1. Great Resources for Busy Heads
(A Headship toolkit)

2. TOOL 1: The Highly Effective Governance Portfolio
Expectations of Governors ramped up considerably in 2017 with the publication of the DfE Governance Handbook and the Competency Framework for Governance, intended to support Governors in developing the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed for effective governance.
Governor are now required to demonstrate, ‘How committed are Governors to their own development as Governors in order to improve their performance?’ SIH para 141 August 2016
To help with this expectation, we run half-day Governor workshops, however, we recognise that not all Governors are able to attend our training events. We have therefore created a help kit that supports Governors and HTs to create a file demonstrating the effectiveness of the Governing Body. It contains templates that provides:
A mechanism for completing the competency framework in a manageable way; using the outcomes of this to create a Governor training plan
A system for demonstrating and collating Governor impact on the school
A model for creating a Governor Action Plan
A draft policy and protocols for establishing best practice for Governor
visits to school

3. TOOL 2: Developing Effective Subject Leaders
The role of Subject Leaders is of increasing importance as the national agenda moves towards demanding a rich and rounded curriculum for children. Within most primary schools, everyone post-NQT has subject leader responsibilities. Effective subject leadership is not about Inspection, it’s about being the best subject leader you can be so that the children get the best possible teaching and learning experiences. Our working definition is:
‘To provide professional leadership and management for a subject to secure high-quality teaching, effective use of resources and improved standards of learning and achievement for all pupils.’
We believe subject leaders need to be able to: 
Write effective Action/Improvement plans for the subject
Lead successful and sustainable change within the subject
Answer questions about personal impact as a subject leader
Maintain an effective subject folder containing evidence of the quality of teaching and learning; subject evaluation and exemplar samples of work demonstrating expectations with a subject
Our help kit provides 4 things:
A subject leader file list
A set of typical subject leader questions
A proforma for writing a subject action plan
A subject leader audit

4. TOOL 3: The ‘how to establish school-wide consistency tool’
Establishing and embedding consistency across the school is potentially one of the greatest challenges faced by Head Teachers and school leaders.
It is, without doubt, one of the key differences between a ‘good’ school and an ‘outstanding’ school.
Consistency is an element of school culture. It provides clarity within the school community and also develops commitment and confidence.
Our help kit provides
A powerpoint presentation to use for staff/governor training
A proforma to gauge consistency of practice; experience;
expectations and values
A set of scenarios to use with senior leaders to give
confidence that different situations would be dealt with
consistently.

5. TOOL 4: The totally transparent process for 360-degree auditing, evidence gathering and evaluation.
It is an important leadership strategy to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of a multitude of different strategies within a school.
This tool works with a wide range of areas of focus, for example, SEND provision; SMSC provision; learning environment consistency and provision for disadvantaged pupils.
It sets out a systematic process from establishing a focus for investigation through to defining clear next steps or actions to improve once areas of development have been identified through the audit process.

6. TOOL 5: The ‘Partnership working between Head Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher’ tool
The relationship between the HT and DHT (or AHT) is of absolute critical importance to the effectiveness of the school.
When this partnership is highly effective, it creates a win-win-win situation. The HT has genuine support and the DHT becomes a head teacher in training. This is not a quick-fix but something that takes time, trust and commitment.
Our tool provides a powerpoint to work through together to support and develop the partnership. This identifies the characteristics of effective partnership and indicators of when this is not working. This is
accompanied by an audit to gauge effectiveness and identify
areas that need further development.
This tool will work best when both parties are prepared to be
totally honest and have a genuine commitment to build the
most effective partnership possible.

7. TOOL 6: Problem solving tools
Sometimes in school, Head Teachers and leaders are faced with an issue or
problem that they cannot resolve easily on their own.
We have collated a range of easy-to-use problem solving tools, that use the collaborative strength of the team to help find some creative solutions to issues. We have not created these tools, but have adapted them to meet the needs of primary school leaders and their teams.
  A Head Teacher has only his/her own perspective on an issue. By involving others in finding solutions, a whole range of different perspectives on the issue are available. The person based in the classroom will often see things through very different eyes to a person based in the office.
Our “Help Kit”provides 5 different problem-solving techniques and all of the associated proformas and templates needed to use them effectively. The five are:
Carousel
Speed-dating
5 Whys
Fishbone analysis
SWOT