Completing an apprenticeship made me a stronger school leader

Natasha has been teaching for 23 years, and the last 16 of them have been at Harris City Academy Crystal Palace. She has held numerous different roles at the school; Co-ordinator of Geography, ESS for Geography, Head of Teaching School, Assistant Principal for Teaching and Learning, and Vice Principal – Director of the Teaching School Hub.

She completed her Senior Leader Level 7 apprenticeship and has reflected on and shared her experience with us. 

When I started my Masters Apprenticeship, I was an Assistant Principal for Teaching and Learning and I changed role 6 months into the apprenticeship to be the Director of the Harris Crystal Palace Teaching School Hub. The Masters came in very handy in supporting me with my new role!

My journey started in September 2020, when we were currently navigating a global pandemic in schools and the new academic year and an e-mail dropped into my inbox from a WomenEd network with the opportunity to do a Masters Apprenticeship in School Leadership, which is fully funded through the apprenticeship levy. I have always wanted to do a Masters degree, but the timing had never been quite right for me financially or personally, but here was a perfect opportunity with no excuses! I bit the bullet and made an application with the approval from my Principal.

You might be wondering how an apprenticeship can run alongside a Masters degree. There are 4 modules which you write an academic essay for and the essay also targets some of the apprenticeship standards which you can use as evidence. You will also work with your tutor to agree an apprenticeship task that will be assessed, but this can be something that you do as part of your role as a senior leaders in schools anyway; for example, a presentation to a group of staff, which your Tutor will observe, or a financial forecasting spreadsheet, as long as it is satisfactory evidence for meeting the standards.

Having been a teacher for 20 years and not written academically since my PGCE I found the first unit on ‘Learning to Lead’ daunting, however the National College incorporate sessions on how to write academically to support you, which was very helpful and it is amazing how everything comes flooding back to you! Writing that first essay was the most daunting, but I achieved a merit on my first one, which boosted my confidence with future writing and I knew I was on the right track.

The Master Apprenticeship covered the following key areas:

• Learning to Lead
• Strategic Leadership
• Operations Management
• Innovation and Change
• Research Methods and Project

Although it was a very challenging time being a Senior Leader in schools during a global pandemic the opportunity to have a couple of days out every month to focus on different aspects of leadership, especially the ‘Innovation and Change’ module made an invaluable difference to how I looked at leading whole school change and the opportunities that the pandemic brought and aspects of change that should be ‘kept’ and not lost post-pandemic – I still re-visit this thinking now!

Another aspect I found particularly useful was focusing on finance and allocating finance to resourcing and overseeing procurement chains and contracts. This was particularly pertinent because I changed role to Teaching School Hub Director during the course and I learnt so much and could apply what I was doing in my role to the apprenticeship standard and therefore had a wealth of evidence to show that I was meeting the standards.

The most valuable part of doing this apprenticeship was having the time to engage in academic research and reflect on new ideas to support the work I was doing as a leader in school and beyond. It is all too easy as a leader to make decisions and bring in change without being fully informed. I grew in my confidence knowing that new ideas and innovations were research informed and offered flexibility in decision making processes and problem solving.

The most challenging part of the apprenticeship was completing the ‘Change Project’, which is a 15,000-word dissertation as it meant planning the second year of study carefully and plot different milestones to meet the final deadline. However, the ‘Change Project’ is a fantastic opportunity to conduct research in your own setting on an aspect you lead. I did my research on the ‘Diverse Leaders’ programme that I had been delivering for a number of years but had never had any robust data on the impact the programme made on individuals. The project not only allowed me to read and reflect on research and barriers that prevent BAME teachers from progressing into leadership positions in schools, but also understand how effective the different components of the programme were, e.g. coaching, interview practice in supporting teachers to make the leap into leadership positions. I enjoyed conducting interviews to get a deep understanding and learn from participant’s experiences what barriers they have faced when breaking into leadership. 

The End Point Assessment was the most nerve-wracking point of the course. It is a 2 hour 30 minute online interview about the evidence you have submitted for the apprenticeship standards and a 20 minute presentation with questions on your change project. However, if you know your work inside out, it should be something you can talk confidently about.

Finally, I can't finish this blog without giving a shout out to my tutor who I met regularly and kept me on track, even during the most challenging of times in schools. I thank her for listening and coaching me to become a much stronger leader. 

I ended my journey in July 2022 with a Merit for my Masters and a Distinction for my Apprenticeship. It was a journey well worth going on!

My top tips if you are thinking about doing a Masters Apprenticeship:

• You will need to dedicate 2 – 3 hours a week to the apprenticeship side of the programme doing the tasks and updating the platform with reflective evidence of what you are doing, this might be CPD you are already doing in school, meetings etc. 
• Depending on how you work, I would say you need to put aside 2 –3 days in the holidays to do some reading and essay writing – more in year two when you are writing your dissertation. I think it helped me that we were in the midst of a pandemic when I started and were locked down, I found it more challenging to manage my time once I had a life again!
• Look carefully at the apprenticeship standards before you apply. Does your current role allow you to work towards being able to produce evidence to hit the standards?
• Go for it! It might feel time consuming BUT it will help you to become a more reflective and effective leader in your school.