Session Information
26 SES 16 A, School Leadership Success amidst Contemporary Complexities and Layers of Influence on Education (Part 2)
Symposium continued from 26 SES 14 A
Contribution
This case explores the creation of a Catholic primary school in Melbourne, Australia; Patron Saint Catholic Primary School (PSCPS). The founding principal has led the creation of a recontextualised Catholic primary school over a ten-year period. This is the principal’s second principalship, having previously served for six years in a more challenging inner-city Catholic primary school. The study draws upon individual interviews with the principal (three interviews), Parish Priest, Religious Education Leader, Deputy Principal, level leaders (year 5-6, year 3-4, foundation to year 2 (two leaders) and two specialist leaders), six teachers, two group interviews each with four parents and two group interviews each with four students from years 5/6, observation of the life of the school, document analysis and a teacher survey. The case shows: • How the prinicpal’s background, education, personal philosophy and personal dispositions and characteristics that helped form his identity as a leader. • The development of the school was framed by the principal’s pedagogical leadership of 21st Century Learning and the underpinning of the school by establishing a sustainable professional learning community and a creation of a contemporary Catholic school environment with a religious identity for the school. • The principal’s ability to build the capacity of teachers and lead in and from the middle highlighted the distributive approach to his leadership. • The principal was able to navigate the various levels of context and meet and overcome the internal and external challenges. His approach and decision making were firmly based on evidence-based research. We conclude by showing how his leadership maps onto a model of successful school leadership developed from previous ISSPP cases.
References
Authors, 2021. Author, 2020a Author, 2020b Author (2018). Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Byrne, D., & Callaghan, G. (2013). Complexity theory and the social sciences: The state of the art. Routledge. Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage publications. Denzin, N. K. (2012). Triangulation 2.0. Journal of mixed methods research, 6(2), 80-88. Haggis, T. (2008). ‘Knowledge Must Be Contextual’: Some possible implications of complexity and dynamic systems theories for educational research. Educational philosophy and theory, 40(1), 158-176. Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374- 393. Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods. Sage. Spillane, J. P. (2006). Towards a theory of leadership practice: A distributed perspective. In Rethinking schooling (pp. 208-242). Routledge.
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