Alma Harris

Improving leadership: room for improvement?

Critical reflections on the Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers The intention of this paper is to provide a series of reflections on leadership training for headteachers in order to stimulate further debate in the interests of improvement. It arises out of a year long evaluation of the first part of a new government sponsored national Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers in England and Wales. The Programme is based upon a competence model of leadership derived from original research on approximately 50 highly effective headteachers wvhich was then fed into an existing model developed in the public sector and applied commercially. It offers a particular learning and support process model which aims to provide both immediate challenge and .long term support for change. The paper reports on the quality of training and the levels of client satisfaction, both of which are judged to be high. Whilst recognising that the Programme’s contributions to longer term school improvement have yet to be evaluated, the final part of the paper raises issues about the effectiveness of target setting, the nature of the leadership model itself, and the extent to which the training model takes account of educational research on professional learning and change.

Improving schools in socially disadvantaged areas - a review of research evidence

Schools in difficult and challenging circumstances have received increasing policy and to some extent research attention in recent years. Improving schools in these circumstances is likely to prove a difficult process. This literature review has attempted to collect research on improving schools in these areas. Themes emerging from the literature include: a focus on teaching and learning, leadership, creating an information-rich environment, creating a positive school culture, building a learning community, continuous professional development, involving parents, external support and resources. The crucial issue of sustaining improvement is also discussed.