Authors:Mark Deacon Pages: 1 - 3 Abstract: This edition of the Buckingham Journal is focussed on Leadership and Management. Whilst curating this edition I have been struck by the realisation that this edition could have been focussed on Change Management. All of the contributors to this edition of the Buckingham Journal are either reporting on or observing seismic changes in the way schools are organised, led and managed. Sometimes change is strategic and well-planned at other times change is chaotic and a response to a situation. I recall in the early 2000s whilst working in school senior leadership I said that I would vote for any party who promised to leave education alone for five years, that teachers would make any system however imperfect work. At the time we had revised OFSTED frameworks, SEAL, ECM, new vocational qualifications, Leadership Incentive Grant, new progress measures and Building Schools for the Future. PubDate: 2023-02-13 DOI: 10.5750/tbje.v3i2.2095 Issue No:Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Stuart McLaughlin Pages: 7 - 19 Abstract: I retired in April 2020 after 17 years as a Headteacher, serving four different schools across two local authorities. One thing that remained constant throughout this period was the privilege I felt being a school leader. I deliberately chose to work in challenging schools serving more deprived communities. I was driven by the belief that a high-quality education has the power to transform the life chances of young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. In this paper I reflect on my personal experience of government policy during this period and the impact it had on school leaders. In doing so, we will revisit two underpinning themes that featured throughout my headship career. The first was that education became part of the election battleground with each party developing their own ideas and thinking about the direction of education that, in turn, became policy for the successfully elected party. Successive Secretaries of State had their own view of what state education should look like. I have not always been convinced that all policy was based on educational theory and sometimes wonder if it derived from the minister’s own personal experience of education! Sir Kevan Collins describes this as the ‘Complacency of Certainty’ (2021) where ministers speak with authority on education without any substance or research to back it up. The impact this had on school leaders was to experience a see-saw effect as policies swung one way and then the other as governments and ministers changed. The second underpinning theme was the breakdown in trust between the government and the education profession. It is evident that this lack of trust in the system led to the growth of a command-and-control model whereby schools were compelled to follow government policy. To explore these themes, I will focus on three key areas of government policy that were intended to improve standards and reduce education inequality. First the rise of academisation under Tony Blair’s New Labour that accelerated with the Coalition government under David Cameron. Second the government policies designed to give parents far greater choice whilst also creating competition between schools. To this end, we will explore the two system changes that successive governments utilised to drive this culture of choice and competition starting with the high stakes accountability associated with examination results and then finally, reviewing my experience of the Ofsted process. PubDate: 2023-02-13 DOI: 10.5750/tbje.v3i2.2096 Issue No:Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Mark Ducker Pages: 21 - 31 Abstract: Mark Ducker recently retired CEO or the STEP Academy Trust reflects on the journey which took him from primary school teacher to CEO of an outstanding multi-academy trust. PubDate: 2023-02-13 DOI: 10.5750/tbje.v3i2.2097 Issue No:Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Ian Craig Pages: 33 - 46 Abstract: In January 2021 I published an article in the journal ‘Management in Education’ entitled ‘Whatever happened to educational management' The case for reinstatement’ (Craig, 2021) which challenged the dominant use of the word ‘leadership’ in education over the past 20 years at the expense of the word ‘management’, even when it was the latter issue that was being discussed. This article repeats much of what I said in my earlier article, but updates some or it, particularly the statistics on which it was based. In 2008, in the journal ‘Educational Management, Administration and Leadership’ (EMAL), one of the best known and most often referenced journals of its kind in the world, Professor Tony Bush (2008:272) commented that: ‘My review of papers in this journal in 1988 revealed only one mention of leadership, at the end of an overview paper by Tim Brighouse’. In the years that have followed, ‘leadership’ has become one of the most used terms to be found in school the literature, so much so that it is now difficult to find mentions of ‘management’ and ‘administration’ anywhere. In his article Bush suggested that this focus was given a particular boost by (the then) New Labour’s emphasis on schools having more responsibility for their own futures, a new focus on head teacher training, and in particular the establishment in 2000 of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). PubDate: 2023-02-13 DOI: 10.5750/tbje.v3i2.2098 Issue No:Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Mick Waters Pages: 47 - 67 Abstract: While leadership is usually a dispersed activity within schools, it is associated traditionally with headship. The role of headship has changed from a relatively benign first among equals to being the focus of accountability some way down the leadership pyramid in the English school system. This paper explores the challenges for head teachers at present and the styles of leadership that have evolved. It also proposes a way in which leadership of schooling can be rooted once more in the development and improvement of teaching and learning. The reference background for the paper comes from academic research, some of which provided the basis for ‘About Our Schools: Improving on Previous Best’1, as well as pragmatic research due to a regular presence in classrooms and schools. The article is intended to dovetail with the parallel piece in this journal by Tim Brighouse. PubDate: 2023-02-13 DOI: 10.5750/tbje.v3i2.2099 Issue No:Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Tim Brighouse Pages: 69 - 82 Abstract: This paper complements the article elsewhere in the journal by Mick Waters. It traces the origins of the present focus within the UK on school leadership, outlines the importance of applying well-judged approaches to Appreciative Inquiry, Problem Solving and Ensuring Compliance to leadership practices in establishing organisational cultures and managing complex change and briefly suggests a re-setting of schooling purposes and aims for a new age in schooling better adjusted to our citizens’ present and future needs. PubDate: 2023-02-13 DOI: 10.5750/tbje.v3i2.2100 Issue No:Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Authors:Domini Bingham Pages: 83 - 100 Abstract: This paper explores the wellbeing of school leaders and teachers in England who assessed a specific health risk during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. It explores how this cohort, guided to physically shield, was affected in attitudes towards work and the extent to which leadership behaviours supported a positive and perhaps ‘thriving’ physical return in a post-Covid-19 environment for effective schools and staff retention. Educational systems worldwide have become a high-stakes accountability landscape, with leaders questioning how they can lead with integrity. Staff wellbeing has moved up the agenda in England, forming part of England’s inspection framework, with one criterion being that staff consistently report high levels of support for wellbeing issues (Ofsted, 2019). Insufficient numbers of teachers, with an early exit of novices, is a particularly negative structural feature of the English school system (OECD 2017). A large scale quantitative study indicates that teacher retention is crucial to meet rising pupil numbers (Worth and van den Brande 2020). In the same study, unmanageable workloads and low job satisfaction are cited as significant factors determining teachers’ retention decisions and where teacher autonomy is strongly related to the extent to which teachers regard their workload as manageable (ibid). The study is as concerned with leadership capability as the wellbeing and retention of staff and decision-making driving processes. It is in the development of leaders faced with extraordinary stresses that researchers can understand where gaps lie in leadership development and organisational structure and culture and how these gaps might be strategically addressed. The empirical research on which the paper is based explores some facets for leading effectively in extraordinary circumstances. The paper presents findings on how external structural government directives have challenged schools in carrying out their instructions, amplifying inequality. PubDate: 2023-02-13 DOI: 10.5750/tbje.v3i2.2101 Issue No:Vol. 3, No. 2 (2023)
Open Access journal
[5 journals]
