Our next cohort starts Tuesday 1st October 2024.  

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Deputy Headteacher new to role training is 6 modules across the year:

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1. What is special about the role of the Deputy Headteacher?  Understanding your remit. Considering what is unique about the role and what skills and knowledge you need to draw on to be successful.  Typically, this includes completing a strengths finder assessment and consideration for how your strengths relate to those of other people in the team.  The module considers how you operate with the SLT and outside it.

2. Communication at a DHT level. This module provides tools to help you evaluate your current levels of communication against 4 communication segments: strategic, operational, stakeholders; conflict & resolution.  You take away with you a brilliant planning tool that will enable you to increase the impact of your communication.  The module considers what makes effective interactions and how your communication is 'experienced' by others.   Working effectively with the Headteacher is also included in this module.

3. The DHTs role in school improvement, including consideration for utilisation of data, school self-evaluation activities, and change management.  This module helps you to improve your impact at whole school level and how you fit into strategic planning.

4. Leading whole school developments; consideration for your remit as a DHT; maximising the impact of others; harnessing motivational theory.  With the demands of post-covid employment, the needs of generation 'Z' and the recruitment/retention crisis, managing people effectively has to be on the agenda for DHTs.  

5. Personal effectiveness in the DHT role, e.g. delegation, time management, prioritisation, leadership style, day-to-day working practices, leading and being part of teams; emotional intelligence to support self-management; self-care and well-being.

6. Setting and achieving high standards as a DHT: different types of standards, e.g. internal, external; setting and communicating standards across different areas of school life; the development, role and implementation of policies; raising expectations; challenging conversations; accountability.

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A year-long deputy headteacher course enables you to sink your teeth into this critical role and make the transition from senior leader to Deputy Headteacher. Designed for colleagues in their first three years of being a DHT, it helps people to grow into the role, increases leadership impact and supports colleagues to grapple with the complexities that typically accompany working at this level in a school.  Having worked with many new DHTs, I fully understand the challenges and reality.  Let me help you become the Deputy Headteacher you really want to be.

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Will be able to cope with the demands of the new to deputy headteacher course?  As a Deputy Headteacher, you have limited time available for study.  With this in mind, there are 6 days across the year for the course itself.  This provides much needed headspace for training and personal growth.  On each of the days, time is set aside for you to complete tasks and engage in thinking that will be useful to you when you return to school. In addition, there are three 90 minute 1:1 coaching sessions to help you dig into issues and develop your own leadership style.  This provides structured reflection and helps you to build this into the year. Beyond this, there are no tasks, set reading materials, activities.  I do provide materials that are optional and offer guidance as to what you can do to deepen or broaden your study, but leave that entirely up to you.  This means everyone can gain without being overloaded.  At the end of the programme, certification is based on your participation throughout the course rather than an end assessment, and again, this means that the programme is manageable.  The group size is kept purposefully small to ensure there is an excellent relationship between myself and the individuals in the group.