Foundation Leader's Toolkit | Primary school | Free download

Existing subscribers to Purple Mash have full access to editable versions of the toolkit here.

Whether you’re new to the role or an experienced subject leader, there’s sure to be something in the Foundation Leader’s Toolkit for you.

Packed full of useful documents, it’s designed to support you in achieving excellence while saving you precious time. These documents include essential tools, such as action plan examples and templates, a handy budgeting spreadsheet, auditing forms and surveys.

We’re committed to supporting you on every step of your leadership journey, which is why we’ve made this toolkit completely free to download. Simply complete the short form and click submit to access all the below tools and more in one convenient file.

Read on to learn more about each of the tools that make up the kit.

What's included in the Foundation Leader's Toolkit:

Action plans
Action plans that contain concise and achievable actions will help Curriculum Leaders demonstrate better impact. Action plans should always consider the overall current position of a school and a school’s aims for the academic year. The toolkit includes an example action plan with guidance, and a template to build your own plan with.
Budget tools
It is essential to have a good understanding of the budget for a subject/curriculum area. Keeping a close eye on where particular parts of the budget are spent can be helpful for addressing future spend priorities. The budget tool is a flexible downloadable tool which allows users to track and compare spending over 5 years. The handy graph generated gives a clear indication of areas of spend e.g. Lesson Resources, Subscriptions etc.
Subject Audit
Auditing a subject/curriculum area will help a leader gain a better insight into strengths and weaknesses. Audits should be used to help support formulation of key actions for the Action Plan and measure impact of existing actions. This subject audit document includes a comprehensive set of questions which elicit strengths and weaknesses of a subject with space to formulate key actions.
Foundation Policy Guidance
Policies should ideally be created in consultation with other members of staff, particularly if safeguarding needs to be explicitly referenced within it. Any current legislation for the subject/curriculum area 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 guidance breaks down each of the essential areas within a policy with examples.
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. This section includes separate surveys for both children and parents/carers across a wide variety of subject areas that you would expect to cover at Foundation stage.
Self-Evaluation
The more reflective a leader is, the more standards in their subject will be driven forwards. This comprehensive tool is designed to elicit self-reflectiveness, can be easily moulded to suit any subject area or curriculum and is perfect for providing supporting evidence for appraisals.
Staff Surveys
Understanding staff capability and overall knowledge will help a subject/curriculum leader identify which areas need attention. Whenever surveys are conducted, strong emphasis should be placed on transparency with responses.
Tips for Foundation Leads
This is a quick-start set of tips which are designed to be kept in the Curriculum Leader’s file. All this and more are available completely free as a part of the Foundation Leader’s Toolkit. Complete the short form to get access to the full, downloadable kit.