The ever-increasing and complex demands on school principals are rapidly changing the nature of educational leadership. Communities and societies more generally are becoming increasingly aware of the wider impact of the way education is led, typified by the recent focus on developing emotional literacy (also known as social, emotional and…

There is a shortage of school governors. The response has been to suggest a reduction in the number needed by decreasing the size of governing bodies or by forcing federation. Neither response is the answer. Reduction in size will place a greater burden on the few remaining governors and forced federation will distance incumbents from those things…

The Student Voice project was launched in January 2007. The aim was to provide a method of encouraging students to become actively involved in decisions about their own learning and empowering them with appropriate ways to do so. Ninety-two pupils were divided up into specific focus groups (a voice). These "voices" include: (1) the…

Historical accounts of the field of educational management (EM) have seen the last quarter of the nineteenth century as the beginning of EM as a profession and later on as a field of study in American universities. The search for efficiency in education in those days encouraged many American educators to participate in administrator preparation…

This paper presents a theoretical rationale for a teacher-led approach to school improvement and explores the initial collaboration between the author and a headteacher of a Catholic Church school. It presents the main findings of a strategic analysis undertaken to understand the current situations facing the school. This case study helps to…

Distributed leadership is an idea that is growing in popularity. There is widespread interest in the notion of distributing leadership although interpretations of the term vary. A distributed leadership perspective recognises that there are multiple leaders and that leadership activities are widely shared within and between organisations. A…

Modelling of statistical data is a well established analytical strategy. Statistical data can be modelled to represent, and thereby predict, the forces acting upon a structure or system. For the rapidly changing systems in the world of education, modelling enables the researcher to understand, to predict and to enable decisions to be based upon…

Over recent years, the demands on urban school leaders have grown exponentially. Yet the consequences of taking on a more community-orientated role challenge the scope and practice of leadership. School leaders who are working to connect to communities may discover uncomfortable truths--criminal activities or extremism. This article is an…

The author's argument revolves around the relationships between government agendas and the agency of teachers, and between them the intermediary role of management as "system leaders" of network forms. Network is a pluralistic concept: networks can serve very different educational-political interests. They offer the potential of new…

Over the last three decades schools have been subject to increasing and more varied sets of regulatory frameworks. In order to maintain creativity teachers need a clear educational perspective from which they can mediate, prioritise and lead change and one that enables them to develop and act upon their beliefs about education. The extent to which…

This article seeks to challenge a perceived mythology previously touched upon which is now widely established in the English educational system and is associated with what the author has elsewhere called the establishment model of educational policy. This establishment model is grounded in a "state learning theory." It reflects a set of…

This article reports on outcomes from a study funded by the National College for School Leadership designed to explore leadership talent identification, development, succession and retention in contextually different primary and secondary schools in England. It draws upon this larger project and offers evidence not seen before elsewhere. It deals…

Chartered London Teacher (CLT) status is a unique scheme designed by London Challenge to recognise and reward teachers' achievements and provide a framework for professional development. As well as having the prestige of being a Chartered London Teacher for life, educators receive a one-time payment of 1,000 British pounds from the school budget…

In this article, the author first outlines the responsibilities of governors as explained by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), Audit Commission and the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). Governors' work includes not just developing strategy and policy construction, but conflict resolution, too. Brief case studies…

This article reports the findings from an ongoing evaluation of a new model for collaboration among secondary schools: the Birmingham Collegiate Academies. The claims the authors make in this article are based on two years' field work and draw on individual interviews and more informal discussions, attendance at meetings of headteachers and other…