Staff Development in the Secondary School

Management Perspectives

Chris Day, Roger Moore

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351041249
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

Originally published in 1986. Those involved in management in schools are being urged to develop their management skills and many courses are developed for this purpose. At the same time many new issues have arisen which require attention from managers in schools. These include: staff appraisal, curriculum evaluation and action research. This book examines major topics of present concern in the management of secondary schools. It presents much new thinking on these major problems and reports on particular initiatives. The aim is to help improve practice, both by helping trainers focus their courses correctly and by encouraging those involved in school management to approach their work more purposefully. School management is treated from the perspective of the industrial trainer, the Local Education Authority, higher education and the school practitioner.

SECTION 1: ESTABLISHING CONTEXTS

Chapter 1

THE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT NEEDS OF MANAGERS: AN OVERVIEW

Elizabeth Ballinger

This opening chapter is concerned, with the way in which the central task of managers – human resource management – may be best achieved. The author identifies as fundamental the problem of defining and meeting the needs of school managers. Needs vary according to different perspectives, for example, Government and DES, the LEA, school and the individual. She argues that needs can only be defined on the basis of the tasks (the ‘what’ of management) and the skills necessary for the achievement of those tasks (the ‘how’ of management), but that this is complicated because needs of the individual and the organisation inevitably change over time. The author suggests that needs may be met by both training for short term objectives (‘on-the-job’, ‘near-the-job’ and ‘away-from-the-job’) and longer term development (which can only be achieved by linking the growth of the individual with the development of the organisation. In presenting these two themes of training and development, and individual and organisational needs, the author highlights the need for managers who are highly skilled in the business of time management, interpersonal relationships and target setting and appraisal. These and other themes are examined in detail in the other chapters of this book.

1 Whose Perspective

The purpose of this overview of the training and development needs of those with managerial responsibilities in secondary schools is to bring together the various strands which need to be interwoven for effective learning. However, there is no ready agreement about what these strands are, or what the detailed outcome of successful development should be, so I shall design an outline map which others may detail or modify according to their own experiences and needs.

The first decision concerns the orientation of the map. Whose definition of training and development needs should predominate? Increasingly there are a number of parties who wish to influence both the nature and outcomes of management training and development. Some can use resource power and political clout to call attention to their views, others rely on professional judgement carried out in the context of accountability. Others are users or consumers of the services supplied. Each of these groups seems to have legitimate claims to be considered, but they can make contradictory demands in the formulation of training and development policy.

National education policy as embodied in Circular 3/83 and subsequent circulars gave priority through specific grant funding to the management training of heads and senior staff in order to improve the effectiveness of pupil learning.

However, the link between training, training outcomes and improved pupil performance remains an act of faith. Decisions about the content and methodology for 3/83 programmes were to be the field of the professional trainers, and money would be made available through LEAs, when particular courses or programmes had been approved through local consultative procedures. There was an expectation in 1983 when the National Development Council for School Management Training was founded that evaluated examples of “good practice” would be disseminated and that perhaps a model of effective development from training would emerge. Analysis of evaluation reports to date (Ballinger 1985) reveals a complexity of contexts and variables which makes a single successful model both highly unlikely and almost certainly undesirable.

Within national policy, the LEAs through their officers, and more usually their advisers, are required to participate in the local consultative arrangements. However, their contribution to the definition of the management training and development needs of the senior staff and their schools needs to be related to an LEA management development policy. At present few LEA management development policies exist to which training can be positively related. Most curriculum development concentrates, naturally, on its content and learning resources. Minimal attention is paid to the management implications, for LEAs, even when senior staff will be needed to support teachers through considerable changes in professional identity and methodology consequent on the changed student/teacher relationships inherent in TVEI, CPVE and, to a certain extent, in GCSE. LEAs therefore seem generally happy to allow the providing or training agencies to define the needs in terms of the staff development of individual managers rather than of the school or authority.

