#168 How to lead a maths department with Femi Adeniran and Matt Findlay

Experienced heads of department, Femi Adeniran and Matt Findlay,
join me for an epic conversation about leading a maths
department. We cover everything from consistency versus autonomy,
departmental meetings, handling parental complaints and
allocating sets. You can access links to the resources discussed,
time-stamps and videos on the podcast show-notes page here:
https://www.mrbartonmaths.com/blog/168-how-to-lead-a-maths-department-with-femi-adeniran-and-matt-findlay/





Time-stamps:
Matt's favourite failure (06:26) Femi's favourite failure
(10:38) Matt's route into becoming a head of department (15:45)
Femi's route into becoming a head of department (18:17) How many
year's classroom teaching should you have before becoming a head of
department? (21:02) How strong a teacher does the head of
department need to be? (24:41) What does your timetable as a head
of department look like? (28:43) Do you find you are teaching more
these days than 5 years ago? (32:38) Does your teaching suffer with
all the other things you have to give attention to? (40:00) How
does your workload compare to a teacher with a full time-table?
(46:39) How often would you be pulled out of a lesson to deal with
something? (52:13) How do you balance the need for consistency
across your department with a desire for teacher autonomy? (56:46)
What are the non-negotiables that members of your team have to
follow? (1:32:54) What do your departmental meetings look like?
(1:57:13) How do you ensure good practice is shared around the
department? (2:21:51) How do you support less experienced
colleagues, non-specialists, those who are struggling? (2:23:16)
How do you deal with directives from SLT that you don't agree with?
(2:41:26) What do you do to help non-specialists (particularly SLT)
understand what the characteristics of high-quality T&L in
maths are? (2:48:37) How do you deal with difficult members of the
department who are reluctant the make changes? (2:54:59) How do you
deal with parental complaints? (3:00:48) How do you allocate
teaching sets? (3:05:19) Final reflections (3:19:37) Craig's
takeaways (3:32:42)