Within schools there are a variety of line management positions ranging from leading teaching teams to managing support staff. Regardless of the remit covered, a good line manager should be supportive to those they manage, be aware of development opportunities and plan for these so that the needs of both the organisation and the individual are met.
Developing staff through appraisal
Underpinning effective line management should be a robust appraisal system. This system takes the form of stages spanning an academic year, beginning in September, and repeating annually:
- Stage 1: Appraisee reviews their progress against the previous year’s objectives.
- Stage 2: Appraisee and appraiser meet to discuss last year’s progress. Appraiser writes a review of how well the objectives have been met. Recommendation for pay progression or promotion may be made.
- Stage 3: During this meeting a discussion takes place about the objectives to be set for the upcoming year. These should be co-constructed by both appraisee and appraiser. They need to align with school improvement priorities but also be suitably developmental for the appraisee and link to their career aims. Indeed, research suggests that “increasing teachers’ autonomy over their CPD goals has the greatest potential for increasing job satisfaction and retention” (Worth & Van den Brande, 2020).
- Stage 4: During the academic year there should be a mid-point review meeting between the appraiser and appraisee to check on progress towards the objectives and to identify any further support which may be required.
SecEd Podcast: How to be an effective line manager in the secondary school. This episode offers a range of tips and advice from two experienced school leaders. Listen for free here.
Supporting staff development
One of the biggest challenges for a good line manager can be the tension created between what is in the best interest of the school and what is in the best interest of the individual.
They need to take steps to align these as much as possible while simultaneously supporting staff who may be working at different levels of competence and expertise.
Each school will have its own school improvement plan with contextualised areas to focus on and there is great benefit if staff development can be linked to these areas.
At my school, Uppingham Community College, we have taken steps to address this problem by creating a Teacher Development Programme which offers a pathway of professional development based on an individual’s career stage and progression aims.
This includes an Early Career Pathway, a Leadership Pathway, and an Expert Teacher Pathway – with each pathway offering a bespoke range of CPD opportunities.
Alongside this we have an appraisal system which allows staff to choose three objectives a year. One is aligned with a whole-school teaching and learning priority but the other two are decided by the individual member of staff – one is related to their area of responsibility within school and the other is based on an area of personal interest or career aspiration.
Provision that supports staff to achieve their objectives is then available through opportunities identified in the relevant pathway from the Teacher Development Programme. I have written in more detail on this approach in another SecEd article.
A good line manager will also be aware of what their staff’s goals are which can in turn support succession planning and help their staff feel motivated and fulfilled at work.
Inevitably there will be times when there is no capacity within the organisation to offer individuals the opportunity or promotion they desire at that particular time. In these cases, it pays to be creative.
Work-shadowing of more senior leaders can be effective in giving individuals exposure to wider school roles as well as coaching between senior and middle leaders.
Indeed, we have used the Leadership Matters programme very successfully to support both aspiring leaders and middle leaders (see Buck, 2018). The programme consists of a wide range of leadership topics which the individual works through with their coach.
Additionally, we have also invested in creating a team of lead practitioners within school which has offered staff career progression, while also providing extra leadership capacity and helping to improve teaching and learning standards.
Ensuring effective quality-assurance as a line manager
An integral element of being an effective line manager involves robust quality-assurance of your team and their performance, monitoring and supporting them to ensure good outcomes for all. The starting point for this has to be the line manager themselves knowing what good practice looks like.
For this reason, it is important that line managers are well-trained and keep up-to-date on current educational research and examples of good practice. The success then lies in training your team well so you can hold them to account.
Taking the role of a head of department, effective quality-assurance would look something like this:
- Have a robust understanding of what your department’s teaching and learning aims are and capture these in a strategic plan which details how each focus area will be achieved.
- Build this into termly action plans which include training for staff.
- Sample the quality of provision on offer through learning walks, lesson planning, and assessment.
- Allow for regular review (at least every term) of your progress towards achieving your aims with action planning to address specific elements.
