Megan Crawford

Solo and Distributed Leadership Definitions and Dilemmas

This article discusses solo and distributed leadership. Using the anniversary of Educational Management Administration & Leadership as a focal point, it looks back over the last 40 years of EMAL, using this to frame a wider discussion of the relationship between solo and distributed leadership approaches. It acknowledges other approaches to shared leadership but uses distributed leadership to see how this idea has become part of the rhetoric of both leadership practice and policy. The article then asks what we have learnt from these foci, and where the field might like to look next.

Emotional Coherence in Primary School Headship

This article reflects on emotion and leadership. It views emotions as the language of relationships, because it is through the language and experience of emotion that we contextualize not only our individuality but also our sense of belonging in a group. The article argues that emotion is inherent to the practice of leadership rather than separate from it, and all organizing actions are inseparable from and influenced by emotion. It is not enough for a leader to acknowledge the inherent emotions in the culture of an organization; s/he has to make them explicit through their own leadership. The article argues that the headteacher needs to understand the interconnectedness between their emotions and the affective relationships in the school. Finally, it introduces the idea of emotional coherence as a means of conceptualising emotion in primary schools.

The restructuring of schooling in England: The responses of well-positioned headteachers

Research to date about the English government’s policy to make schools independent of local authorities (LAs) has looked at the ‘macro’ level of national policy and at the ‘micro’ level of the institution. The study of which this article is a part, explores changes at the ‘meso’ level – the locality. The article analyses interviews in three LAs with 15 headteachers whose schools were well positioned locally. We sought to understand how and why they responded to the changing policy environment. We applied Bourdieu’s concepts of forms of capital to model the relationships between schools and to ground explanations of their responses as positioning themselves in the local field. The article develops this general approach by identifying the varieties of capital available and actually possessed. The most important was categorization as a result of the inspection process. Many of the headteachers felt impelled to lead their schools into various associations with other schools. Some individuals were becoming notably more powerful in their competition arenas. The power of these elite schools to further accumulate advantage and the withdrawal of the LA role as an arbiter of conflict between schools in the interests of the whole community are discussed.

The Reality of School Development Planning in the Effective Primary School: technicist or guiding plan?

This paper examines the extent to which the technicist-rational approach to school development planning, advocated by OfSTED inspection guidelines, is appropriate for primary schools. The issue is investigated through case studies of nine primary schools, deemed by OfSTED to be educationally effective and efficient. The external pressures on schools to adopt a technicist-rational approach to management have been intensified by application of the OfSTED inspection guidelines. The school development plan and its implementation now form a crucial part of the evidence which inspectors use to judge the management and efficiency of the school. Schools that are deemed educationally effective and efficient by OfSTED inspectors may therefore be expected to show high levels of technicist-rational planning. This was not found to be the case, and a more sophisticated typology of planning approaches, drawing on distinctions between strategic and development planning, and between technicist and guiding plan, is develop...This paper examines the extent to which the technicist-rational approach to school development planning, advocated by OfSTED inspection guidelines, is appropriate for primary schools. The issue is investigated through case studies of nine primary schools, deemed by OfSTED to be educationally effective and efficient. The external pressures on schools to adopt a technicist-rational approach to management have been intensified by application of the OfSTED inspection guidelines. The school development plan and its implementation now form a crucial part of the evidence which inspectors use to judge the management and efficiency of the school. Schools that are deemed educationally effective and efficient by OfSTED inspectors may therefore be expected to show high levels of technicist-rational planning. This was not found to be the case, and a more sophisticated typology of planning approaches, drawing on distinctions between strategic and development planning, and between technicist and guiding plan, is developed to accommodate the findings.

Mapping the Field over 40 Years A Historical Review

Welcome to this special 40th Anniversary Edition of Educational Management Administration & Leadership. This issue features review papers from leading academics on six of the major and enduring themes in our field, and is timed to coincide with the 40th Anniversary of BELMAS (British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society), which owns the journal. EMAL’s first issue was published in June 1972 and it was initially published only twice a year, with the title of ‘Educational Administration’. It expanded to three issues a year in 1982, four in 1990 and six in 2009. BELMAS was founded just after the journal, an anomaly that is explained partly by the lead time taken to set up the Society, following initial discussions in 1970 (Glatter, 2004). This joint initiative may also be regarded as the start of the academic field of educational leadership and management in the UK. The articles in the journal may also be seen as a barometer for the changing emphases within the field over this 40 year period. We are grateful to Derek Glover, who has prepared a full content analysis of all EMAL volumes, to underpin this extended editorial. The analysis codes articles by decade, using four criteria:

Taking issue : debates in guidance and counselling in learning

The partner to Telling Tales, this reader looks at a range of perspectives on a number of key issues emerging from the area of guidance and counselling in education. Questions of ethics, equality and impartiality and their relationship to guidance and counselling in the context of learning are explored. The book also examines the trend towards group work and the role of technology in creating strategies for guidance. Written for a new module on the Open Universitys MA in Education.

Bridging Theory and Practice in Headship Preparation Interpreting Experience and Challenging Assumptions

This article draws on research undertaken in Scotland as part of an International Study of Principal Preparation (ISPP). The study is designed to address the question ‘How useful are principal preparation programmes to novice headteachers?’ Drawing on the research data from Scotland, the authors examine how novice headteachers navigate the complex area of practice by integrating personal and professional knowledge over time. They also identify key questions for future study.

Headteacher performance management: an investigation of the role of the external adviser

The performance management scheme that has been operating in English schools since 2000 gives considerable responsibilities to the schools governing body. These include responsibility for appraisal of the headteachers overall performance as a school leader and manager. Governing bodies are assisted in this task by government appointed external advisers. Drawing on research, this article outlines the role of the external adviser in headteacher appraisal and what we know about how it is working in practice. Some of the key issues are explored and questions raised for further research. External advisers were very clear that their primary role was as advisers and supporters to the governors, but they also put considerable emphasis on the support that they provided for headteachers. They understood, however, that the ultimate responsibility for the performance management of the head lay with the governing body. They also saw themselves as counsellors, facilitators, mentors, honest brokers, coaches and governor trainers. The key to their role was the fact that they were outsiders, with no axe to grind and with no connection to either the LEA or to the national inspection agency (OfSTED).

Emerging local schooling landscapes: the role of the local authority

The school system in England is undergoing rapid change, with the government creating more than 4000 ‘independent publicly funded schools’, known as academies, since 2010. The potential for fragmentation is considerable with diversity of governance emerging as a key feature of the new schooling landscape. Consequently, a major and widely recognised issue to which these reforms give rise concerns the future of the ‘middle tier’ –that layer between individual schools or groups of schools and central government. There are competing visions of how a future middle tier might evolve: one focuses entirely on a middle tier of individual schools and chains as a ‘self-improving system’; others conceive a continuing but revised role for the local authority (LA). The aim of this paper is to begin to explore the latter position, and in particular the potential role of the LA as a ‘broker’ of new patterns of school organisation. Drawing on interview data from three very different LA areas, the findings show that LAs differ in how they conceive their role and, consequently, on the strategies that they pursue.

Novice head teachers in Scotland: competing expectations

This article examines how novice principals reflect on the adequacy or otherwise of their preparation. It looks at data drawn from the International Study of Principal Preparation (ISPP), and in particular a questionnaire of principals up to three years in post, in Scotland. The principals find much about their preparation has helped them gain confidence as a novice principal, but were unprepared for the isolation of being a principal. The article also draws on previous research to ask whether aspects of preparation can never really prepare principals for the reality of school life.