Responsibility in a high-accountability system: leading schools in England Daniel Muijs, University of Southampton

A hotbed of reform An era of rapid policy change and strong government intervention Dual policy direction since 1988: –Greater autonomy for schools (especially from local authorities) –Increasingly strong central accountability mechanisms Current trends: –Academies and Free schools –Tightening up of Ofsted inspections and performance standards

Current trends 3 Academies and Free schools Tightening up of Ofsted inspections and performance standards System leadership and executive headships

The role of the head teacher Long tradition of strong head teacher leadership Hierarchical school structures More recent: –School-based management –Emphasis on role of head teacher in school improvement –National training programmes 4

Role of the head teacher Central and broad Issues of –Head teacher capacity –Recruitment to headship –Distraction from key instructional leadership roles under SBM 5

Responses to these issues Leadership development Distributed and delegated leadership School Business Management Networking and collaboration 6

Leadership development Strong emphasis with development of NPQH NPQH regularly reformed, now more collaborative model Based on view that leadership is learned Limited evidence of impact 7

Distributed and delegated leadership Relatively strong research evidence Encouraged by National College and other (quasi) governmental organisations In practise, differential uptake in schools Sometimes strong central leadership may be more appropriate model Common half-way house: extended leadership teams 8

School business managers Central theorem: –Head teachers should concentrate on instructional leadership –Head teachers not necessarily best skilled at business management Therefore, SBM’s appointed in many schools Increased specialised training provision for SBM’s Positive evidence for this model, though does not work in all circumstances 9

Leading networks Increasing prevalence of school networks and Federations of schools System leadership – interdependence between schools Evidence of positive impacts New roles for head teachers: –Horizontal leadership –Network leadership –Executive headships 10

Conclusion Leading under pressure: –Strong accountability + strong autonomy + rapid system change Some creative solutions have emerged More needed: –Policy support –Creative use of capacity of HE, private providers and schools themselves –Chains of schools 11