Ultimately, an effective line manager needs to have an excellent understanding of what is happening in their team on a daily basis while also being able to step back and plan strategically for improvement.
Again, I have written about our school’s department self-review process in a previous SecEd article. It is a model that allows each head of department to quality-assure their subject area, in depth, once a year, supported by the senior leadership team and incorporating curriculum conversations, learning walks, and student voice.
Dealing with difficult conversations and giving feedback
Inevitably as a line manager there will be times when you have to have a difficult conversation with someone you manage. This may be as a result of your quality-assurance activities such as feedback from a lesson observed, or it may be concerned with HR issues such as absence or conduct.
I find the concept of radical candor – from Susan Scott’s 2017 book of the same name – particularly useful here. It is a management philosophy based on “caring personally” while “challenging directly” which explores how it is usually the kindest thing to be honest with somebody if you come at it from a position of care. In her book, Susan Scott summarises a useful structure to use in feedback as:
- Be clear about how you intend to help – why are you giving this feedback, what is your aim?
- State your intention is to be helpful. For example: “I’m going to tell you something because if I was in your shoes, I’d want to know so I could fix it.”
- Show don’t tell. Give precise examples. By showing rather than telling what was good or what was bad, you are helping a person to do more of what’s good and less of what’s bad, and to see the difference.
- Finding help is sometimes better than offering it yourself. You’re not always the best person to give help and only have a limited capacity. Sometimes there are people better skilled at certain strategies than you and who can support colleagues. Arrange this for them.
- Feedback is a gift, not a whip or a carrot. Sometimes the only help you can offer is the feedback itself. Colleagues have to then go away and act on it.
- Share the context. Putting the work into a broader context allows everyone to understand why the work was important and what the impact was on student learning.
It is worth noting here that it is good practice to follow up a verbal discussion with an email summarising the meeting (copying in HR if required) so that you have a record of what was discussed and agreed.
Considering wellbeing, workload, and morale
To help create a high-functioning team, a good line manager needs to be considerate of their team’s workload and work/life balance. Many schools have a central wellbeing charter with clear objectives which line managers should promote.
Managing workload is a key priority for the Department of Education with the establishment of the Workload Reduction Taskforce following last year’s industrial action.
The taskforce’s stated aim is to reduce teachers’ working hours by five hours a week over the next three years (DfE, 2024). Line managers need to be aware of the rhythm and demands of the school year making allowances for particularly busy times and allocating sufficient time for assessments, feedback, and lesson-planning.
Furthermore, a good line manager needs to focus on building a team spirit and morale which will in turn help encourage discretionary effort. Regular opportunities for the team to meet and share ideas, working collaboratively on projects that staff feel make a difference, and where their input is truly valued, will help this develop.
Final thoughts
The role of a line manager in schools is a varied one, constantly switching between a strategic leadership focus and a more operational management role.
Yet regardless of this, an effective line manager needs to be approachable and trusted by their team.
Look for opportunities to keep your staff fulfilled at work by involving them in areas they are interested in while ensuring this doesn’t distract them from their core role.
An effective line manager doesn’t need to be an expert in everything – instead just make sure you know where to go to get the required information to support your team.
- Clare Duffy is deputy principal (teaching and learning and CPD) at Uppingham Community College in Rutland. Follow her on X @ClareHDuffy and find her previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/clare-duffy
Further information & resources
- Buck: Leadership Matters 3.0, John Catt, 2018.
- DfE: Workload Reduction Taskforce: Initial recommendations, 2024: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65a10648e8f5ec000d1f8c2f/Workload_reducation_taskforce_-_initial_recommendations.pdf
- Scott: Radical Candor, St Martins Press, 2017.
- Worth & Van den Brande: Teacher autonomy: How does it relate to job satisfaction and retention? NFER, 2020: www.nfer.ac.uk/media/r1ubcb4s/teacher_autonomy_how_does_it_relate_to_job_satisfaction_and_retention.pdf