Another set of demands comes from parents and employers. The Hargreaves Report (1984) research appendices illuminate parental curricular values and expectations very fully, and were these to be translated into programmes for senior staff they would clearly be in tension with both national and LEA development policies. Employers, also while rightly making utilitarian demands on the education service, at present speak confusedly. They say they want to employ young workers with the right social skills and attitudes as well as relevant technical/professional skills and knowledge, and yet still emphasise at the point of selection the holding of academic qualifications designed for other objectives. However, they could help those in education define and clarify their objectives for management development.

Mediation between the school, its community and the elected members of the LEA is through the school governors. They at present play no part in defining management development needs, except as very rare members of county INSET committees.

If the views of the parties so far mentioned were to be brought together, there would at present be no consensus about training and development policy. Both in default of such a policy, and as a result of their own earlier efforts in the field, the providing agencies, the universities, polytechnics and regional management centres, have presented their own versions of what is needed. Though the comparative evaluation of 3/83 and 4/84 courses shows there have been some marked shifts in emphasis, there is still an uneasy relationship between what most providers are confident to provide and what senior managers in schools think they need.

It is the perspective of the latter, since they are the executives who are held accountable and those whose views in practice will determine what and how they are able to learn from management training and development activities, that I shall consider as determining the perception of needs.

2 What needs?

The needs of managers derive from the tasks they see themselves doing and the skills they need to do them. They may be alerted to their gaps in perception by others but the development of individual managers appears to be effective when it is based on the assumption that they are aware, or at least capable of becoming aware, of their own strengths and weaknesses, the stresses and rhythms of their particular jobs. By analysing what managers in schools say they do and the ways they succeed or fail in doing it, it becomes possible to develop a simple classification of tasks and skills which define areas for planning developmental responses. However, as Mintzberg (1980, 2nd ed) pointed out, the nature of the manager’s day is such that its reality can be reflected by no calm detached model. (See Bill Flisher’s chapter on time-task analysis.)

Because of the hectic pace of day-to-day management, one of the prime tasks of management in schools is often neglected: the setting of policy. Although each school now has its published list of aims, these are not a policy for action. Such a policy includes needs to be achieved, by whom, by when and with what resources, and, supremely, why? Answering the why question involves managers in schools making explicit their often conflicting educational values, the contribution of what they have learnt and therefore cherish from their own experience, and the deep-set and difficult to articulate ‘ideal school’ to which they would aspire (while simultaneously rationally denying its feasibility!) The price paid may be that planning is carried out superficially and incoherently, because of the lack of clarity not only about desired outcomes, but at times confusion about even the direction which needs to be taken. But setting both goals and direction are part of the task of the senior staff for overall school development, and for middle managers in relation to their sectional responsibilities. (See David Trethowan’s chapter on appraisal and target setting for a detailed example of this.)

From overall policy decisions flow the further tasks related to implementing these policies. Detailed planning tasks will be considered later. Again, in the rush of events, and perhaps in the desire to avoid conflict, it may seem easier in the short term not to have explicit policies about implementation. yet there are overall questions of staff recruitment, development and promotion (even at present) which relate to meeting not only the present needs of the school, but its envisaged development. Planning the deployment of existing staff should occur in the light of this policy. Similarly, the phasing of school development, or sections of it, implies a policy for setting priorities not just on the immediate time scale, but to ensure adequate lead times for future longer-term change. The fact that LEAs are often unable to supply the necessary data which schools need for firm planning does not absolve managers in schools from responsibilities for setting priorities within probable constraints nor from a certain amount of contingency planning. Policies for the allocation of material resources, money, rooms and timetable time are also capable of a degree of rational development though they are often the focus of acute staff conflict as they become explicit. Avoiding ad hoc crisis management decisions in response to unpleasant pressure is a management development need. Carrying out effectively the tasks of policy making, then, I would argue is necessarily the prerequisite for managing the school.

