heads are made LTs. What to do with domain leaders and how they are trained to improve teaching practice becomes the key challenge.
  4. Numbers of schools still designate personnel and management positions as LT positions.
  5. Schools are increasingly considering the merging of their Teaching and Learning and Performance and Development positions, on the basis that the culture they are trying to build is strongly focused on quality teaching and learning

Ian Wallis

VASSP Project Officer

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