Free Subject Leader's Toolkits

We are committed to helping teachers at every stage of their development, including subject leadership.

To make your lives as subject leaders as painless as possible, we’ve created a series of toolkits that are packed full of documents you’re sure to find useful, whether new to the role or a seasoned veteran.

So far we’ve released different Subject Leader Toolkits for Maths, English, Science, Computing, Foundation and PE. Each toolkit contains a range of surveys, templates, tools and guides to enhance your role and save you time. They are all designed by our experienced Education Team and are completely free to anyone.

Purple Mash subscribers can access the editable versions of the Maths, English, Science, Computing and Foundation toolkits here. If you don’t have a Purple Mash licence, just click on your subject of choice to visit the download page for that toolkit.

Striver subscribers can access the editable version of the PE toolkit here. If you're not yet a Striver user, you can download the free version here.

Here we summarise the different documents in each toolkit and what they have been designed for.

Action plans

Action plans which contain concise and achievable actions will help subject leaders demonstrate better impact. They should always consider the overall current position of a school and a school’s aims for the academic year.

Our toolkits include both an example plan with guidance, and a template plan, perfect for those who don’t have a set proforma to follow.

Subject Audit

Completing a thorough audit of your subject will enable you to get an in-depth understanding of the condition of your subject. Audits should be used to help support formulation of key actions for the Action Plan and measure the impact of existing actions.

This is a comprehensive set of questions that elicit strengths and weaknesses of your subject with space for you to formulate key actions.

Budget Tool

Of course, it is essential to have a good understanding of the budget for your subject. Knowing spend on different areas and the impact this has on school improvement priorities can help with longer budget forecasting.

The Budget Tool allows you to track and compare spending over 5 years and the handy graph generated gives a clear indication of areas of spend e.g. interventions, workshops, training, whole school initiatives etc.

Self-Evaluation

The more reflective you are as a subject leader, the more likely it is that standards in your subject will be driven forwards.

This in-depth, comprehensive tool comes complete with probing questions designed to elicit self-reflectiveness and is perfect for support development in leadership and supporting evidence for appraisals.

Staff Surveys

It’s impossible to evoke positive change across a school if leaders don’t know what needs changing. You need to know staff capability, knowledge and approaches to your subject as well as their views on its provision. These surveys help you gain this essential understanding.

Pupil and Parent/Carer Voice

Understanding the experiences of the most valuable stakeholders is a must. The frequency and method(s) of gaining insight needs to be bespoke for each individual school. Each of our subject leader toolkits includes a variety of subjects for these stakeholders, designed to help you recognise and appreciate their experiences.

Policy Guidance

Subject policies should ideally be created in consultation with other members of staff, particularly if safeguarding and inclusion needs to be explicitly referenced within it. Any current legislation for your subject should be consulted and addressed accordingly. All leaders should make themselves aware of the proformas used and general protocol for policy writing within their school. Additionally, they need to reference other policies as needed e.g. marking policy, teaching & learning policy etc.

This document breaks down each of the essential areas within your subject’s policy and provides examples.

Tips

Every one of our subject leader toolkits comes complete with an easily digestible list of handy tips for new leaders and veterans alike.

There’s even more for Computing

The Computing Leader’s Toolkit contains even more indispensable information that no computing lead can go without. In addition to everything listed above there are acceptable use agreements, a remote learning policy, an Ofsted Deep Dive, an online safety guide for parents and a lot more.

Remember, all our subject leader toolkits are completely free to download. In fact, there are a whole host of useful resources for parents and teachers that we’ve made completely free. Browse our free resources pages to find everything from an Ofsted Deep Dive in Computing to a Mental Health and Wellbeing Guide for Parents.