Over the Easter break, I've been looking at what our members were reading on The Key for School Leaders during the spring term.
Checklists, summaries and The Key's new "need-to-know" alerts dominate the list of top 10 most-viewed articles. My friends working in schools often describe the spring term as the busiest, so for me it's no surprise to see such an appetite for digests of the key essentials and alerts about upcoming changes.
Staffing changes seem to be afoot in many schools, with articles on recruitment being quite well viewed overall despite only one article (Interview tasks for a leadership post) making the top 10 list. This article has been equally popular with headteachers looking to conduct an interview and with middle leaders thinking of stepping up to senior leadership.
Ofsted features heavily in the list, mirrored in the recent discussions on Key insights of the current framework's potential impact on workload and how school accountability might be reformed in the interests of pupils.
Here's our top 10 for January, February and March:
- Solar eclipse: how can pupils watch it safely?
- Specific safeguarding issues: summary (features a downloadable KeyDoc)
- Need-to-know: new headteacher standards
- Lesson observation form based on the Ofsted framework(features a downloadable KeyDoc)
- Milk in schools: FAQs (includes FAQs from school leaders)
- Interview tasks for a leadership post (features a downloadable KeyDoc)
- School leaders' pre-inspection checklist (features a downloadable KeyDoc)
- Need-to-know: Ofsted changes from September 2015
- How can we promote British values through our curriculum? (includes a downloadable KeyDoc checklist)
- Preparing for Ofsted: guidance for senior leaders