Almost every leader in education will tell you that their job is a privilege. From middle leadership in schools all the way up to system leadership, there are so many rewarding parts of the role: having a positive impact on the lives of young people; giving them the best chance at a successful and fulfilling life; helping communities to grow and thrive. Leaders say there is no better job out there.
But those leaders do need more help. The job has never been harder and the struggles never more challenging.
There is some assistance available, spread across numerous sources, but we wanted to create a place where leaders of all levels could learn, share, challenge, debate and help each other. That objective has grown into the Tes Magazine Leadership Forum.
The Tes Magazine Leadership Forum consists of the following elements:
Middle Leadership Essentials
This is a 22-part series looking at the nuts and bolts of being a middle leader. How do you build a strategy, monitor performance, deal with budgets and manage a team?
We answer these questions and more with two guides published every month on our Middle Leadership Essentials hub. The first guide is on how to build a strategy, with the second looking at how to implement it.
The Leading and Learning Webinar
Education leaders don’t often get first-hand access to the latest organisational leadership thinking and the people working with the biggest and most challenging organisations. This year, we’re changing that with 10 video sessions with the world’s top thought leaders in the field.
We kick things off with a session with belonging guru Owen Eastwood. You’ll be able to find all these sessions as they are published monthly on our Leading and Learning Webinar hub.
How I Lead
In this series, I will be sitting down with education leaders to find out how they got to where they are, their approach to leadership and how it has developed, and how they face the day-to-day challenges of their roles. The aim is to showcase the plethora of routes into leadership - and of fulfilling leadership roles - and to share best practice.
Up first is Harris Federation CEO Sir Dan Moynihan. You’ll be able to find all these interviews on the How I Lead hub.
The Big Debate
These panel sessions will tackle the big issues facing the sector and, through debate and sharing of information, we will provide leaders with a chance to hear contrasting opinions and gain valuable insight into the challenges and potential solutions available.
We will update The Big Debate hub regularly with the latest sessions.
Thought leadership
Every month, we will be publishing pieces from school leaders on the latest policy announcements, guidance, school challenges, leadership dilemmas and more.
You’ll find these, and all the content above, on our leadership hub.
Of course, all this will run alongside our sector-leading news, analysis and teaching and learning coverage that hundreds of thousands of schools read every month and that leaders already depend on. You can access all this content via our free newsletters.
We hope the Leadership Forum proves useful. Leadership can be a lonely and difficult job, but it doesn’t have to be. Our aim is to ensure that it won’t be.
Jon Severs is editor of Tes
