Research has shown that the quality of early years provisions is directly linked to the quality of leadership and management of early years settings. The extant research also shows that the quality of preschool settings are almost always characterised by strong leadership, where leaders and practitioners share a clear vision of the setting's…

The "moral imperative" of school leadership has been identified as seeking to bring about social justice in ensuring all children are given the opportunity to succeed in education. Empirical research among 18 headteachers in a single local education authority in the English Midlands shows that some headteachers simultaneously work within…

The English education system has been radically transformed over the last two decades. Throughout this period, the New Right and New Labour government policies have embraced the rhetoric of empowering schools to become self-managing institutions. In the course of this transformation, school leadership and management have become exceptionally…

Workforce Remodelling in England implemented between 2003 and 2005 has been presented by the "New Labour" government as a means of enhancing the development of teachers and promoting rising educational attainments. While the processes that schools were to follow to achieve the desired "fundamental alteration in mindset" were…

This article explores the policy changes made by the Labour government to the recurrent funding of school-based education in England, focusing in particular on the allocation of resources to meet the needs of disadvantaged pupils. Expenditure on education and, in particular, on schools has increased since 1997. However, while there have been two…

The rhetoric of "partnership" is ubiquitous in UK policy at national, regional, local and organizational levels. Self-styled partnership activity is espoused by most schools in England and Wales. This article considers the implications of the growth of partnership for conceptualizing leadership. It draws on evidence of interviews with…

This article presents the results of a study of the impact of three programmes of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), namely Leading from the Middle, the National Professional Qualification for Headship and the Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers. All three programmes embody a blended learning approach that includes an…

Leadership, currently prescribed as a key requirement for effective school organization and management, is examined here as a rhetorical or discursive device, as a "turn", in the sense used in literary and sociological discussion of the linguistic turn. In the educational sphere, a tacit separation of leadership from issues of governance…

This article reports on outcomes from a study funded by the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) designed to explore leadership talent identification, development, succession and retention in contextually different primary and secondary schools in England. Focus groups and a questionnaire were used to secure perceptions of heads, middle…

This article reports findings from a study of headteachers and spirituality. It is intended to give some insight into the importance of spiritual experience as a phenomenon which enables leaders to be better resourced internally and find deeper meaning, and to provide evidence of the significance and influence of spiritual experience for…

The headteacher's role in school improvement and the changing nature of the role suggest the need to investigate how new school leaders learn their jobs, that is, their socialization to the leader role. This study has two purposes: (1) to identify the content and methods used in the professional and organizational socialization experiences of new…

This article investigates the perceptions of English headteachers to questions addressing the setting of goals and the effects of external pressure on headteachers. The research utilizes semi-structured interviews with headteachers from a variety of contexts. These interviews were used to write individual headteacher "portraits", which…

The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) is responsible for carrying out external inspections of all schools in England, in the UK. Compared with early inspections, there is now an increased focus on the contribution that school self-evaluation can make to the inspection process. However, it is clear from studies undertaken in recent years…

In English schools, many responsibilities have been delegated downwards to "middle level leaders". National standards for subject leadership assume that middle leadership skills are generic and the literature largely agrees with this view. This article presents data from the first pilot enquiry within ARTSLAMP (Arts Leadership and…

This article uses research commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills to investigate the operation of teacher capability procedures in England. The article examines the role of local education authorities (LEAs) in supporting headteachers and governors in dealing with underperformance by giving support outside of capability procedures…