News Stories

PD Leader Collaborative Network - Inaugural Meeting

On Thursday 11^th July 2024, a group of leaders across our regional schools attended our inaugural Professional Development (PD) Leader Collaborative Network Meeting.

As can be seen in the photos, one of the key purposes of this meeting was to get to know each other. All of those who attended have some degree of PD leadership responsibility within and across their schools, and so to break the ice, we discussed the following questions:

1. What is the best PD you have attended and/or delivered, and why?
2. What are you hoping to get from this network?
3. What can you give to this network?

Collaboratively, we then established our aims and ways of working for the network, and discussed the needs across our region, as we plan for the new upcoming academic year ahead.

One of the key take-aways from this meeting was realising the potential to harness and share our collective expertise and co-design ways to meet the identified needs, for effective future PD design and delivery. We are extremely excited to take this forward and realise this potential.

If you would like to be part of this network, please contact us at elcoffice@newcastle.ac.uk.

ELC representation at BELMAS and the annual University Council of Lifelong Learning conferences

The first week of July 2024 was a rather exciting and busy conference week for us here at the Educational Leadership Centre. After a five-year break (for various reasons, including the pandemic), we have set it our mission to get more actively involved in BELMAS, one of the learned societies for educational leadership, management, and administration in this country.

Our director of the Educational Leadership Centre, Professor René Koglbauer, was able to reflect on three proud moments during this conference:

• Dr Janet Armstrong, an alumna of Newcastle University's EdD programme presenting her research on policy, practice and effectiveness in one of the parallel sessions.

• Dr Abdullah Albalwi, who successfully defended his PhD thesis in 2023 was awarded the Doctoral Thesis Awards for his thesis: Investigating the influence of learning-centred leadership on authentic instruction and the contribution to enhancing the learning culture: a case study of four Saudi Arabian primary schools.

• Dr Lisa Ramshaw, Lecturer and co-Degree Programme Director of our MA Education International Perspectives delivered a conference paper on her Trianalagous Leadership concept.

A couple of days ahead of the BELMAS conference, our director contributed to the annual conference of the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning with a strategic showcase on Newcastle University’s collaborative place-based approach to addressing the skills challenges in the North East.

All contributions led to a flurry of engaging discussions and contributed to growing our academic and practitioner network across higher and further education as well as schools.

Leadership in Maths Professional Development Programme 2024

Over a course of 6 sessions between February and July 2024, a group of regional Maths leaders attended the Leadership in Maths Professional Development Programme, held at Newcastle University. The group were dedicated and engaging throughout, sharing their expertise with colleagues working in both Secondary and Primary contexts.

The programme was created and facilitated by Stephanie Bingham at the Educational Leadership Centre and leaders of the northeast's maths hubs, Lindsey Fagan and Rose-Marie Rochester. A range of topics were covered across the programme, including: leadership versus management; Goleman’s leadership styles; coaching and mentoring; leadership through a Maths lens; leading implementation within your Maths subject; practitioner enquiry; and sustaining impact.

Participants shared the following about the programme:

“This has been a great course to be on. It has made me consider the type of leader I want to be.”

“The whole course was very informative, engaging and supportive. I have enjoyed every session.”

“As maths leader, I developed my coaching style. I am now aware of the different leadership styles and am more aware of which ones suit different situations.”

If you are interested in the above course, you can learn more about the next one here, or email us at elcoffice@newcastle.ac.uk.

If you can't access the image below, click to open the pdf. file here.

T:  0191 208 8455

E:  ELCoffice@newcastle.ac.uk  

W:  https://www.ncl.ac.uk/ecls/study-with-us/lifelong-learning/elc/

IN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/educationalleadershipcentre/

X:  NU_ELC

The Educational Leadership Centre is also home to the Network for Languages North East and we are delighted that we once again can support the European Day of Languages competition for learners of any languages in schools across the United Kingdom.

The European Day of Languages is celebrated annually on 26^th September and aims to promote language learning and linguistic diversity, both vitally important in our richly diverse and multi-cultural society.

More details about the competition can be found here! 

Happy European Day of Languages 2023!