E3Net
Working in partnership to deliver Excellence in Education
About us: Education Expertise
Education is a hugely complex and challenging business. At the classroom level, a teacher is a manager of one or more classes, each of which consist of say 20 to 30 young people. All of the managerial responsibilities are there – to allocate work, to manage relationships with each individual and amongst the individuals in the team, to control resources and to monitor and improve the quality of the outcome.
On top of these responsibilities, often only experienced by middle managers, the team they are working with (the pupils) will have widely varying levels of ability and motivation, have not been chosen because of any ability to perform the tasks and cannot be dismissed. All of the team go through “life events” such as their own personal development, and at any point, many are experiencing a relationship breakup or other trauma in their home life. Oh, and by the way, managing all of this is just a minor responsibility, the real task is to develop learning experiences that will allow young people to achieve better than they would if they were totally motivated and working on their own.
Beyond the classroom, the education function does not get any simpler. Senior staff have to manage teachers with different expertise and with their own professional autonomy, relate to stakeholders who can have unrealistic expectations and manage everything from budgets to bereavement. Managing the quality of provision is a task which requires particular expertise, as the quality cannot be evaluated by a simple numerical measure.
The solution used in countries which are the most advanced and successful educationally
is to have a system of supported self-
To do this, they create a range or quality measures that include academic achievement, but also look at plans for improvement, how well individual needs are met, ethos and innovation and good practice in the classroom.
If you want to find out more about how we can support the development of an effective education system, click here.