The impact on leadership teams

As the application of technology within an institution grows, so can the complexity of leading, managing and resourcing it. Inevitably, there is a concomitant growth in important decision-making – both strategically and tactically.

You, as the headteacher, should not delegate key decisions, but you will need to be supported by a team with particular ICT responsibilities. You may also decide to supplement altered management structures with an ICT committee which can be drawn from across the whole school community.

Schools that embed ICT into student learning will probably have to adapt their management structures and leadership teams, not only to cope with the expansion of ICT, but also to involve a wider range of staff in the process of innovation and change. Typically, the new management structures are wider and flatter, and conventional hierarchies are abandoned. Development leaders may also be identified from outside the traditional line management model. In addition, schools that really implant ICT often abandon their conventional IT departments.

A flatter leadership group might include, for example, the headteacher, a deputy headteacher, five assistant headteachers and a business manager:

 Leadership Group

Issues to consider include:

• What training and development is needed within your leadership team, including yourself?
• Do you need new posts in the leadership team to enable you to move the school forward?
• What posts might these be?
• What is the attitude and readiness across the middle management level?
• Do you need to be creative in seeking out leadership in key curriculum areas?
• Are you able to fund new posts at middle management level?
• What posts would be useful?
• Are you able to fund incentive management points for the development of ICT in every department/faculty area?
• If not, how can you encourage innovation?
• Should there be two-year 'staff development posts' with specific targets?
• Who will develop your Web presence and your online learning resources?
• Is this a full-time job or an internal secondment?
• To what extent can you use support staff?
• How will support staff be led and managed?
• How will staff be trained and offered opportunities for professional development?

Look at your current leadership structure. Is it appropriate to lead the development of learning with ICT? Ask yourself how you might develop a new leadership model for your own school. What is the model that would help you? A planning sheet is provided below to help you create a new leadership team:

 The Leadership Team