Stephen Dinham

Principal leadership for outstanding educational outcomes

Purpose – Aims to explore the role of Principals in producing outstanding education outcomes in Years 7 to 10 in New South Wales (Australia) government schools.Design/methodology/approach – Sites where “outstanding” educational outcomes were believed to be occurring were selected using a variety of data including performance in standardised tests, public examinations, various value added measures and nominations from various stakeholders. Sites were of two types: subject departments responsible for teaching certain subjects and teams responsible for cross‐school programs in Years 7 to 10. Sites were selected to be broadly representative. Some schools had more than one site, e.g. Mathematics and Student Welfare. A total of 50 sites across NSW from 38 secondary schools were studied.Findings – With both subject departments and teams responsible for cross‐school programs, leadership was found to be a key factor in the achievement of outstanding educational outcomes. Often, this leadership was exercised by the...

Teachers under stress

This paper explores the issue of teacher stress through examination of the experiences of 57 teachers and educational administrators who had resigned from the New South Wales Department of School Education. Data were gathered through open-ended interviews and analysed using grounded theory techniques. After examining the experiences of 10 of the 57 respondents, overall findings are related to the literature followed by recommendations for the educational system concerned which may well have wider significance. While stress was not found to be the only cause of teacher resignation, it was found to be part of the day to day lives of teachers and a significant contributing factor to resignation.

The secondary Head of Department and the achievement of exceptional student outcomes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the secondary Head of Department (HoD) in leading teams producing exceptional education outcomes in Years 7‐10 in New South Wales (NSW, Australia) government schools.Design/methodology/approach – Sites where exceptional educational outcomes were believed to be occurring were selected using a variety of data including performance in standardised tests, public examinations, various value added measures and nominations from various stakeholders. Sites were of two types: subject departments responsible for teaching certain subjects and teams responsible for cross‐school programmes in Years 7‐10. Sites were selected to be broadly representative. Some schools had more than one site, e.g. Mathematics and Student Welfare. A total of 50 sites across NSW from 38 secondary schools were studied.Findings – With both subject departments and teams responsible for cross‐school programmes, leadership was found to be a key factor in the achievement of exceptiona...

The quality teaching movement in Australia encounters difficult terrain: A personal perspective

There has been a major and growing international focus on improving the quality of teaching for decades. In Australia, there have been numerous key national initiatives introduced since 2007 with the aim of improving school, teacher and student performance. These include national testing and reporting of student achievement, national professional standards for teachers, a national curriculum, national accreditation of teacher education courses and a national framework for teacher development and performance. However, there are growing concerns over Australias performance on international measures of student achievement and growing criticism of teacher education, teachers and schools from various sectors. Educators themselves, however, have largely been silent. Various simplistic solutions to the perceived problem of teacher quality have been promulgated, yet these have not been successful elsewhere. The paper calls for educators to find their voices in this current debate and to argue from a position of evidence to counter the misinformed and misguided views that currently predominate and influence government policy.

How Schools Get Moving and Keep Improving: Leadership for Teacher Learning, Student Success and School Renewal.

There is a vast body of research confirming the important influence of the classroom teacher on student achievement. A key issue, then, is how the quality of teaching and learning within individual classrooms can be influenced and improved. This paper argues that educational leadership is a key influence on the quality of teaching and learning and thus student achievement. Educational leadership is heavily dependent upon relationships, and this paper explores two fundamental dimensions to relationships—responsiveness and demandingness—and their effects on teaching and educational leadership.

Breakthroughs in School Leadership Development in Australia.

The quality of leadership and the effectiveness of schools to deliver an appropriate education through quality teaching have been ‘hot’ topics within education and more widely for several decades. This article provides a brief historical overview of developments in research and changing paradigms of Australian school leadership, followed by a discussion of current leadership development emphasis and provision and emerging concepts in the field such as leadership standards, capital formation in education and leadership in small schools. The article concludes by suggesting areas of policy and program development that may require further consideration.

Sustainable school capacity building – one step back, two steps forward?

Purpose – This paper aims to serve as an introduction to and overview of this special issue of the Journal of Educational Administration entitled “Building organisational capacity in school education”. The co‐editors have solicited contributions from authors in Wales, Australia, Canada, the USA, England, Hong Kong and New Zealand.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews past and contemporary approaches to the issue of capacity building in education and in particular, sustainable capacity building. As well as reviewing key researchers and writers in this field, including their own work, the authors foreshadow and synthesise the other seven papers that make up this special issue.Findings – The paper contends that building capacity in schools and schooling, while no means easy, can be both understood and accomplished. However, caution needs to be exercised because hard‐fought gains in capacity building and sustainability can be quickly eroded under the influence of poor leadership or extraneous change...

Masterly preparation: embedding clinical practice in a graduate pre-service teacher education programme

This paper describes the implementation of the Master of Teaching degree which was introduced at the University of Melbourne in 2008. The programme aims to produce a new generation of teachers (early years, primary and secondary) who are interventionist practitioners, with high-level analytic skills and capable of using data and evidence to identify and address the learning needs of individual learners. The programme marks a fundamental change to the way in which teachers have traditionally been prepared in the University of Melbourne and builds a strong link between theory and practice. This linking occurs within a new partnership model with selected schools. The model was influenced by the Teachers for a New Era programme in the USA and by the clinical background of senior faculty. The programme sees teaching as a clinical-practice profession such as is found in many allied health professions; this understanding is also embraced by the university’s partnership schools. These schools are used as clinical sites, actively involving their best teachers in the clinical training component. These teachers are recognised as members of the university and are highly skilled professionals who are capable of interventionist teaching and who use appropriate assessment tools to inform their teaching of individual children.

Born Not Made: The Nativist Myth and Teachers' Thinking.

In this article the authors explore the possible origins of nativist myths about teaching expertise in the cultural and organisational context of teaching. They propose that the cultural preference for explanations for human behaviour that are based on personal dispositions conceived of as entities, combined with the opaque nature of teaching expertise, predispose teachers to the belief that ability as a teacher is inborn. They explore the consequences of this belief for professional development, especially development that involves the acceptance of expertise that arises outside the teaching profession. They contrast this with the consequences of a model in which professional expertise is understood as a fluid and ‘unstable’ process.

The Development, Endorsement and Adoption of a National Standard for Principals in Australia.

Principals play key roles in creating the conditions in which teachers can teach effectively and students can learn. Principals are increasingly being held accountable both for teacher quality and for student learning and development so that young people can become ‘successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens’. The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) was established by the Australian Government in 2010 to provide national leadership for the Commonwealth, state and territory governments in promoting excellence in the profession of teaching and school leadership. Reporting to all state and territory ministers responsible for education, AITSL is charged with driving transformational change and creating new levels of teacher professionalism. In its first year the Institute developed a new National Professional Standard for Principals.1 This article outlines the origins and development of this standard. Development was a collaborative process including key stakeholders from across Australia with international expert input. Following national piloting of the standard, refinements to the standard were made and mechanisms to support the use of the standard have been put in place.