The Leadership Framework
The Quality Framework for Leadership and Management in Irish schools, set out in LOOKING AT OUR SCHOOL 2016 - a Quality Framework, provides a common understanding and language around the organisation and practice of leadership and management roles in Irish second-level schools. It identifies the key leadership and management areas in a school (domains), and these are then further divided into various content standards for each domain.
DOMAIN ONE: Leading Teaching and Learning
Leaders:
- promote a culture of improvement, collaboration, innovation and creativity in learning, teaching and assessment
- foster a commitment to inclusion, equality of opportunity and the holistic development of each student
- manage the planning and implementation of the school curriculum
- foster teacher professional development that enriches teachers’ and students’ learning
DOMAIN TWO: Managing the organisation
Leaders:
- establish an orderly, secure and healthy learning environment, and maintain it through effective communication
- manage the school’s human, physical and financial resources so as to create and maintain a learning organisation
- manage challenging and complex situations in a manner that demonstrates equality, fairness and justice
- develop and implement a system to promote professional responsibility and accountability
DOMAIN THREE: Leading school development
Leaders:
- communicate the guiding vision for the school and lead its realisation in the context of the school’s characteristic spirit
- lead the school’s engagement in a continuous process of self-evaluation
- build and maintain relationships with parents, with other schools, and with the wider community
- manage, lead and mediate change to respond to the evolving needs of the school and to changes in education
DOMAIN FOUR: Developing leadership capacity
Leaders:
- critique their practice as leaders and develop their understanding of effective and sustainable leadership
- empower staff to take on and carry out leadership roles
- promote and facilitate the development of student voice, student participation, and student leadership
- build professional networks with other schools