Mentoring and Monitoring Skills for Middle Management Faculty in a School

Educational Institutions function as a system encompassing a plethora of components. Coordinators, supervisors, faculty heads, departmental heads are the pillars of an institution and play a crucial role in the success story. With such engagement comes a colossal responsibility and prompt accountability.

The vision of the institution gives purpose and direction to all and should be shared with all stakeholders. Both short term and long term goals when clearly specified, ensure a developmental continuum. Next comes the Annual Pedagogical plan which takes into account the time lines of various events, celebrations and assessment. Once the pedagogical plan is made with the help of all the key persons responsible for the following and execution, they take the ownership of keeping up with the plan and its implementation. Needless to say, roles must be clearly defined, in absence of which, a lot of productive time will be wasted in negotiating roles and following up.

To ensure that the philosophy, systems and processes as espoused by the institution are followed in letter and spirit, the middle management faculty needs to understand all the aspects given below apart from having skills to lead a team.

• In the academic area, instructional design containing learning objectives/ outcomes, flow of content, strategies, rubrics for assessments, assignments etc. is the most important document in the planning. How it is played in the classroom, is to be monitored by the coordinator.
• Observing the educators is an art and it should be ensured that it is done in a non-threatening and conducive environment. Wherever intervention is required should be made without any hesitation, keeping the dignity of the educator intact.
• Planning events, functions in detail, scheduling, rescheduling time table according to the need requires an eye for detailing.
• Maintaining synergies in staffrooms needs deft handling of situations.
• Identifying the training needs of the teachers and organising sessions to cater to the same is crucial.
• Creating and implementing differentiated teaching learning strategies for gifted as well for those needing remediation.
• To be able to analyse the assessment data to take corrective measures is indispensable.

Our middle management faculty requires skills such as communication, thinking and acting systematically, resilience, commitment, to keep learning, to be able to collaborate, team spirit and many more.

Working and heading from the middle is about meeting the demands from the above while scaffolding the teams with resources, knowledge and building capacities to meet the objectives. It is not an easy ride but it?s worth it.