School of Education

This course will be suitable for early years leaders, primary and secondary school leaders, and headteachers who are considering progression into more senior or strategic roles. It will be particularly valuable for those preparing to apply for Into Headship or those seeking to strengthen their readiness for senior leadership. The course can be adapted to different levels depending on the audience.

Delivered by the leaders of Strathclyde’s Into Headship programme, this one-day professional learning opportunity provides participants with the tools and insights required to lead strategically. Participants will explore what it means to move beyond operational leadership to shaping culture, driving improvement, and leading learning, communities, and change. The course situates strategic leadership firmly within the Scottish education policy landscape, ensuring participants understand the expectations and responsibilities of senior roles.

In addition, the session provides space for critical self-reflection, enabling participants to analyse their own leadership journey, identify strengths, and recognise areas for growth. Time is dedicated to peer networking, offering opportunities to build supportive professional connections that can extend beyond the session itself.  

What makes a feminist classroom? What forms can a feminist education take? Gender inequalities have been an enduring and central focus of equalities legislation, in part as a result of sustained feminist efforts. This session is for anyone interested in advancing their understanding of gender inequalities and feminist politics in relation to education, across compulsory and post-compulsory education contexts.

Securing women’s and girls’ access to education has a long history as an emancipatory feminist project, and while there is a contemporary success story we can tell about women’s and girls’ educational achievements, entrenched inequalities remain. This is particularly so when it comes to educational leadership, pay differentials among educators, the ways that credibility and authority are conceived and ascribed, and the gendering of particular subject disciplines as masculine or feminine.

Drawing on research and teaching expertise, this session introduces a range of feminist perspectives, and will provide the opportunity for participants to work creatively and collaboratively to develop ideas about what feminist classrooms might look like, enquiring into the possibilities and limits of feminist education. Thinking with feminism about education also involves asking critical questions about the intersecting forms of inequality that education can reproduce, challenge and change.