This paper reports the most recent findings of an on-going project investigating the changes occurring in three localities in England in response to the Government’s policy goal, since 2010, of establishing a ‘self-improving’ school system based upon schools with high degrees of autonomy, albeit within strong central accountability mechanisms (Department for Education, 2010). The impact of these policies will be of interest in other countries where similar approaches are being implemented or contemplated. The concept of the self-improving system comprises two key components: the establishment of a variety of mechanisms through which schools collaborate in order to provide the resources and impetus for school improvement (Chapman, 2015); and the emergence of ‘system leaders’ (Higham et al, 2009; Hargreaves 2011; Robinson 2012) – mainly, but not exclusively, school senior leaders who undertake leadership roles beyond their own schools. It also explicitly sees the disappearance of the ‘middle tier’ role of democratically elected local authorities in the administration of the system. Our previous work suggests that, viewed from a local perspective, a fragmented picture is emerging. In each community a new dispensation is being arrived at influenced by the past local arrangements and by factors common to all schools such as the nationally imposed structures and historical, systemic and material differences between categories of schools that affect their relative position in the school field. In relation to system leadership we have identified a number of categories of system leaders who enter these roles by a range of routes. Thus, while people who started with more power/capital have been able to consolidate or enhance that power, chiefly through leadership of school groupings such as chains and teaching school alliances, in some localities developments may be taking place that enable others to access system leadership roles, especially in the primary sector. Despite the Government’s intentions, many local authorities appear to remain significant players in these developments for a number of reasons, and in all our localities they are taking the initiative to establish representative structures that encourage and facilitate school-led collaborative working locally, particularly but not exclusively among primary schools. This paper builds on these findings, to address the following questions:

a)     What specific forms of organisation and governance are being developed in relation to the primary schools in our three localities – for example, federations, MATs and teaching school alliances – and how do these relate to the developments of the primary sector as a whole in these areas?

b)    What is the influence on these developments of new local arrangements being orchestrated by the LA?

c)     What is the impact of the various developments on the evolution of system leadership in the primary sector? How and why do system leaders emerge and what are their motivations?

 The paper will describe the pattern of system leadership that is emerging within local contexts and explore the ways in which system leaders themselves construct their roles and relationships within these contexts. We identify emerging levels of governance in the primary sector through which schools work together through a variety of new arrangements such as clusters, federations and chains. These can operate both across a local authority area, but also at a level more local than that of the LA and, in some cases, wider, crossing local boundaries Consequently, new ‘middle tier’ arrangements are emerging which are more complex than the old local authority structures but which retain, in many cases active local authority involvement as facilitators. The study, therefore, is multi-level, exploring the interaction between policies and decisions taken at national level, local authority level, institutional level and in this emerging, complicated middle tier.

Chapman, C. (2015) ‘From one school to many: Reflections on the impact and nature of school federations and chains in England.’ Educational Management Administration and Leadership 43(1): 46-60. Department for Education (2010) The Importance of teaching: the Schools White Paper. London: DfE Hargreaves, D. (2011) Leading a Self-Improving School System. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership. Higham, R., D. Hopkins, and Matthews, P. (2009) System Leadership in Practice. Buckingham: Open University Press. Robinson, S. (2012) School and System Leadership: Changing roles for primary headteachers. London: Continuum.