Leadership
challenges and concerns. These three scenarios are typical of the reactions we encounter from primary heads to the changing education landscape: n You have been successfully leading a single primary school and have no aspiration to widen your remit. Then along comes a host of new structures: academies, free schools, clusters, federations. Your comfortable status quo is rocked. What should you do?
n You are the head of an under-performing primary school but you and your staff are working hard to turn things around and making progress. You want to take a creative approach, but suddenly you are forced down the academy route and the rug is pulled from under your feet. You are sceptical of the financial benefits, creativity is overridden by extra maths and English and your dreams are under threat.
n You lead an outstanding school and despite local resistance you are convinced that converting to academy status is the right thing to do for your pupils. Additional funding will allow you take on more staff and get that creative curriculum going now, rather than in a year’s time. But with no other role models to follow and next to no support, the process is an uphill struggle.
Three different scenarios; three different reactions; one common
factor: each head wants to do the best they can for their pupils, staff and local community. On the one hand there is the lure of being able to shape your own future without top-down intervention and diktats (although successful schools already feel they are in charge of their own destiny). On the other, there is the fear of the unknown and lack of guidance, support
18
Choosing the right path A
These are times of great fluidity for primary schools. For some heads, change represents opportunity; for others it is a cause of unease and confusion. Anne Evans, chief executive of leadership charity HTI, discusses the choices available to heads and the help they can offer
s one of the country’s leading providers of professional development for school leaders, HTI talks and works with thousands of heads every year, so we are acutely aware of their
and administrative structure to implement change. Not least, there is the nagging worry that your decision may adversely impact on schools which, through choice or lack of it, remain within local authority control. And perhaps the biggest worry of all is what happens if things go wrong? Add into the melting pot the introduction of free schools, more collaboration and the government’s determination to drive through
“Converting to academy status is uncharted territory for much of the
primary sector. There are few role models to draw on, so it is difficult to weigh up the pros and cons.”
improvements in quality of teaching and attainment and it is easy to see why there is so much uncertainty and angst over what to do for the best.
Courageous leadership So what are the implications for school leadership development? It takes courageous leadership to plunge into the unknown. This has spurred us to review our own leadership development portfolio and
Continued on page 20
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40