NPQSL Practice Activities: Leading organisational effectiveness
Practice Activities
Internalise expertise
Select three of the following 9 activities to submit to your leadership development coach.
Choose activities based on your areas of interest and the results of the review undertaken at the start of the course.
Organisational management
Activity 1: Your vision
Take a look at 'Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings' and consider the list of signs of successful safeguarding arrangements, 12 to 13 on pages 7 to 10. Use this list to help you review safeguarding in your area of responsibility.
What evidence do you have that safeguarding procedures are effective in your school?
From the list identify areas in your school or department where action is required to strengthen safeguarding arrangements.
What action can you take as a senior leader to improve the impact of safeguarding in these areas?
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this task to your leadership development coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
DfE (2021) Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings
Activity 2: Reducing workload
The DfE's (2022) School Workload Reduction Toolkit includes guidance on identifying workload issues in your school. Use the resources in the toolkit to conduct a workload survey of a group of staff in your school.
Use the guidance in the toolkit to help you reflect on the results. You may wish to use the presentation template in the toolkit to present the results of the survey to staff and help structure a discussion of the findings.
Draft a plan to investigate potential strategies for addressing any workload issues identified.
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this activity to your leadership development coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
DfE (2022) School workload reduction toolkit
Activity 3: Understanding funding
Senior leaders need to have a good understanding of different funding mechanisms. Meet with your school business manager, or a senior leader responsible for school finance, to investigate the funding mechanisms for your school.
With the support of your colleague, identify the relevant funding guidance for your school. All funding guidance can be found DfE (2022) School and college funding and finance: detailed information.
Summarise how funding works for your school or area of responsibility.
Why is it useful for a senior leader to understand how their school is funded?
How will you apply this understanding in your role?
Submission
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership development coach (maximum 200 words).
DfE (2022) School and college funding and finance: detailed information
Activity 4: Integrated financial and curriculum planning
In his practice piece about managing resources, John Carlin discussed how he and his team used integrated financial and curriculum planning to plan the most effective use of resources. IFCP involves measuring your current curriculum, staffing structure and finances, and using the data to create a 3- to 5-year plan.
Download the appropriate workbook for your context.
Select an area of your school, year or department to evaluate and fill in the relevant data. (You do not have to enter data for the whole school.)
You may find it useful to meet with your headteacher or another senior leader to help you fill in the workbook.
Review the data and reflect on the results.
How will an understanding of the data inform your curriculum planning for the next 3 years?
Your school leaders may have already completed this planning exercise. If so, meet with a member of the senior leadership team to go through the completed workbook or data for your school and discuss:
How has this informed curriculum and financial planning in your school?
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this activity to your leadership development coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
Practice piece: John Carlin, principal of Penketh High School
Primary schools can use the primary school workbook (MS Excel Spreadsheet) and technical guide.
Secondary schools can use the secondary school workbook (MS Excel Spreadsheet) and technical guide. Special schools and providers of AP can use the special schools and providers of AP workbook (MS Excel Spreadsheet) and technical guide.
DfE (2019) Integrated curriculum and financial planning (ICFP)
DfE (2019) Seven step guide to ICFP
DfE (2019) Basic principles of ICFP
Governance and accountability
Activity 5: Understanding governance
In her practice piece about accountability arrangements, Mair Fairweather recommended that senior leaders familiarise themselves with the instruments of governance for their school and the Governance Handbook.
Read the Governance Handbook, paying attention to Section 3 which explains accountability arrangements for school boards and the requirement to hold school leaders to account for educational performance, financial and organisational performance, and for ensuring money is well spent.
Read the instruments of governance for your school. (You may find it useful to meet with a member of your board to discuss what this means for senior leaders and governance at your school.)
For academies, see the (2021) Academies Trust Handbook (previously the Academies Financial Handbook), paying attention to Part 8. The schedule of requirements, brings together the requirements or ‘musts’ for trust members in one list.
Having familiarised yourself with the instruments of governance and the relevant handbook reflect on the following questions:
What are the implications of the requirements and recommendations laid out in the guidance, for your role as a senior leader?
What are the implications for the way you work with governors?
What action do you need to take as a senior leader to support accountability arrangements in your school or area of responsibility?
Submission
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership development coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
Practice piece: Mair Fairweather, headteacher at Hartford Primary
DfE (2020). Governance handbook and Competency framework
DfE (2021) Academies trust handbook
Activity 6: Reporting to external organisations
Senior leaders must be accountable and submit themselves to scrutiny. In her practice piece about fulfilling obligations to external organisations, Debbie Strowbridge explained how senior leaders at her school contributed to external audits and inspections including the DfE, Ofsted and the local authority.
Meet with members of your senior leadership team to discuss accountability and the contribution of senior leaders to external audits, inspections and reports.
Gather examples of the types of reports and information provided by senior leaders.
What are the typical reporting requirements for your school?
How are leaders briefed and prepared to report to external organisations?
How are leaders supported to access the required evidence and information?
How do leaders make sure the information they provide is accurate? What quality procedures are in place?
How do leaders ensure reports are clearly written and appropriate for the audience?
What action can you take to make report-writing and the provision of data more efficient?
Submission
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership development coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
Practice piece: Debbie Strowbridge, national leader of governance, chair of Opossum Federation and chair of George Tomlinson Primary School
Working in partnership
Activity 7: Communicating with parents
Read the EEF's (2019) Working with Parents to Support Children’s Learning, paying attention recommendation 3, Tailor school communications to encourage positive dialogue about learning.
The guidance states that:
messages are likely to be more effective if they are personalised, linked to learning, and promote positive interactions by, for example, celebrating success.
communication should be two-way: consulting with parents about how they can be involved is likely to be valuable and increase the effectiveness of home-school relationships. Currently around half of parents say that they have not been consulted.
Review 3 examples of recent communications to parents in light of the EEF recommendations.
Suggests edits, or additions to the examples to better tailor the messages and help promote a positive dialogue about learning. (You may wish to discuss amendments this with parents).
Submission
Submit a summary of your learning from this activity to your leadership development coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
EEF (2019) Working with parents to support children’s learning
Activity 8: Supporting learning at home
In her practice piece about working with parents and carers, Victoria Armitage described the benefits of home visits and informal coffee mornings to engage hard-to-reach parents and support learning at home.
Read Recommendation 2 of the EEF (2019) guidance for practical advice on supporting learning at home and engaging parents.
Meet with a member of your pastoral team, head of year or SENCo to identify a group of hard-toreach parents in your school.
How is this lack of engagement impacting on pupil learning?
What strategies have been employed to try to engage this group?
Would home visits be appropriate for this group?
What would you hope to gain by conducting home visits?
Having read the EEF (2019) recommendations, what other evidence-based strategies for supporting learning at home and engaging parents, could be implemented at your school?
Why have you selected these strategies?
Submission
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership development coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
Practice piece: Victoria Armitage, assistant headteacher, Milthorpe School
EEF (2019) Working with parents to support children’s learning
Activity 9: Partnership agreements
The evidence base underpinning the framework highlighted the need to clearly state the purpose of a partnership and how partners would work together, in a partnership agreement or memorandum of understanding (MOU).
Read the DfE (2018) guidance Setting up School Partnerships paying attention to the guide to producing a memorandum of understanding.
Identify one of your school’s existing partnerships and meet with the leader responsible for managing that partnership.
Review the partnership agreement or MOU in light of the DfE guidance.
How could the agreement be improved to better communicate the purpose and intended outcomes of the partnerships and the roles and commitment of members?
Submission
Submit a summary of your response to your leadership development coach (maximum 200 words).
Resources
DfE (2018) Setting up school partnerships