Middle leaders in secondary schools are carrying growing workloads while being asked to deliver another round of changes to curriculum and assessment, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association says.

Following a meeting of its Middle Leadership Advisory Committee today, PPTA advisory officer Dr Adele Scott said heads of department, teachers in charge and deans are “the intellectual and pedagogical engines” of schools, yet operate with “high responsibility with low power, high accountability with low resource, and high expectations with limited recognition.”

In a media release, Scott said middle leaders shoulder a cycle of work that never quite ends: administrative tasks that regenerate as soon as they’re done, reforms that reset just as systems embed, assessment deadlines that stack up, increasingly complex pastoral care, and staffing pressures from relief, recruitment and mentoring.

The union argues those roles sit at the point where government policy becomes classroom practice. “Middle leaders are being asked to carry change they have not meaningfully shaped and are not adequately resourced to deliver,” Scott said. Without a genuine voice in the design of reforms and “proper investment in their capacity to lead it well,” she said, the changes will continue to stumble and “it will be students who ultimately bear the brunt.”

PPTA’s committee draws members from schools around the country and shares effective practice while advising the union on issues affecting department-level leadership. Its latest message comes as the sector awaits government announcements on changes to the national assessment system for secondary schools.

Dispatch Desk has asked the Ministry of Education for details on the forthcoming announcements and whether additional resourcing for middle leaders is planned.