The central service the school carries out is, of course, the education of its pupils, and so the major day-to-day tasks of managing the school must he concerned with the pupils and their curriculum. The management of the pupils is largely devolved to teachers in their academic and pastoral roles, and the way these roles interrelate to form the hidden curriculum of the school. Managers of the service, whether at middle or senior level, have a co-ordinating role ensuring that the progress of pupils is under observation. They may also be involved at critical moments of decision whether systematic in relation to growth through the school’s opportunities and structures, or when there are major breakdowns requiring their additional experience or resources or power. The tasks of managers in managing pupils, in their managerial as opposed to their teacher role, may not be as significant as they claim, but it is an intensely time-consuming one, especially for middle managers, and one to which all other tasks can very easily be represented as coming second. This is not a popular view but sharpens the issue of what managers are expected to manage. The answer ‘pupils’ may be a response to a genuine fundamental school policy; often it is in ignorance or neglect of other essential managerial tasks.

The management of the curriculum, on the other hand, does create tasks which depend on their success in influencing other staff in their own classrooms to implement an agreed policy, subdivided into particular syllabuses. Operating the procedures for teaching which will command the necessary consent, and supporting staff, pupils, and parents through new curriculum approaches again involves answering the why, what, who, when and with what questions. In addition, it involves questions of human relationships which may not so far have been considered, and which do not always smoothly coincide with the organisational relationships which would enable the school most efficiently to educate its pupils. (Christopher Day highlights the importance of the affective dimension in his chapter on staff development.) So opportunities for managerial flexibility and a willingness to manoeuvre within priorities are further needs to which the school has to learn to respond, either by taking the initiative or reacting to pressure. The extent to which managers need to become involved in the detail of the curriculum in order to appreciate its implications for the wider system varies with the scope and nature of the issues under consideration. The costs of change, psychological as well as in material resources, can destabilise a school to such an extent that it creates major managerial problems. Managing the curriculum therefore requires in addition to the tasks of analysis and planning, an ability to anticipate how much change the school can assimilate, or, if change is externally imposed, how the security of successful practice in other parts of the organisation can he reinforced. If the task of managing the curriculum centres on relating parts and wholes and means to outcomes, it suggests both middle and senior managers should see this as a major area of their activity.

Managers, then, are responsible for seeing that others achieve the agreed goals of the school, which for teachers means enabling pupils to reach the goals of the whole curriculum. The major means to achieving this end is the effective management of the human resources, the staff. This task area has three major dimensions, the establishment of appropriate processes to enable staff to develop through the stages of their professional careers as they simultaneously contribute to the development of the school; the fostering of good relationships between individuals and groups combining ultimately and ideally in a cohesive whole school staff. Each of these areas promotes training and development needs, the first two making considerable use of rational analysis and decision-making which will prove successful in practice only to the extent to which it is underpinned by the trust and confidence which results from good relationships with colleagues. Present training courses appear to pay little attention to the development of these interpersonal skills in practice, even where they are listed in the programme objectives.

In order to see why this is so, it is worth spending a little more time clarifying the particular tasks related to each of the three dimensions. The first area is the easiest to delineate since it follows a linear progression through the stages. It starts with identifying a particular staff vacancy, drawing up job and personnel descriptions, recruiting, inducting, developing and preparing the individual for retirement while linking these stages to the changing needs of the school. Many training courses at present give opportunities to review recruitment procedures; the simulation interview is a favourite activity. Similarly, the need for the effective induction of all new staff, not just probationers, receives wide assent, although few resources are devoted to it. The more nebulous and difficult stage of staff development is perceived as fraught, partly because of the larger time-scale involved, partly because of the resources implications, but most significantly because of a general lack of confidence and understanding in handling the processes involved. To be effective, staff development involves identifying and matching individual needs with organisational needs, and few managers have had much experience in confronting individuals in open dialogue about the realities of these two sets of demands. In addition, professional growth has traditionally been seen in terms of enhanced promotion prospects, putting the whole concept of staff development into a context and climate which is not only increasingly irrelevant but which negates the most fruitful outcome of development, that of making the individual member of staff more effective now.

