ABSTRACT
There will be times, no matter how strong the leadership, when a department will underperform. A department achieving good outcomes against national standards but falling below the standards attained by other departments in the school is not necessarily underperforming. Middle leaders, of course, know when their departments are underperforming – it is usually fairly obvious in the data and from their knowledge of colleagues – and they will be keen to do something about it. Careful diagnosis of the problem is the obvious first step and there is a distinction to be drawn between underperforming pupils and underperforming teachers. If underperformance is restricted to one particular teacher, diagnosis of the problem is usually much more straightforward, though not necessarily easy to deal with. If the middle leader has identified issues which cannot be corrected by a straightforward programme of continuous professional development and support, then senior leaders must be informed, and competency procedures initiated.
