Most school years start with at least a couple of colleagues in new leadership roles. But last year, as a result of promotions and maternity cover, our school started with an unprecedented number of new middle leaders: 10.

On the one hand, this was a very good thing. It meant we were doing a good job of providing staff with opportunities to develop their talents within our school rather than losing them to senior positions elsewhere. But with so many people new to leadership all heading up teams, we naturally wanted to ensure that this would not cause a dip in results across the school. We wanted to continue our drive towards whole-school improvement, which meant that every new leader had to buy into the idea of empowering their teams to deliver the best results possible.

How would we do this? Our solution was to set up our own in-house middle-leadership programme at the school.

According to the results of a master’s project by one of our teachers, staff rated on-the-job training and mentoring by colleagues as the best form of continuous professional development to enable them to carry out their jobs effectively. Taking note of these findings, we set about pulling our programme together.

The first job was to assign each middle leader a mentor from the senior leadership team (SLT). We made sure the SLT member was not directly line-managing their mentee to ensure that the process would be open and without bias. To further maintain honesty and trust, we set out some rules for the process that promised confidentiality for all sessions in the programme.

We then devised a clear format that the programme would follow throughout the year. The steps were as follows:

Step 1: Staff surveys

Colleagues completed an online leadership test via the website of the Leadership Matters magazine, to which the school subscribes. The test revealed preferences for how each of our leaders liked to work. For example, one colleague revealed that they were much more likely to respond to requests if asked personally and not by email. This led to interesting discussions about how we should communicate across such a large and complex organisation.

Step 2: Leadership-skill groups

Three times during the year, all leadership staff took part in “school-improvement group” meetings, which were geared towards developing different leadership competencies. These meetings gave new leaders opportunities to discuss difficult aspects of leadership with more experienced colleagues. Subjects of discussion included how best to motivate staff; delegating to your team; and managing change.

Staff were encouraged to discuss changes that they were trying to implement through their development plans. They also worked together to use John Kotter’s “eight-step process for leading change” model to pre-empt difficulties that might arise.

One of most revealing activities that we completed in this area was an exercise on “managing up”, which led to a discussion about the purpose of meetings between middle managers and line managers. Many of the former realised that they needed to take more ownership of the agenda for these meetings, to suit the needs of their role and personal development, rather than seeing the meeting as an interrogation of performance.

Step 3: Mentor meetings

New leaders met with their mentors once every half-term to discuss their progress against a set of agreed leadership competencies. These meetings followed a coaching format and were purely based on the needs of the mentee rather than school-performance objectives.

Feedback from the mentees showed that they really appreciated hearing the expertise of their SLT mentors, without the pressure of judgement and data analysis that is often associated with line-management meetings.

Meanwhile, senior leaders fed back that the meetings allowed them to learn about the workings of areas outside their experience. For example, an experienced curriculum leader learned of the difficulties faced by year-team leaders when trying to hold form tutors to account.

Step 4: Peer evaluation

The process ended with a 360-degree evaluation (which gathers feedback from various people in the organisation who work with the employee).

Middle leaders sent feedback requests to five colleagues of their choice and then reflected on the information they received, considering the successes of their first year of leadership and looking forward to further challenges. The results of the evaluation were kept confidential between mentees and their mentors, which encouraged full participation.

Breaking down tier barriers

So that was our process. But was the programme successful in its first year?

One way to judge that is to consider the fact that 90 per cent of the leaders on the programme are either still in role or have moved on to further promotion. And another point to consider is the fact that the school achieved its best-ever results last year - something that is particularly pleasing given the number of inexperienced leaders we had.

Taken together, these two facts suggest that we are getting something right in the work we are doing with our middle leaders.

Overall, though, I believe the programme’s greatest success has been breaking down the barrier between the SLT and middle leaders. The non-judgemental nature of the sessions has encouraged people to open up about the challenges they face, which has led to a change in focus for the SLT from one of holding people to account, to one of operating in a more supportive and holistic way.

Furthermore, the process has allowed teachers - who for many years had been line-managed by the same person - to learn from an experienced leader in a different part of the school. This has opened up interesting conversations and encouraged the sharing of good practice across the curriculum-pastoral divide that previously existed.

Ultimately, through our middle leaders’ programme, we have changed what we mean by “leadership” at our school. Influenced by what the programme has taught us, we have moved away from a heavy reliance on data and reports to a culture in which we all strive to nurture and energise each individual in our team to achieve their potential.

We have refocused our efforts on the essence of good leadership: enabling and supporting teams. If that’s not success, then I don’t know what is.

Mehul Shah is now deputy headteacher curriculum and achievement at Barnhill Community High School in Hayes. At the time of writing, he was an assistant headteacher at Claremont High School in Kenton

This article originally appeared in the 1 March 2019 issue under the headline “Your starter for 10”