SKILLs Advancement in Education – leadership, empowerment, management skills for teachers and teacher-leaders Erasmus Project

Project Title

SKILLs Advancement in Education – leadership, empowerment, management skills for teachers and teacher-leaders

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The extent to which teacher leaders adopted additional responsibilities varies in degree and description based also on the size, the country, the location and the conditions of the institution. Aspiring leaders or middle leaders in an education setting needed to develop more sophisticated management-oriented skills and collaborative practices to increase their preparation and readiness to manage their workload, sustain others in their professional growth and lead teams to work on school improvement and development.
Due to the difficult tasks assigned, two-fifths of new teachers leaving within five years, and many citing increased workloads, stress and pay cuts as reasons for considering leaving, the challenges of leading frontline teaching teams were great.
A shortage of senior teachers was adding pressure to many middle leaders, including teachers with additional responsibilities, such as assistant or deputy heads in primary schools, and heads of year and departments in secondary institutions. This middle tier was taking on greater responsibility for the day-to-day running of their schools while trying to juggle team management and a teaching timetable.

The consortium’s overall aim was producing and testing a program to help aspiring teacher-leaders, in developing more sophisticated management-oriented skill, increasing their preparation and readiness to manage their workload, while learning how to sustain and empower others and how to lead teams for the benefit of their schools.
The program was completed with guidelines to assess the aspiring teacher-leaders to evaluate (using different methods: peer evaluation, panel and quizzes) if the professionals developed the required set of skills, as planned at the beginning of the program; and a training program that trainers, school-leaders, directors can use to replicate the Skill-AED program after the end of the present project.

The all-in-one Skill-AED program composed of:

*A TEACHER LEADERS-specific training expanding participants soft skills, ability to plan strategies and expertise in the area of educational communication, research, administration and management.

*An effective MENTORING AND COACHING techniques equipping aspiring TEACHER LEADERS with the necessary competences and skills to handle both teaching and managerial position, covering MENTORING/COACHING and team-leading tasks

*VIRTUAL COMMUNITY AND (local/virtual) PEER SUPPORT ensuring that the participants are not alone in facing their issues and can learn and exchange tips and suggestions with other educators with the same issues and experiences.

*A PARTICIPATED EVALUATION METHOD guiding a panel of experts in evaluating the aspiring teachers’ leader after the training and after a trial period

*A TRAINERS’ TRAINING aiming at professionals that were going to deliver the Skill-AED program

The program has worked in different levels and improved all the participants on different skills, as – for instance – have instructed the aspiring leaders to give feedbacks to their mentees, based on structured evaluations, improving their ability to talk about delicate matters in a professional way while helped mentees in reflect on their preparation and accept comments made with the sole intent to help them improve.

The digital solutions applied both at the evaluation and the delivery of the contents made it easier for professionals or institutions to monitor and evaluate learning’ progress and adjust the learning and mentoring provision according to the participants needs.
The transnational partnership has contributed to improve and innovate the current situation at their local and regional level, offering also recommendations for validation of acquired competencies for the participants. In addition, the lesson learned, based on different approaches and on shared best practice has contributed to demonstrating the transnational values of the project results and innovation, offering a large number of teachers/ teacher-leaders across the EU the possibility for advancing in their careers, enhancing their competences, and planning their careers ahead, especially for younger staff.

Project Website

http://www.skillaed.com/en/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 212989,5 Eur

Project Coordinator

Create Partnership Trust & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Associazione PROGETTO MARCONI
• ENOROS CONSULTING LIMITED
• ONAGEB.SPAIN.S.L
• PontoPR – Publicidade e Robótica, lda