Outstanding Leadership of a Classics Department

Outstanding departments cultivate a distinctive culture encompassing both staff collaboration and student engagement.

Staff Culture

• Shared vision beyond exam outcomes - genuine intellectual engagement with the ancient world
• Genuine collaboration: planning together, discussing pedagogy, learning from each other
• Professional dialogue about teaching and learning, separate from administrative business
• Distributed leadership - colleagues leading in areas of expertise and passion

Student Culture

• Academic ambition - expecting to be challenged by classical texts and ideas
• Genuine enthusiasm for the ancient world beyond exam preparation
• Seeing themselves as part of a community of classicists

Resource management isn't just administrative - when done well, it's a powerful lever for improving teaching and learning.

Key Principles

• Quality over quantity - focus on well-sequenced resources that embody best practice
• Collaborative resource creation builds shared pedagogical understanding
• Good resources ensure consistency across teaching groups and reduce cognitive load
• Clear organisation makes resources actually usable - proper labelling, easy to find
• Resources should be living documents, refined based on classroom experience

Administrative effectiveness creates systems that free teachers to focus on teaching rather than firefighting.

Key Elements

• Clear communication - everyone knows expectations, deadlines, and procedures
• Forward planning - anticipating staffing, resources, and curriculum changes
• Transparent decision-making with clear rationale
• Efficient meetings with clear agendas and genuine outcomes
• Protecting teaching time from unnecessary administrative burden
• Strategic thinking about departmental direction and priorities

A few things that particularly resonated with me from the session:

• Resource development as CPD: The idea that collaboratively creating resources isn't just about saving time - it's actually a powerful form of professional development that builds shared understanding of good practice. This shifts resource management from being purely administrative to being pedagogically meaningful.
• Culture of collaboration: The emphasis on moving beyond simply sharing files to genuinely planning and reflecting together. Creating space for professional dialogue about teaching and learning, not just admin.
• Systems that support teaching: The point about administrative effectiveness being measured by whether it frees teachers to focus on teaching. Good admin shouldn't feel like burden - it should make teaching easier.
• Student culture matters: Thinking deliberately about fostering a sense amongst students that they're part of a community of classicists, not just preparing for exams. Building genuine enthusiasm for the ancient world.

• What aspects of the session resonate with you?
• Are there things we're already doing well that align with these ideas?
• Any thoughts on how these ideas might apply to our context?