For three years from 2008 every school in England had a designated school improvement partner (SIP), portrayed as a critical friend, whose role was to support and challenge the headteacher. A mixed-methods study involving a national survey and face-to-face interviews evaluated the enactment of the national policy from the perspective of the direct…

This article explores the impact of changing policy priorities on the role of director of children's services, before and after the economic crisis of 2008 and the election of the coalition government. The role of director of children's services from 2003 to 2010 was driven by the New Labour imperative to deliver regionally based integrated…

Incentivized collaboration, schools that receive incentives such as public funding or additional resources if they join a network, has become quite popular in Europe and North America (e.g. England, Flanders, United States). We used a comparative case study design to explore why schools would enter such an incentivized network and what role…

Distributed leadership is one of the most prominent contemporary leadership theories in education. Its attraction in education is perhaps due to its potential to bring about school improvement. A review of the literature, however, reveals broadness in the way the construct is being conceptualized and operationalized; thus making it elusive. The…

This article is one of a series of papers generated from the Curriculum Reform study in Hong Kong with the purpose of understanding the impact of government's role in the change process of the reform. This paper specifically examines the 17 government initiatives in the Curriculum Reform in terms of their adoption percentages of schools from…

This paper explores the concept of instructional leadership and principals' perceptions of the practices of instructional leadership. Despite the emphasis on the effects of school leadership regarding teaching practices and learning outcomes, research on direct instructional leadership is scarce. It is focused either on identifying overall…

Research increasingly points to the negative impacts of teacher absence from school on access to schooling and success in learning in schools, in particular in schools in areas of multiple-deprivation (including rural schools). South African schools are no exception. In this regard, like any other employer, the South African Department of Basic…

Multiple deprivation affects a large proportion of schools in South Africa. The past 20 years of democracy have tended to focus on reforming education through curricula revision and a raft of redress-directed interventions, through the application of what we call a broad-brush policy approach. The paper argues that a broad-brush policy application…

The effective management of physical resources significantly impacts on the quality of teaching and learning in schools. The procurement, utilization and maintenance of physical resources through organized structures, well-designed policies and rigid processes are critical for quality education. According to the South African Schools Act 1996, a…

This paper argues that the success of schools in disadvantaged township communities is shaped by an interplay of four dimensions: strategy, regulation, pedagogy and compensation. The paper presents these dimensions of successful leadership in secondary schools by drawing on a research study focusing on cases of three Soweto township secondary…

This article considers the experiences and perceptions of practising English headteachers and the tensions that they face when juggling government prescription and government initiatives, which may be antagonistic to their educational values and beliefs. Managerial control over teachers work has been particularly acute and destructive to…

Literature examining effective leadership in education describe a number of models such as Transformational, Learner-Centred, Distributed and Situational. A similar example is "pedagogical leadership", a phrase that frequently appears in literature and one referring to forms of practice that shape and form teaching and learning to be…

The effect of critical incidents on school principals has been marginally investigated. Principal leadership has many pleasures, but it is often replete with problematic circumstances. The skilled school-based leader requires rationality and diplomacy to manage conflict successfully. This study examined the perceived effects of a critical…

This article presents and discusses the findings of a recent study on the professional identities of middle managers in a school of healthcare in a selected Chartered (pre-1992) UK university. Attention focuses on the career backgrounds of the middle managers, perception of identity and the interactional balance between the professional, academic…

This study provides empirical data about the role and work context of the school principal in the Lebanon. The study applied grounded theory methods in collecting and analysing the data. The data were collected through a series of open-ended interviews with 53 secondary school principals, and focus group interviews with 8 principals from public as…