Teacher leader networks: Opportunities to lead SBCway priorities
Rationale: As part of our new ‘Leadership Academy’, we recognise the need to provide strategic leadership opportunities for our classroom teachers. Teacher leaders will also provide additional capacity within the ‘Team Around the Cluster’ model, offering schools within each cluster access to expert support and advice about key #SBCway improvement priorities. These teacher leader roles provide a unique opportunity for experienced practitioners to lead, with support, out-with their own classroom and school.

SBCway-linked roles
For the priority areas listed below, teacher leaders will:
✓ Be classed-based but the school’s lead practitioner for ongoing specific priority developments.
✓ Remain up-to-date with SBCway developments.
✓ Attend regular (max. half-termly) twilight webinars.
✓ Support with ongoing evaluation of improvement developments.
✓ Join and engage with relevant SchoolHouse channel.
✓ Promote key messages to wider staff team, liaising with HTs.
✓ Support school / cluster improvement activity as directed by HTs.
✓ Commit 10hrs of individual CPD time to the role

SBCway priorities
To ensure key priorities receive proportionate teacher leader attention, the following opportunities have been allocated according to school size.

Commitment: Teacher leaders, by definition, are classroom based. They will commit 10 hours of their individual CLPL time to this development opportunity. School leaders may choose to provide additional time if appropriate. Additional CLPL sessions may be offered over the school year.
Middle leaders: In most secondary schools and some primary schools, these teacher leader roles will already sit within the remit of existing PTs or other middle leader roles. As such, there is no requirement to appoint additional individuals into these roles unless there is an appropriate rationale to do so.
Recruitment process: The opportunity to be a Teacher leader should be offered to all teachers. Headteachers should discuss these opportunities with staff. If necessary, informal interviews can be conducted to select the most suitable candidates.
Vacant roles: If a school/group of schools is unable to appoint teacher leaders, Headteachers will be the designated point of contact for improvement activity. But Headteachers will not be required to fulfil the expectations of the teacher leader role

Confirmation of appointed staff, along with contact email addresses and base school should be sent to CLPL@scotborders.gov.uk 

We hope this finds you well and looking forward to the February break (or having enjoyed it, depending on when you read this!)

We’re pleased to let you know that two 15-minute summary videos are now available from our first two Leadership+ webinars. These feature Dr Karen Edge on Leadership for Capacity and Wellbeing and Dr Simon Breakspear on the Art of Strategic Subtraction.

We are developing a dedicated webpage for Leadership+ which will include any additional resources highlighted by the speakers and some ideas about how you might use the videos with your teams. We’ll let you know when this is ready.

Four of our five winners have now claimed their copy of Simon Breakspear’s new book, for being the top chat pane users during the session. We have a few extra copies to give away and will draw these at random from those who attended his session. We’ll be in touch with those lucky recipients in due course!

Our next Leadership+ session will be held on Monday 24^th February with Dr Paul Bloomberg: From People to Process: Advancing Agency through Complex Change. You can sign up here.

Middle Leaders Engagement Day – 20th March 2025

For all PTs and DHTs

To book: https://forms.office.com/e/3etwGMJYeS 

Hopefully you have had the opportunity to hear about Education Scotland’s new Leadership+ offer. Leadership+ is a series of one-off bespoke webinars which complement the work of Education Scotland’s leadership programmes.

Leadership+ is offered to anyone in a leadership role in Scottish education, across sectors (this includes classroom practitioners, ELC and CLD practitioners, middle leaders, and school, setting and system leaders). The aims are:

• to enhance leadership learning across pertinent themes
• to encourage critical thinking in leaders at all levels.

We have some amazing news for you! Dr Simon Breakspear has agreed to lead our second Leadership+ session! This is being held on Tuesday 10^th December, 9.15am – 10.30am. Please note the early start is due to international time zones as Simon is joining us from Australia!

In this session, Simon will outline the case for strategic subtraction. What if the answer to inducing positive change in our teams, organisations, and systems lies in doing less?

In this provocative presentation, you will:

• Unravel the misguided tendency to keep adding more
• Surface the power of subtracting, streamlining and simplifying
• Explore how to apply The Pruning Principle across roles and contexts
• Consider why pruning will require courage and creativity
• Apply simple strategies and practical tools

We anticipate high demand for this event, so would encourage you to sign up quickly. If a number of you in your establishment want to sign up, then why not watch together, learn together and take forward your post-event plans together? Please click here to register (you can also use the QR code, or register now link on the flier).

We have already sent out information on our first Leadership+ webinar will be led by Dr Karen Edge focusing on Leadership for capacity and wellbeing, and is being held on Wednesday 4^th December, 3.30pm – 4.45pm. We will be offering more Leadership+ sessions in the near future, and will be publishing a menu of sessions in the new year.

Neither of these sessions will be recorded, however our presenters will be recording bespoke 15 minute summaries which will be housed on the Leadership Resource page of our website Leadership in Education | Resource Themes | Education Scotland

Education Scotland, Professional Learning and Leadership team