It’s been a huge year for the School Leadership Institute team as we launched unique, high quality leadership programs, developed new resources and provided support and opportunities for our colleagues impacted by the challenges of COVID-19 and bushfires.

We are also looking forward to offering more opportunities to current and aspiring school leaders as our new programs and resources become available in 2021.

Our aim is to deliver world-class, evidence-informed, and future-focused leadership development programs and initiatives to make the difference we seek in public education.

Feedback from participants in our programs demonstrates that we are having an impact in schools across the State.

Here are just some of our 2020 highlights.

• We developed a new School Leadership Identification Framework (SLIF) to help identify and support future school leaders. The SLIF will be piloted in around 100 schools next year.
• The first Middle Leader Online Induction for assistant principals and head teachers supported more than 385 newly appointed leaders. Our next induction will start in the first week of Term 1.
• We delivered a new program specifically for leaders in rural and remote schools. So far, 115 leaders have taken part in the Rural and Remote Leadership Development Program, a nine-month program which will continue into 2021
• Up to 87 participants in our second and third cohorts of the Aspiring Principals Leadership Program celebrated their successful completion of this rigorous leadership development initiative. The next cohort will begin the program early next year.
• Almost 100 newly appointed, first time principals took part in our Growing Great Leaders program.
• We played a key role in the delivery of the Department of Education’s Bushfire Relief Strategy, through leadership webinars and individual support for impacted school leaders.
• Nearly 7000 people are currently enrolled in our NSW Public School Leadership and Management Credential, and a further 870 participants have completed it.
• Our research into system leadership, and identifying future school leaders, was published on our website, with further research projects currently being completed.
• More than 70 principals and DELs received scholarships to complete a Master of Education under our Scholarships for School Leaders program.

We eased the challenges of COVID-19 for our profession by delivering a series of webinars for school leaders and educators, with the help of Genos International. These interactive webinars covered Boosting Psychological Wellbeing, Working Remotely and Leading Remotely. They were attended by almost 20,000 staff in April and their success resulted in our team being finalists in the Australian Institute of Training and Development (AITD) excellence awards 2020 for the best use of technology for learning. We also partnered with Dr Simon Breakspear to present two webinars specifically for newly-appointed principals called Leading with Agility in Uncertain Times.

The SLI team will continue to work energetically to fulfil our commitment to developing new programs for current and aspiring leaders in our public schools in 2021. These will include new leadership development programs, high-quality induction programs and resources that leaders can use to strengthen their practice to support the learning of students in our public schools.