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Eurydice

EACEA National Policies Platform:Eurydice
Management and Other Education Staff

United Kingdom - Wales

Last update: 16 December 2020
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This chapter covers the following roles in maintained schools:

This chapter also briefly covers management staff in higher education and further education respectively.

Main national policies 

There are a range of policies, action plans/strategies and initiatives in place which include priorities relating to management and other education staff. These are summarised briefly below.

The Welsh Government’s action plan for education for 2017-2021 emphasises the importance of educational leadership in schools. Education in Wales: our National Mission includes objectives relevant to headteachers, deputy headteachers and assistant headteachers. These include:

  • developing a high-quality education profession, led by education professionals who have an intellectual and practical understanding of education leadership (page 11)
  • ensuring that inspirational leaders are working collaboratively to raise standards, by helping teachers to improve through effective collaboration, innovation, professional learning, and opportunities to provide professional leadership to others (page 11)
  • establishing a new National Academy for Educational Leadership to identify, support and inspire leaders across the system (page 14).

The National Academy for Educational Leadership (NAEL) became operational in May 2018. Its strategic priorities to 2021, set out in a remit letter from the Welsh Government, include:

  • contributing to the development of the professional capabilities of current and aspiring leaders across the education system, by providing coherence and quality assurance for the range of educational leadership development opportunities available in Wales
  • acting as a thought leader – developing, articulating and implementing a vision and strategy for educational leadership in Wales.

Three sets of professional standards for the education workforce now exist, covering school teachers and leaders, further education teachers and work-based learning practitioners, and teaching assistants.

  • The Professional Standards for Teaching and Leadership came into use for all existing teachers and school leaders in September 2018. Published in September 2017, they were initially used by newly qualified teachers beginning induction from that date.
  • The Professional Standards for Further Education Teachers and Work-based Learning Practitioners were introduced in 2017.
  • The Professional Standards for Assisting Teaching have been in use since September 2019. The development of support staff has been a particular policy focus, following a significant increase in their number and a recognition of their role in raising standards. The October 2013 Action Planto Promote the Role and Development of Support Staff in Schools in Wales posited the introduction of professional standards for school learning support staff, and these staff have been required to register with the Education Workforce Council (EWC) since April 2016. The EWC’s annual Statistics Digest for 2020 indicates that there are now more learning support staff than teachers registered to work in maintained schools in Wales.

Development of the suite of professional standards arose from an earlier Welsh Government initiative, the ‘New Deal for the Education Workforce’ (2015). This aimed to support the professional development of headteachers, teachers and support staff in schools, and lecturers and support staff in further education colleges. It included reviewing the earlier professional standards for education practitioners (2011) and introducing a professional learning model that incorporated coaching and mentoring, reflective practice and using data and research evidence, underpinned by a range of online professional learning material. In addition, the Education Workforce Council introduced the ‘Professional Learning Passport’, a tool for recording professional development activity.

Gyrfa Cymru Careers Wales, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Welsh Government formed in 2013, provides an all-age, independent careers information, advice and guidance service across Wales. Its strategic vision includes working with key influencers of young people’s career decisions, including teachers, to raise their awareness of the opportunities available. Careers Wales provides expert support to help individual teachers and careers leaders to provide relevant and well informed careers education.

The Welsh Government assumed powers to determine pay and conditions for teachers and school leaders in Wales from 30 September 2018, under the provisions of the Wales Act 2017. In March 2019, it established the Independent Welsh Pay Review Body (IWPRB). The IWPRB’s remit is to recommend reforms to teachers’ and school leaders’ pay and conditions, in order to raise the status of the profession and support the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers and leaders in all schools. The academic year 2019/20 is the first year in which the Wales-specific framework for teachers’ / leaders’ pay is operating. Prior to this, the Department for Education in England set the framework on an England and Wales basis.

In higher education, Advance HE has the remit of advancing professional practice across the UK. This includes teaching, research and leadership practice. A suite of programmes targets those who are new to HE leadership, those with some leadership experience and seeking to improve their practice, and senior and strategic leaders. (Advance HE was formed in March 2018 from a merger of three sector bodies (the Equality Challenge Unit - ECU, the Higher Education Academy - HEA, and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education - LFHE). This was in response to the recommendations of a review of HE sector agencies by the higher education sector representative bodies, Universities UK and GuildHE.)

 

Article last reviewed December 2020.