Good leadership 'essential' for schools' performance: report

Good leadership and management of teachers and other school staff are "essential" if schools are to improve, according to a new report published today by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted).

The report, 'Leadership and Management: managing the workforce', focused on the different ways schools can make the best use of staff to raise standards.

Today's report highlighted the importance of developing and managing the culture and ethos of the school, providing a good working environment, tackling excessive workloads, providing well-targeted staff development opportunities and introducing change with sensitivity.

Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools David Bell said today: "Strong leadership involves taking staff with you in the constant quest for improvement. Effective management involves listening, encouraging and supporting good work done by teachers, teaching assistants and other support staff. "

The report found that effective school leaders "create an atmosphere of openness" among staff and promote "clear and shared values".

Inspectors noted that the effective use of non-teaching staff, including teaching assistants, had a "positive impact" on school success. The best schools successfully drew up clear job descriptions and embraced the professional development of support staff as well as teaching staff, the report stated.

A key feature of teachers' working environment is the standard of the pupils' behaviour. Most of the schools inspected recognised this and adopted a range of measures to promote high standards of behaviour, the report said.

Some schools developed a timetable of senior managers who were "on-call" and available to support teachers in dealing with badly behaved pupils.

The report also outlined barriers to change even in the most effective schools, the most significant of which were: headteachers were reluctant to use the new pay flexibilities available to them as they and their staff feared such decisions would be divisive; teachers did not always have the knowledge and skills required to make the most of non-teaching staff; and few schools were good at evaluating the effect of CPD on teaching and learning.

The report is based on a survey carried out by inspectors during the autumn term 2002 and spring term 2003, involving inspection visits to 80 primary schools and 70 secondary schools

(gmcg)