I’m one of the programme managers responsible for the day-to-day management of the School Improvement Partners (SIPs) accreditation programme. The programme develops and assesses experienced school leaders and other education professionals to equip them for the new and innovative role of the SIP. SIPs work on behalf of local authorities and act as ‘critical friends’ to headteachers, offering them a mixture of challenge and support to help them identify the priorities for their school.
My current role involves line management of five staff, who work together to organise and run residential programme events across the country. The nature of the programme demands a high level of accuracy, in everything from the production of the materials to booking the venues. I am responsible for ensuring that they are equipped to provide an excellent standard of administrative support at events, and that they feel supported in taking on this very responsible, customer-facing role.
I especially enjoy the opportunities and challenges that come with developing a team. As I hadn’t had management experience before I came to the College, this was one area that was completely new to me, but I’ve received some invaluable coaching and guidance in this area from our human resources team and from more experienced colleagues. We also have a good performance review process here, which provides me with some of the tools needed to help identify relevant goals and development areas for each of my team members.
Before working as a programme manager, I was promoted from my previous role as a senior programme co-ordinator for another high profile national programme. The experience I gathered here was invaluable in helping me make the transition to a higher grade.
As a senior programme co-ordinator, my key responsibilities included project planning, co-ordination and developing application and marketing processes. This involved working closely with a range of stakeholders and managing a number of external contractors. For example, I took a lead role in the management of designers and printers in order to produce application and training materials, such as forms, guidance documents and leaflets. Projects like these gave me a good sense of the importance of planning and prioritising – as well as providing me with interesting, varied and creative tasks to work on.
Other roles that I took on included mentoring new starters, contributing to cross-College groups and representing NCSL at education conferences. These responsibilities all helped to develop my confidence and interpersonal skills. This helped make it easier for me to take on line management responsibilities once I began my secondment as a programme manager.
In October 2003, I was seconded to the position of programme manager for the Development Programme for Consultant Leaders. Running this programme really made me put the organisational and administrative skills I learned to the test.
In all my management posts, I’ve been backed up by a really supportive team, and we oversee everything from contract management to marketing. It’s all about using your communication skills and ability to co-ordinate in order to keep things running as smoothly as possible.
The openness of our organisation is definitely one of its biggest advantages. We have a non-hierarchical approach that means you can share knowledge and information with one another easily. And we work across departments to make sure that the service we deliver is all-encompassing. Everything we learn through our experiences can help colleagues working on another project.
I’d describe the working environment here as continually interesting and challenging. It’s also good to know you’re part of a culture with a shared focus, in our case, helping to develop leadership in schools, in order to improve pupil achievement and standards.
I’ve always experienced a great deal of support at NCSL. Programme managers consistently support each other on informal basis, and our human resources team have provided me with some excellent training workshops on areas such as coaching, performance management and interviewing skills.
I suppose if you’re going to thrive here you need to be really flexible. Ours is a fast-paced environment that’s changing all the time. New initiatives and pilot schemes are always happening. If you’ve got the energy, there’s more than enough to keep you focused and enthusiastic.