Session Information
26 SES 08 B, Educational Leadership in Early Childhood Care and Primary Schools
Paper Session
Contribution
Power is shifting and new structures, groups and alliances are emerging in local arenas in England in response to the policy to establish a ‘school-led’ system with the following four key features: power over education is removed from local government by making schools ‘autonomous’ academies funded directly by central government and grouped in multi-academy trusts (MATs); accountability though national targets and inspection remains; schools collaborate to effect school improvement; and successful principals and teachers act as ‘system leaders’ exercising leadership beyond their own schools (Higham et al, 2009; Hargreaves 2011; Robinson 2012; Chapman, 2015). It is a policy experiment that, given the converging nature of education policy globally, is of international interest.
Some effects are becoming evident. Firstly, it has been widely recognised that a system of autonomous schools, and a reduced local authority role has the effect of dismantling the ‘middle tier’ that existed between central government and individual schools (Aston et al 2013; Lubienski 2014; Woods and Simkins 2014; House of Commons 2014). Secondly, radical changes are occurring in the ways schools relate to each other and to the local authority engendered by the arrangements between emerging school groupings. Thirdly, secondary schools and primary schools are responding differently to the national policy. While 65% of secondary schools are academies, only 15% of primaries have converted. Finally, the vision of a school led system is actually one led by well positioned school principals who exercise considerable influence in shaping local education landscapes.
National policy does not necessarily transfer intact to local arenas and outcomes often differ from those intended (Bardach 1977; McLaughlin 1987; Pressman and Wildavsky 1984; McDonnell and Weatherford 2016). The authors are conducting a project (currently in its fourth year) to understand what new local systems are actually emerging. Despite the challenge that the primary sector poses for the policy there has been little work to understand how and why they act as they do. The latest stage of the project aimed to find how primary principals were responding and why. The paper focuses on the nature of the groupings that primary principals in three different local areas are joining or newly creating. In the process we seek to illuminate how and why implementation is fraught.
As part of the analysis the paper contributes to the debate as to how school groupings might usefully be categorised. Some authors (Hill et al, 2012; Woods and Simkins 2014; Chapman 2015) use policy-induced categories, for example as multi-academy trusts, umbrella academy trusts, federations, foundation trusts and teaching school alliances. These capture policy-determined relationships, such as legal status and explicit contractual responsibilities, but not all significant variables. Courtney (2015) draws attention to two other features. He argues that schools (and groups of schools) can be viewed through two lenses: the locus of legitimation (corporate, religious, institutional or public) and branding, through which particular characteristics are claimed or attributed that affect the school’s or group’s position in its local context. Chapman and his colleagues (Chapman 2013; Salokangas and Chapman, 2014), taking a more directly structural approach, draw on Douglas’s (1970, 1982) concepts of grid and group - the degree to which there is perceived shared group membership (group) and the degree to which there is strong central control (grid) - to draw attention to the ways in which forms of power (horizontal and vertical) are structured into the relations between individual schools in school groups. We complement these approaches by elaborating four further characteristics as positions on a continuum between parameters relating to attributes of group formation, group organisation, intergroup relations and group structure.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Arnold, G. (2015). “Street-level policy entrepreneurship.” Public Management Review 17(3): 307-327. Aston, H., C. Easton, et al. (2013). What works in enabling school improvement? The role of the middle tier. Slough, National Foundation for Educational Research. Bardach, E. (1977). The Implementation Game: What happens after a bill becomes law. Cambridge MA, MIT Press Bryant, B., M. Davis, M. Farrar, and S. Rea (2016) Strategies for Transforming Local Education Systems. Education Development Trust and ISOS Partnership (at http://www.isospartnership.com/uploads/files/Transforming_local_education_systems_thinkpiece.pdf Accessed 15 December 2016. 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 Courtney, S. (2015). “Mapping school types in England.” Oxford Review of Education 41(6): 799-818. Department for Education (2010). The Importance of Teaching: Schools White Paper. London, DfE. Department for Education (2016). Educational Excellence Everywhere, Cm9230. London, DfE. Hargreaves, D. (2011). Leading a Self-Improving School System, Nottingham, National College for School Leadership. Higham, R., D. Hopkins, et al. (2009). System Leadership in Practice. Buckingham, Open University Press. Hill, R., J. Dunford, N. Parish, S. Re and L. Sandals (2012). The Growth of Academy Chains: implications for leaders and leadership. Nottingham, NCSL. House of Commons (2014). Academies and Free Schools: Fourth Report of Session 2014-15 [HC2588]. London, House of Commons. Lubienski, C. (2014). “Re-making the middle: Disintermediation in international context.” Educational Management Administration and Leadership 42(3): 423-440. McDonnell, L.M. and M.S Weatherford (2016). “Recognizing the political in implementation research.” Educational Researcher 45(4): 233-242. McLaughlin, M.W. (1987) “Learning from experience: Lessons from policy implementation.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 9(2): 171-178. Pressman, J.L. and A. Wildavsky (1984). Implementation (3rd edn.). Berkeley, University of California Press. Robinson, S. (2012). School and System Leadership: Changing roles for primary headteachers. London, Continuum. Salokangas, M. and C. Chapman (2014). “Exploring governance in two chains of academy schools: A comparative case study.” Educational Management Administration and Leadership 42(3): 372-386. Sandals, L. and B. Bryant (2014). The evolving education system in England: a 'temperature check'. London, Department for Education and ISOS Partnership. Woods, P. and T. Simkins (2014). “Understanding the local: Themes and issues in the experience of structural reform in England.” Educational Management Administration and Leadership 42(3): 324-340.
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