Taking on a leadership role

Once you have decided that you are ready to take on a leadership role in educational ICT, how do you go about it? In this article we consider 7 essential things you must do.

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The five minute lessons that don't exist

The QCA yesterday launched the new secondary (high school) curriculum for England and Wales today, and this has provided an opportunity for some journalists to demonstrate their skills of tenacity and research.

More on that, and what the new curriculum comprises, and the challenges it holds for ICT leaders and managers.

Five minute tip: Managing the end of the school year

For many colleagues in the UK, the end of yet another school year is looming. So, what should the ICT leader be doing?

Here are 10 essential tips to a stress-free start to the new term in September.


This article is available only to subscribers to Leading and Managing Educational Technology.

Next: Managing the start of the new school year.

A breather, name changes, and a consultation over funding for ICT

Three items of news:

• why I allowed myself to relax slightly
  
  
• organisational changes for education at government level
  
  
• proposed new funding arrangements for ICT in England and Wales

Five Minute Tip: Dealing with the politics

Every job has its share of "office politics". You can't ignore it all, but neither should you get embroiled. So how can you handle the situation so as to be able to actually do your job?

Here are 9 tactics to use.

This article is available only to subscribers to Leading and Managing Educational Technology.

Next: Managing the end of the school year.

Change management #1

You might wonder what qualifies me to write about cultural change in an organisation. Well, I’ve done it several times, and I thought I’d set myself the challenge of trying to describe some of the success stories I’ve enjoyed in 250 words or fewer.

My main motivation in writing these vignettes is that I keep meeting depressed people: people who are in such a dire situation that they have started to believe that they will never be able to change it.

So what I should like to do is provide very brief case studies comprising the before and after, but not the during: my aim is to uplift, rather than instruct, in these stories. That's why I aim to publish them on a Friday: so you can go home full of hope rather than despondency!

Five Minute Tip: Starting a new job

So you have landed that great ed tech-related job -- but getting it was the easy part. What do you do next, and how do you get off to the best start? Here are 10 useful tips.

This article is available only to subscribers to Leading and Managing Educational Technology.

Five Minute Tip: How to leave work

Leaving a job requires just as much thought and preparation as starting one.

Here are 10 tips for getting it right.

This article is available only to subscribers to Leading and Managing Educational Technology.

Creating a can-do culture 2

Creating a can-do culture is pretty easy if your staff are enthusiastic and raring to go. But what of the opposite scenario, in which you find yourself managing a team of people who are unmotivated, possibly even antagonistic? Change management isn’t quick and it isn’t easy, but it is necessary. In this briefing we look at what you need to do in order to get things back on the right track.

This article is available only to subscribers to Leading and Managing Educational Technology.

Creating a can-do culture

Being team leader does not mean having to do everything yourself. But how do you delegate effectively, and still ensure that the students get their grades. In this, the first of two briefings on this subject, we look at how to create a can-do culture in relatively easy circumstances, in which the team is enthusiastic and wanting to work with you. Mistakes can still be made, of course, but at least in this situation you get a head start, and here are 7 key pieces of advice to help you.

In the next briefing we will look at what to do in the opposite situation, where you inherit a poorly motivated and even suspicious team.

This article is available only to subscribers to Leading and Managing Educational Technology.