ABSTRACT
Until recently the term ‘middle management’ has rarely been used in schools although ‘posts of extra responsibility’ have existed for many years. Traditionally these posts were, in the main, for subject responsibility in secondary schools (e.g. heads of subject or department) or for parts of the school (e.g. head of nursery or infants in primary schools or heads of year in secondary schools). Similarly, other posts were for specific aspects of the work of the school (e.g. careers in secondary or games in primary schools). The posts of responsibility were for additional duties beyond the teaching commitment and did not usually involve contributing to the management of the whole school. This was in contrast to middle management posts in other organisations, where the incumbents are expected to contribute to the management of the whole organisation. Interview evidence from schools which formed part of Manchester University research (Brown et al. 1999) indicated that, in schools which have discussed and developed management structures, middle managers are perceived as:
• the channel of communication between senior staff and classroom teachers; • those responsible for the preparation of pastoral-based responses to policies and
strategies initiated by the senior management team; • guiding a system of working upwards from departmental staff and reflecting
upwards their contributions to whole school development planning.
