Research on the nature of and support for systemic sustainable innovation with ICT is converging with research on policy implementation and studies of school change and improvement to highlight the complex interplay of personal and contextual factors that enable and constrain innovation. In each of these fields, leadership has been found to play a…

This article reviews the evidence on the way that schools and school systems find, share and use research in their work, with a particular focus on the role of school and district leaders in increasing the prominence and value of research in their work. It reviews the evidence on the ways in which practitioners in education find and use research…

An attempt was made to formulate a theoretical framework of leadership forces in school organisations, which includes bureaucratic linkage, cultural linkage, tight coupling and loose coupling. Two instruments, the School Values Inventory (SVI) and the Teachers' School Life Questionnaire (TSLQ), were created and developed for this study to assess…

This study investigated the differences and similarities in the impact of school leadership on student mathematics achievement in different global regions using TIMSS international data. Three-level unconditional and conditional hierarchical models were fitted to the data in each country. The findings showed that the variables of teacher…

Little relevant research examining the leadership patterns of heads of department (HoD) coping with curriculum changes is found within the Chinese context. This article presents an exploratory case study which delineates the leadership qualities exhibited by a HoD as he overcomes the difficulties typically confronted in the process of school-based…

This article presents findings of research into the quality control (QC) of schools from 2001-2006. In 2001 several targets for QC were set and the progress of 939 primary schools is presented. Furthermore, using cluster analysis, schools are classified into four QC-types that differ in their focus on school (self) evaluation and school…

School leaders in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) now have the important responsibility of initiating and implementing school improvement. This raises the question of their leadership capacity and the competencies that are required for school leaders to fulfil this new role. This article focuses on school leadership in T&T. The study presented in this…

In this article we develop the arguments of Glatter on the importance of adopting a more "organisation-oriented" approach to educational leadership development. Through a critical review of current publications and national courses in the field, we argue that educational leadership is still very skills focussed at the expense of more sophisticated…

This article outlines progress made towards education transformation in Wales. It explores the way in which tri-level reform is guiding system level change in Wales and looks at the implementation of the School Effectiveness Framework, which is at the heart of the reform process. It describes the way in which professional learning communities are…

The article examines the origins and purposes of assessment for learning (AfL) within the National Curriculum Assessment context in England. As a part of the Primary Strategy, AfL became part of the government's drive to improve standards through measuring school outcomes. The authors describe their investigation into teachers' understandings of…

In Zimbabwe, there have been some debates on democratisation and decentralisation, which led to the development of policies meant to increase teacher participation in decision-making in schools. However, despite these developments, teacher participation in decision-making in Zimbabwean schools is regarded as insignificant. Teachers work closely…

This article looks at the move from a management structure based on discrete subject departments managed by subject specialist principal teachers within Scottish secondary schools towards groupings of subjects (faculties) with a single manager. This article examines the impact of this change upon the experiences of students and probationer…

This article informs school improvement and educational change from a radically different perspective. Building upon work done recently in neural psychology, primatology and ethology, the article examines four common and general types of organisational form: the cell, the silo, the pyramidal, and the network types of organisational structures.…

This paper proposes a new model for understanding education through "responsible leadership"--a term which draws on the models of distributed and authentic leadership and on a dialogic understanding of responsible action. It defines "dispositions for learning" as different forms of the single quality of "openness to learning". A "pedagogy of…

The aim of this study is to contribute to the achievement of educational goals by determining teachers' levels of motivation. With this aim in mind, the opinions of 386 teachers employed in primary schools in Tokat province were sought. According to the findings of the study, the teachers stated that their needs were not fulfilled according to…