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Free diagnostic & field guide

Supervision Layer
Readiness Check

Find out where your supervision system is strong — and where it needs building. A 15-minute diagnostic followed by a step-by-step guide tailored to your organisation's size.

Most education leaders reach a point where their hands-on approach stops scaling. The work keeps arriving, but the day has the same number of hours. The instinct is to work harder. The solution is to build differently.

A supervision layer is the infrastructure that carries much of the leadership function independently of your direct presence — coaching relationships between peers, shared professional norms, and experienced staff who understand your values well enough to hold them without you in the room.

This tool helps you understand where you currently sit across eight dimensions of that infrastructure — and gives you a concrete, size-specific guide for building what's missing.

It was developed alongside the Under Constraint newsletter series on education leadership at scale.

About this tool

Time~15 minutes
Format16 questions + guide
OutputScored radar + action guide
CostFree
Sign-upNone required

Best for

Education directors, school leaders, middle leaders, and anyone building or scaling a supervision system for the first time.
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Scored across 8 dimensions

A radar chart showing where your supervision layer is already holding weight — and where the gaps are.

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Personalised priorities

Your three lowest-scoring dimensions become your priority focus areas — so you know exactly where to start.

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Size-specific action guide

A full step-by-step guide filtered to your organisation size — small, medium, or large — so the advice fits your context.

Ready to find out where you stand?

Takes about 15 minutes. No sign-up, no email required.

Before we begin

Tell us about your organisation

This helps us show you the right practices in the guide. Choose the option that best fits your current context.

Small

Under 20 staff. A tight team where relationships are personal and every absence is felt.

Medium

20–80 staff. Growing complexity, middle layers forming, and the leader can't be everywhere.

Large

80+ staff or multi-site. Systems and culture must do what personal presence can't.

Step 1 of 8
Audit

Your results

Your Supervision Layer

Here is how your system scores across eight dimensions.

Eight dimensions at a glance

Dimension scores

Your focus areas

These are the dimensions with the most room to build. The guide below will start here.

Ready to build?

The step-by-step guide below is filtered to your organisation size. Your priority areas are highlighted first.

Building the Layer — Field Guide

Eight steps to a supervision system
that works without you

Your priority areas are marked below. Content is filtered to your organisation size.

Organisation size: