Session Information
26 SES 14 A, School Leadership Success amidst Contemporary Complexities and Layers of Influence on Education (Part 1)
Symposium to be continued in 26 SES 16 A
Contribution
Schools in England have undergone considerable reform over the past two decades and their principals have had to learn to manage increased volumes of government educational-policy initiatives designed to raise standards of teaching, learning, and academic outcomes for all students. Although these initiatives are seen by governments as a means of building human, economic, and social capital in increasingly competitive and socially turbulent global environments, there are continuing concerns over how effectively they are being implemented by school leaders and teachers. The analysis of the English case study is informed by the philosophy of disruption which is deeply concerned with social changes that enhance and transform the practice and experience of everyday life of individuals and their institution (Manu, 2022). This philosophical and analytical approach sees the principal as a positive disruptor who is able to embrace external policy reforms as “opportunities” for change, aligning resources in ways that has enabled her to harness knowledge, skills and capacity of the staff and create educationally equitable, and values-based “landscapes of success” over time. In this inner-city primary school which serves a socioeconomically highly disadvantaged community, policy shifts are perceived as unavailable political realities of education. Success is not simply defined in relation to its sustained academic performance over a ten-year period – rising from one of the bottom 200 underperforming schools nationally to become a National Support School. Most importantly, it is about how the principal has incorporated and used externally generated policies to enact and reinforce her own educational agendas in the process of school improvement, and transform the mindset and culture of teachers and students who feel empowered and confident to embrace change and make the right decisions for the right reasons. Key in regard is how she has broadened and deepened the organisational, social, and intellectual capacities that for the improvement of quality and standards in teaching and learning, despite rather than because of externally generated reforms.
References
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