Each 2-hour workshop will focus on one key area of quality middle leadership:

1. Workshop 1: What makes an excellent middle leader – Middle leaders are the engine room of any school; they work with teachers to ensure great learning happens. This session explores the knowledge, skills and behaviours middle leaders need to develop in order to secure real impact. 

2. Workshop 2: Developing your leadership style – Great leadership looks like lots of different things. The most effective leaders can adapt their leadership style to match the person, situation or issue they are dealing with. This session focuses on helping leaders to develop their leadership style to get the best out of themselves and others.

3. Workshop 3: Leading Change - We know that leaders make the weather in a school. The culture and climate in a school are important in terms of creating the conditions for success. This session explores what leaders can do to create a culture and climate of excellence within their area of responsibility. 

4. Workshop 4: Leading people – how to have difficult conversations. Whether you are an experienced middle leader or new to middle leadership, having difficult conversations is something that can keep you awake at night. This session explores what makes difficult conversations so hard and provides practical strategies and approaches for success. 

5. Workshop 5: Leading Teaching - Great teaching looks like lots of different things but what does the latest research tell us about what works best? This session draws on the latest research about great teaching and supports middle leaders to think about how they can put it into practice in their areas of responsibility. 

6. Workshop 6: The Science of Learning - Through cognitive science, we know more than we ever knew before about how children learn. We know that they are capable of far more than we traditionally thought possible. This session explores how middle leaders can translate what we know about how children learn into best practices in the classroom.

7. Workshop 7: Evaluation and Impact - School evaluation is integral to school improvement because schools need to know where they are and what they need to do to get better. This session explores what effective and accurate evaluation looks like and how evidence and data should inform our judgements.

8. Evaluation project: In a project of about 1,500 words evaluate how one or more of the leadership training workshops has helped you develop your middle leadership.

Each participant will receive a comprehensive resource pack for each workshop with suggestions for pre-reading, a set of course notes and guidance on how to implement new learning in school.
On successful completion of all eight workshops, participants will be asked to submit a brief evaluation project showing how they have used the workshops to develop their own leadership. As well as receiving constructive feedback, you will be awarded a certificate of participation from ABEA as a contribution towards your professional development.