Middle Leader Secondments Pilot RD1045

Background

The Department for Education’s (DfE) vision is for a highly educated society in which opportunity is more equal for children and young people, no matter what their background or family circumstances.

There is strong evidence that leadership and the quality of teaching and learning are the most important factors in improving pupil outcomes. NCTL, an executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE), believes that it is middle leaders, such as heads of department, heads of year and those in whole school middle leadership roles who are best placed to improve the quality and consistency of teaching in schools and in tackling the challenge of in-school variation.

However, we also know that some schools struggle to recruit excellent middle leaders and that more needs to be done to attract the best leaders and teachers to the schools that need them the most. This pilot programme will seek to determine the drivers and barriers to encouraging the movement of our best middle leaders into challenging schools; and to establish the impact of strong middle leaders in raising standards and building capacity across the school system.

The new contract

The new contract being tendered is to enable a pilot programme where 100 excellent middle leaders will be seconded into England’s most challenging schools.

The National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL), an executive agency of the DfE, is therefore seeking one national provider (or consortium) to:

• Design, develop and deliver a pilot programme to second 100 talented middle leaders into England’s most challenging schools for one year, starting from January 2016..
• Deliver the programme with national reach and with a particular focus in the East of England region, a high priority area where 30 of the secondments are expected to take place.