For seven years, between 2016 and 2022, I supported the creation and development of South Africa’s first Instructional Leadership programme: The Instructional Leadership Institute (ILI). 

Adapted from scaffolding supplied by the US-based Leverage Leadership Institute, ILI was created to focus on what I think is the most important job of a school leader: maximising the quality of what happens in the classroom

Many leaders are sent on training that explains leadership styles, explores the intricacies of the school budget, or talks you through how to complete school improvement planning in a way that satisfies bureaucracies above. And whilst these things are often unavoidable elements of a school leaders role, I don’t believe they are the most important levers for the thing that really matters: improving life chances for learners

Instructional leadership asks leaders to place the quality of what happens in the classroom at the centre of their role. Not as one priority among many, but as the priority. 

This isn’t a typical way that school leaders use their time. Research from various corners of the world, not to say my own experience, suggests that the average school leader spends exceptionally little time in the classrooms of their teachers and even less time providing carefully considered feedback on how to improve what takes place there. I think this matters greatly.

It’s probably important to say at this point that I don’t think it’s that school leaders don’t care about teaching. But caring about it and systematically working to improve it are quite different things. The research is consistent that the single most significant factor in whether learners achieve is the quality of their teacher (over and above resources, technology, and the school building). Which means that if you’re a school leader, the highest-leverage thing you can do is get better at developing the teachers in your care.

We set up ILI to train leaders in proven classroom teaching techniques, we required them to be able to lead by example and model what effective practice looks like; and we trained them in how to teach teachers through coaching and leading their own professional development sessions. Perhaps the most important part of the programme has been supporting leaders to calendar their time use.  The ambitious aim of the programme was that 40% of their time was spent on things directly relating to instructional quality- one 2012 study in the US suggested that the average principal was spending 6% of their time on such things. 

We chose to prioritise this over training on budgets or leadership styles because what happens in the classroom is the thing that truly shapes the lives of the learners.

The argument is not that nothing else matters, but that the things encompassed by instructional leadership (observing classrooms; modelling and articulating good teaching; knowing how to coach and lead effective professional development sessions) matter more, and deserve the lion’s share of a leader’s time and energy.