5A:How to achieve success in leadership and management

Good teachers and trainers flourish where there is strong and visionary leadership.

Success for All (DfES, 2001)

Successful provision in literacy, numeracy and language depends on strong leadership and firm but supportive management. Effective managers and, where appropriate, governors, ensure that they have a good grasp of the specific issues relating to the teaching of literacy, numeracy and language skills to learners who have learning difficulties and/or disabilities, and a thorough understanding of the characteristics of effective practice in this area of work.

 

They keep up to date with national developments by attending conferences and reading relevant literature, and they are knowledgeable about the different strands of the Skills for Life strategy.

Good managers ensure that their vision and commitment is translated into practice by including this provision within the organisation’s overall delivery plan.

Senior managers from across the organisation including, where appropriate, the residential provision, then work together to create a coherent approach to the teaching of literacy, numeracy and language by developing and sharing operational plans to address the aims and objectives within the delivery plan. Careful thought is given to the targets within these plans and the targets are expressed in a way that enables progress against them to be monitored effectively.

In successful provision, literacy, numeracy and language teaching is underpinned by policies, ratified where appropriate by governors, that clearly set out the provider’s philosophy and approach to this area of work, together with the principles on which the approach is based. These are then supplemented by procedures for implementing the policy and monitoring its impact across the organisation.

Staff recruitment, training and development

Providers with effective literacy, numeracy and language provision for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities ensure that they recruit and/or train teachers for this specialist area of work. The teachers are skilled in teaching literacy, numeracy and communication and have a good understanding of the impact that learners’ learning difficulties and/or disabilities have on their ability to develop literacy, numeracy and communication skills. As a minimum such teachers have a Certificate in Education that has been supplemented by further training in cognitive development and the educational implications of learning difficulties and/or disabilities. Effective teachers are aware of all aspects of the Skills for Life strategy and have participated, where appropriate, in the training that is a part of it. Of particular importance is a thorough knowledge of Access for All.

In addition to skilled and experienced teachers, providers may need a range of other staff to enable learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities to reach their potential in literacy, numeracy and communication. This might include, for example, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, technicians skilled in alternative and augmentative communication and support staff who can work as enablers or scribes. Providers who do not employ such staff purchase their services from external agencies. Good providers have well-developed links with such agencies and are able to obtain their services quickly, as and when they are needed.

Where there are learners with sensory or physical impairments or specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia good providers ensure that these learners are taught by staff who have the necessary qualifications to meet their particular learning needs. For example, learners who are deaf or have a hearing impairment are taught literacy, numeracy and language by a qualified teacher of the deaf. Where there are insufficient numbers of learners with such needs to warrant the employment of a specialist teacher, good providers purchase this support from specialist external agencies.