Structure
The programme consists of three courses carrying 20 credits each. Participants complete Course 1 and Course 2 in one academic session and Course 3 in the subsequent academic session.
Year 1
Course 1: Developing as a leader
This course takes as its focus, exploring leadership and self-evaluation. The main aim is to enable participants to both develop and demonstrate their understanding of the principles of educational leadership and in so doing:
- to develop participants’ awareness of their leadership potential; and
- to explore the nature of teacher leadership.
Assessment consists of two components:
- a reflective discussion and review of the development of the participant’s leadership skills, supported by illustrative examples; and
- a critical review of approaches to leadership and of some of the issues relating to leadership, drawing from practice and experience and identifying implications for the development of practice in schools.
Course 2: Working collaboratively
This course takes as its focus, developing collaborative practice. The main aim is to support participants to develop their leadership potential and reflect on how they might exercise leadership in their own school setting. Here the focus is on working with and leading staff as a teacher leader:
- to explore the nature of collaborative practice; and
- to evaluate skills and reflect on working collaboratively with other teachers.
Assessment consists of two components:
- a critical analysis of how people work together and interact as individuals and teams within the participant’s school
- a critical reflection on the role played by the participant within the school and the contribution that the participant might make to developing and enhancing collaborative working in the school.
Year 2
Course 3: Leading a project
This course takes as its focus, the completion of a work-based project. The main aim of this course is to enable participants to lead a small-scale collaborative project successfully, in accordance with sound educational values, using appropriate knowledge and understanding and professional abilities:
- to plan, conduct and evaluate a small scale collaborative project in school; and
- to critically review development as a teacher leader.
Assessment consists of two components:
- Submission of a project proposal which outlines a plan for developing a small scale project with a clear rationale, clear aims and objectives. The proposal should give an account of the implementation strategies to be adopted, provide a supportive explanatory narrative, outline success criteria in relation to the project’s objectives and detail the proposed monitoring and evaluative strategies.
- A reflective project report that includes a discussion of how the project was implemented, monitored and evaluated along with supportive illustrative evidence and an explanatory narrative. It will also contain reflective discussion on the development of the participant’s knowledge and understanding of leadership and a review of the participant’s leadership skills. This should include discussion of the change process in context, the learning journey undertaken, and the difference made to the quality of learning, working relationships and the leadership abilities of the participant.
This article was published on Mar 28, 2011