Across Europe many small schools have been closed or amalgamated and there has been a move from schools being in local small settlements to larger centres (Ribchester &  Edwards, 1999). This movement has been influenced by many sociocultural factors, including the physical geography, historical influences, and characteristics of population (Kucerova, Meyer and Trshorsch,2020) The demand for education is dictated by population size, age structure and demographics (Barakat,2015). This brings uncertainty and issues regarding the sustainability of small rural schools.

Scottish Education has seen similar trends. The 32 Local Authorities in Scotland are responsible for the education pattern in each of their areas. The Local Authorities are required to deliver the services within a financial package, and this has seen greater uncertainty for communities as the pressure on the budgets escalates. Whilst there are statutory legal requirements for school closures within the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 (Scottish Government, 2014) there continues to be uncertainty about the future of small rural schools. Scotland is currently going through a period of review of Education which has also caused a great deal of uncertainty.

In this difficult landscape it is important to understand the pressures for headteachers and leaders of small rural schools. Leadership is crucial.  The researchers were involved in delivering a national programme (In Headship) for newly appointed headteachers in rural areas and were keen to ensure that the programme met the needs of small school leaders:  to support school leadership during a time of uncertainty and provide hope and sustainability for the future.

Within the Scottish context the importance of landscape, flexibility and sustainability were key to ensuring the development of the national programme for rural school leaders enabled “people to live well and create a world worth living in” (Edwards-Groves et al. 2020, p 126)

The researchers asked the question: What did the national leadership programme require to meet the needs of small schools in a time of uncertainty?

They undertook collaborative action research with local authority employers and programme participants (Coghlan and Brannick, 2014), drawing on their wider work with leaders in small rural schools, to examine practice and to remodel the programme to provide support for sustainable leadership. The reflective analysis presented here is framed through the conceptual work of Bottery (2016) where leadership sustainability and unsustainability links to world sustainability and unsustainability.

Leadership sustainability is key for rural schools across Europe and is linked to the notion of preserving something that is valued. It is therefore appropriate to explore uncertainty for leaders within rural schools not only through the lens of sustainability of the school in the community but also through what is valued and brings hope for the future. The Brundtland Report (1987, P. 8) defines sustainability as “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”. This reflects not only on the sustainability of the natural environment but also of the human world.

This paper presents the outcomes of collaborative action research (Coghlan and Brannick, 2009) the researchers carried out while teaching a programme for newly appointed headteachers in rural schools in 2022-23. Scotland has a national leadership programme for newly appointed headteachers. The programme has a national framework but is designed and taught as a separate programme in three different universities. In reviewing the programme in 2023 it was apparent that the national programme did not fully meet the needs of the leaders in the rural areas. During the same period a National Review was taking place in Scottish Education. There was much uncertainty and through a collaborative approach with local authority leaders and headteachers the researchers remodelled the programme to provide opportunity to support and challenge the rural leaders within their unique locations. The online structure of the programme was reinforced and flexibility added to support the sustainability of rural leadership (Bottery, 2016). The researchers have strong connections with rural education which they brought to the developing of the national programme for leaders within rural contexts. Their knowledge of the field and being within the field has influenced their use of an ethnographic approach to the research and data handling. Their role is “part spy, part voyeur, part fan, part member” (Van Maanen, 1978, 346): their main aim being to observe and analyse how leaders interact with each other, communities and with their environment, in order to understand what is required for sustainable rural leadership. The data collected include the national framework, field notes from the collaborative action and responses from the participants to the programme activities. This initial data set is supplemented by focus group discussions with the group of participants in 2023 – 24. Analysis was carried out through structured reflection on programme content and individual responses, both approaches focusing on the development of sustainable strategic leadership (Davies, 2004) for rural schools.

This research analysed the collaborative response to and development of a programme supporting newly appointed headteachers in rural schools. The programme , which is delivered digitally and remotely, was welcomed by participants and offers a pathway to improved leadership activities which would not be possible due to geographical isolation from the main central urban based universities. The work undertaken provided support for rural leadership in the current uncertain times. Recognition has been given at national level in Scotland that the remodelling of the programme and the development has been an important part of the overall programme in Scotland. Leadership in small rural schools requires strategic leadership which is embedded in context and understands the national requirements. To ensure the future of small rural schools these leaders need to have strong foundations in their own leadership journey (Davies, 2004). The research evidenced that in small schools headteachers often perform a middle leadership role concurrently with that of headship. Middle leaders have the potential to impact areas such as teacher capacity, school reform, teacher motivation, morale and most importantly, but less commonly reported, student learning (Lipscombe et al(2021). The researcher explores participant response to those concurrent roles.

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