Whilst not schools are entirely alike, there are groups of schools which share similar characteristics. These are school which are located either in areas of relative socio-economic advantage or areas of relative socio-economic disadvantage. Their populations may be largely homogeneous in terms of the characteristics of the students, and parental, social and economic circumstances or heterogeneous (i.e. in England secondary schools are often located in areas of socio-economic deprivation but may have a mixed student intake). Student achievement within each of these groups is likely to depend in part upon the level of resource, quality of leadership and teaching but in part, also, upon the nature of the community from which they are drawn. Research suggests that even in schools judged to be successful, those students in schools in more advantaged areas are likely to achieve more – at least in terms of test and examination scores – than those in more disadvantaged areas (Day et al., 2007). However, even schools in these areas may achieve success relative to the nature of the student intake and this will be influenced directly and indirectly by the quality of school leadership (Leithwood & Louis, 2012).
Because many of the students in these schools are at greater risk of under achieving in their personal, social and work lives, it is particularly important to examine conditions which may work to improve this. In a recent national survey of successful schools in England, we found that principals are often younger and less experienced than those in more advantaged schools and are responsible for leading and managing situations which are less physically and emotionally stable. For example, teacher and student mobility tend to be higher in their schools, challenges of student and teacher motivation, student behaviour, engagement and attendance greater (Day et al., 2007). It is not that they work less hard or are less committed, but rather than the sets of skills and attributes used by these principals is different and, we would argue, more complex, than those in more advantaged schools.
This symposium contains multi-perspective cases of leaders in four countries whose schools are judged to be low performing in terms of their student outcomes. The aim is to explore what characterises leadership and culture in these low performing schools. ‘Low performing’ is defined externally by government statistics and/or the judgements of school inspectors/superintendents. It may include these schools which demonstrate ‘invisible’ low performance (in relation to their student population) and ‘visible’ low performance (usually schools located in challenging socio-economic contexts). Whilst there has been much research on successful and effective principal leadership (Day and Leithwood, 2007; Robinson et al., 2009; Day et al., 2011) and on the improvement challenges faced by schools which serve high need communities (MacBeath et al., 2007; Stoll and Myers (Eds), 1999; Muijs et al., 2004) we know less about how leadership is practiced in low performing schools.
To access and investigate schools which, according to student results data, are underperforming is itself a challenge. In each of these cases, this challenge was overcome. The ensuing data collection was common to all students and based upon a collaboratively designed set of interview protocols. These were derived from those used in earlier studies conducted by the International Successful School Principals’ Project (ISSPP). This enabled the findings about the principals’ leadership in under-performing schools to be compared both with the findings of successful leadership (in identifying similarities and differences) and enabled the researchers in their study of low performing school leadership to look across the four cases.