Session Information
26 SES 05 A, Leadership for Learning – The Role of Principals in Enacting Policies
Symposium
Contribution
This paper provides an overview of key themes identified through analysis of extensive interview data collected from the four case study schools in England between 2006 and 2014. This analysis traced the critical path of leadership actions that principals, senior and middle leaders employed over time; detailed what each of these actions entailed; and highlighted their perceived consequences in relation to improvement in teaching, learning and student achievement. Through these analyses, the paper reveals that over time school principals face challenges of divergence and convergence of their values in relation to government policy. Those who are able to secure values-aligned structural and relational synergies are more likely to see their moral purpose shared, realised and fulfilled. In our ‘successful’ secondary schools, some principals’ values are much more aligned to government policy in relation to their structures and processes than others. Those whose values correspond less face greater challenges in achieving success as defined by government than those whose values correspond more closely. The results show that in these schools it is too simplistic to focus on policy as implementation and either a top down or bottom up process. Rather, enactments involved more complex sets of interactions between school leaders, the staff and the wider school community, a clear ethical stance and the exercise of autonomy; that they built upon and developed organisational capacity, and were layered into school identified improvement priorities.
References
Day, C; Gu, Q; & Sammons, P. (2016): The Impact of Leadership on Student Outcomes: How Successful School Leaders Use Transformational and Instructional Strategies to Make a Difference. Educational Administration Quarterly
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