TLA Leaders: overview
This quick guide is designed to give existing or prospective TLA Leaders an overview of their likely role within school. Of course, each school context is different and so not all TLA Leaders will operate in the same way. However, by reading the guide, you will develop an understanding of the possible aspects of your role.
It is recommended that you read the full guide initially (it takes about five minutes), and then at a later stage you may wish to come back to relevant sections and follow the links to associated resources.
If you wish to make recommendations about how the guide may be improved, email tla@gtce.org.uk
| Developing knowledge and understanding of the TLA |
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During your TLA Leader training programme, you will deepen your understanding of the principles, processes and benefits of the TLA. However, once you are in the role you will need to go on learning about the TLA. In particular, it is important to:
Linked resourcesTLA briefing booklet (PDF, 295kb) |
| Communicating the TLA to colleagues |
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Part of your role as a TLA Leader will be to communicate to teachers in your school about the TLA. If they are to engage, they will need to understand for themselves the principles behind the TLA. They also need to appreciate the benefits for themselves, their colleagues and pupils that come from participation. You will need to consider how best to do this. Some TLA Leaders present to the whole staff; others choose to communicate to groups of staff over time. There are different resources available to support you in this, including briefing booklets and PowerPoint presentations. You will also need to communicate to your school’s senior leadership team and those with responsibility for CPD leadership. If they are to commit resources and time to using the TLA within the school, they will particularly need to understand the potential benefits to the school as well as individual teachers. It is important that they also appreciate the way the TLA can be aligned to existing school activity. Our school case studies should help in doing this. Some TLA Leaders have also found it helpful to communicate to governors. Once the TLA is more established in your school, the best advocates of the TLA will often be the teachers you have engaged successfully. You will need to find ways that they can convey their enthusiasm to the whole staff. You will also need to find ways of keeping teachers up to date with any relevant changes to TLA operations. Linked resourcesTLA briefing booklet (PDF, 295kb) |
| Encouraging and supporting teachers enrolled with the TLA |
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Once teachers in your school are engaging with the TLA they will need encouragement and support. Much of this will come from the people, who give them coaching and mentoring support during their learning journey. However, there are some more specific forms of support that the TLA Leader can particularly offer. One aspect of this is making sure that they are clear about the various TLA procedures and resources. You should encourage them to enrol with the TLA early on, perhaps once they have prepared and planned their learning journey. They need to be aware of the resources that are there to support them, including Stage booklets and writing frames. They also need to be clear how to submit their presentation and know about the requirement for the presentation cover form. When teachers are first engaging with the TLA, they particularly appreciate support with preparing and planning their learning journey and with putting together their presentation. Some TLA Leaders do this by offering one-to-one support; others choose to run workshops with groups of teachers. Either way, it is important that teachers know that their school’s TLA Leader is a source of support.
Linked resources |
| Using the TLA to build capacity for CPD in the school |
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The TLA is grounded in research about what makes for effective CPD. By engaging with the TLA as a school, you will find that it acts as a catalyst for enhancing your school as a professional learning community. So as a TLA leader, you will need to work closely with other colleagues with CPD leadership roles to build capacity for effective CPD in the school. The particular focus of this will depend on where your school is at the time, but lessons learned from other TLA Leaders suggest the following may be important:
All of this is challenging, but one of the benefits of being a TLA Leader is that you are connected to many other leaders who are facing the same challenges and are developing effective solutions.
Linked resources |
| Using the TLA to support school improvement systems |
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The TLA works best in a school when it is aligned effectively with existing school improvement systems and cycles. In particular, it can support the integration of approaches to school self-evaluation, school improvement planning, the performance management cycle and CPD evaluation. As a TLA leader, you can have a key role in working with colleagues in senior leadership, to help make the best use of the TLA in supporting these areas. In some schools the TLA is being used when teachers are working together to address school development priorities. In other schools, teachers’ TLA work is being linked to their performance management targets. Our school case studies and particular how to guides can offer help in this area.
Linked resources |
| Evaluating, celebrating and sustaining TLA work in your school |
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As a TLA Leader you will want to monitor the quality of the work and evaluate the impact of engagement with the TLA. One of the strengths of the TLA is that teachers themselves will do much of this for you in their presentations. It is important to therefore look at a significant sample of the presentations that your teachers submit. You will also be receiving informal feedback from teachers about how they are finding the experience of engaging with the TLA. Another clear measure of how well the TLA is working in your school will be the number of teachers whose work is recognised once it is submitted for verification. The TLA exists to offer public recognition to teachers for their learning, development and improvement work. While the GTC provides the national professional recognition, it is also good if teachers’ achievements can be celebrated locally. Many TLA Leaders are developing creative ways of showing that teachers’ TLA work is valued, including special presentation events and through using time in full staff meetings. In order to sustain TLA work within your school, it is important to have a steady stream of teachers participating. TLA leaders have found it helpful to have a target for the number of enrolments and presentations for a particular year. You will also need to consider how to sustain leadership over time. This could include having trained TLA Verifiers or a further TLA Leader in your school. This would also then mean that you could consider applying to be a ‘badged’ TLA School.
Linked resources |
| Contributing to the wider work of the TLA beyond your school |
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TLA Leaders can also play an important part in the wider work of the TLA. They do this in a number of ways including:
As you help your school develop its use of the TLA, you may also at some stage consider applying to be a ‘badged’ TLA Centre. This would mean your school is a centre of TLA excellence and you would formally provide support to other schools.
Linked resources |