The second set of tasks related to managing human resources concerns the extent to which individuals know about and are able to influence what occurs in their own schools, firstly as it directly impinges on them, and secondly to the extent to which they wish to share in the overall development of their community. It is not the purpose of this chapter to recommend one organisational structure in preference to another, except to point out that certain variables combine differently in different situations, and that blanket approval of a single way of working together will prove to a greater or lesser extent inappropriate. The task for managers, therefore, is to set up ways of collaborative working which allow for, and if necessary hold in tension certain fundamental needs. Amongst these there is a need for maintenance and a need for change, a need to contribute and a need to withdraw, a need to lead and a need to be led, a need to own and a need to admire, a need to respect and a need to be respected and appreciated, a need to achieve and a need to come to terms with failure. Decision-making structures need to be flexible enough to enable full participation from those committed to doing so, while accepting that others will wish to take an assenting role. Too much or too little opportunity leads to apathy or aggression at either end of the scale. Similarly, however well communication is handled, the satisfaction of the majority will leave some aggrieved either with knowing too little or being overwhelmed with unnecessary information. In both areas, the actual structures used need to answer the question, ‘What has to be known and done in order to enable the staff to operate effectively without demanding excessive time and energy more properly devoted to pupil learning?’ Managers, in answering, must clarify what are acceptable meanings in their schools for ‘effectively’ and ‘excessive’.

The most difficult dimension to handle for most managers is the encouragement of good relationships in which they do not directly join. Identifying the components of such relationships, in order ultimately to clarify and respond to training and development needs, calls upon different order skills from those involved in the problem-solving approaches so far mentioned. What quickly becomes apparent is that effectiveness relies on human skills, some of which can be professionally acquired or enhanced with conscious practice, but which arise from the whole personalities of those involved. The next section of this chapter will consider the major sets of skills managers need.

Managing material resources in comparison would become a rational allocation task were it not for the fact that these decisions are often the focus and expression of unarticulated and unresolved problems arising from the human relationships. They make an acceptable professional arena for surfacing the organisational discontent and low morale which often results from unsatisfactory interpersonal relationships. However, it should not be assumed that all conflict about resource management should be interpreted as displacement activity. Resources can be managed well or badly, systematically and sensibly, or on an ad hoc crisis basis where decisions are reversible under even greater antagonism or pressure.

A major decision, therefore, which managers must make in defining their needs in this area is the extent to which they are prepared to set up a system of material resource allocation, staff and pupil time, rooms, grounds, money, which is rational, open and defensible in terms of school practice and priorities both internally and externally. Since senior managers in practice have very little power and manoeuvrability they must also decide how far they wish to use resource allocation as a power mechanism, their major means of direct pressure. Resource allocation is also one of the few major quantifiable areas for which the Head can be most visibly held to account, and (s)he may need considerable confidence in the professional integrity and support of colleagues before making the whole area ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• The Contributors
• Section 1: Establishing Contexts
• 1: The Training and Development Needs of Managers: An Overview
• 2: Management and the Role of the LEA
• Section 2: The Practicalities of Role: What School Managers Actually Do
• 3: Managing the School: The Role of the Headteacher at a Time of Change
• 4: How Heads and Deputies Use Their Time – A Time Task Analysis
• 5: Subject Heads in Secondary Schools: Concepts and Contexts
• Section 3: Approaches to Staff Appraisal
• 6: Counselling and Performance Appraisal: An LEA Perspective
• 7: Target Setting and Appraisal at Warden Park School
• SECTION 4: STRATEGIES FOR STAFF DEVELOPMENT
• 8: Staff Development: Some Problems in Promoting Professional Learning and Change
• 9: A Strategy for School-Based Staff Development
• 10: Action Research for Staff Development
• SECTION 5: WORKING WITH INDUSTRY
• 11: The Reaction of Headteachers to Industrial Management Skills Training – One Company’s Experience
• 12: School-Industry Management Perspectives
• SECTION 6: WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
• 13: Exploring the Future: Prerequisites for Staff Development
• Subject Index