Competences for School Managers

Derek Esp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134983643
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

This study examines the development of competency approaches for school management in the UK. Using examples of current attempts to apply competency models for staff selection and professional development in education, it provides practical suggestions for the everyday use of these models.

Part One
Introducing Competences

Chapter 1
Are You Competent?

Introduction

Are you a competent manager? Can you prove it to your colleagues in school, your immediate boss, the governors or yourself? An increasing number of teachers with management responsibilities are using competence-based schemes to further their professional development in a systematic way. Some school governing bodies are also piloting the use of assessment centres to help them to select headteachers. They are aware of the inadequacies of existing selection interviews and see attractions in the use of a more 'scientific' assessment.

This book is not written by a competence 'guru' for researchers. It is aimed at school managers at all levels, including those primary, secondary or special school teachers who are thinking of moving into a job where they will have to manage the work of their colleagues. My aim is to provide you with some examples of what is happening already and to report the views of teachers who have already used a competence model to aid their own professional development. Some wider issues are also discussed, not least the need for a national strategy for competence-based management development in schools. Finally, having read all about it, you are invited to consider the potential benefits for your own professional growth. If you really become enthusiastic, you might suggest that other colleagues in school give competences a try as well. A growing number of teachers find competences helpful for reviewing and improving the quality of individual, team or whole school management practice. But, competence-based approaches are only worth pursuing if they help to improve the effectiveness of teaching and pupil learning in schools.

The use of competence models in management development is not new. For example, in 1983 Cadbury Schweppes defined the success criteria for the use of competences as follows:

• each manager should be able to define his or her job in competence terms and pursue improvements in personal competence by setting learning objectives at least annually;
• every newly appointed person should commence work with agreed development objectives;
• challenges, pressures and major change should be described in competence terms;
• the organization should be aware of and make optimum use of the strengths which it has available at any one time; people/job mismatches should be brought to the surface and addressed; and
• more imagination should be introduced into the rotation of managers.

These long-term goals have enjoyed top management support over time and at key stages (Glaze 1989). This is one example where the use of a competence-based approach has been an important part of a strategy to achieve effective management development. Can competences help schools to achieve similar success?

It is easy to be sceptical about the competence movement. At present it promises to become another bandwagon. I was advised early in my career that bandwagons are like buses, ie there will be another one along any minute. Reciting impressive lists of competences does not produce them in the individual manager by spontaneous combustion. The competence movement tries to do better than that. The competences required of managers are defined and methods of developing each competence are identified. It is readily recognized that some competences cannot be improved significantly by training or development activities.

Even so, the critics of competency approaches are cautious about fragmenting the individual manager. Management is more than the sum of a bundle of discrete competences.

The case for increased competence

In his annual report for 1990 the Senior Chief Inspector (SCI 1990) reported that the management of schools left much to be desired. In only about a third of those inspected was senior management considered to be particularly effective. The School Management Task Force outlined the many new demands on schools in the Preface to their 1990 Report and went on to spell out the disillusionment and exhaustion that would follow if policy makers did not consider the impact of so many changes on school management. Further changes are proposed in the Parent's Charter (DES 1991) and the 1992 White Paper (DES 1992). It is clear that natural flair and panache will be insufficient to create and maintain a high quality of management in schools.

I am not convinced that policy makers have understood the real impact of all these changes on school management. The weakening of the role of the local education authority (LEA) and the increase in the number of self-managed schools will require competent self-management. Schools will be providing learning opportunities without access to a unified, comprehensive support structure. Like the 'learning company' the school will need to be 'an organization which facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself (Pedlar, Boydell and Burgoyne 1989).

If your school is to behave like a learning company it will be necessary for you to be clear of your place in the achievement of your school's effectiveness. You will also need to gain the skills of auditing your own performance and that of others engaged in school management. It will be a key requirement for each school to recruit, develop and nurture effective managers of high calibre in order to serve pupils and the community well against the background of increased national expectations and the regular cycle of national inspections.

Understanding competence — some underlying problems

One of the key contributors to the competence movement in the United Kingdom (Burgoyne 1989) has recognized a fundamental problem. His own definition of competence sounds reasonable. It is 'the ability and willingness to perform a task'. Yet, he observes that management usually has to create and define its own task. Competence is an attractive concept for managers however because it concerns action and not only possession of knowledge. Burgoyne has identified eight underlying problems that have to be addressed before a move can be made from a straightforward concept of managerial competence to assessment or professional development based on competences.

• Management is not the sequential exercise of discrete competences. Competence lists illuminate facets of a complex whole. How do we reintegrate competence ratings to achieve a view of holistic managerial performance?
• There is no technical approach to measurement of competence. Assessment can only be by way of grounded and informed judgement.
• There is the problem of universality. All managerial jobs are different at the detailed level but the same at a high level of abstraction. It may be possible to identify underpinning competences such as basic literacy and numeracy, basic analytical and decision making skills and basic financial awareness and knowledge about information technology. There are also overarching competences such as being able to learn, change, adapt, forecast, anticipate and create change. These are the meta-competences that underpin effective action in particular situations.
• The moral, ethical, political and ideological aspects of management have to be addressed. Values and mission are very much a part of management. Competent management has to involve engaging and mutually adjusting individual and organizational values.
• The very nature of management is a problem. It is a creative activity which moves its boundary.
• There are many 'right' ways to manage and any competence-based system must allow for this.
• Being competent is different from having competences. Managerial competences cannot just be used as a tool-kit list. 'The necessity of developing the whole person cannot be driven out of any effective approach to management development'.
• The issue of collective competence has to be addressed. People work in teams and groups where goodwill and co-operation are required. It is important to develop collective competences.

These issues have to be considered carefully. They cannot be solved by an individual manager or school wishing to develop their own competence model. They do offer the basis for a careful examination of the models on offer and may prevent school managers from leaping into crude DIY schemes that may, in the end, diminish rather than enhance the improvement of individual and team managerial competence.

The origins of competence-based education and training

Developments in the United States of America

The origins of this approach go back to the 1920s in the USA. By the 1960s there was an attempt to develop competences for teacher education. In 1968 the United States Office of Education funded eight pilot programmes for initial teacher education. The project guidelines sought to achieve a precise specification of competences or behaviours to be learned by trainee teachers. The modularization of instruction was also recommended. Plans were made for evaluation, feedback and field experience. It was hoped that this new approach would apply across the board in higher education. At that time there was considerable resistance from teachers in higher education not least because of the wholesale revision of programmes that would be required.

During the late 1970s there was a move to develop management competences for managers in industry and commerce based upon the distinguishing characteristics of managers who demonstrate superior performance at work. As a result of this movement there were attempts to develop competences for school principals. One such example was the initiative taken by the National Association for Secondary School Principals (NASSP). It established a set of generic competences for school principals for use in assessment centres. These centres provide information for selection and development purposes. The NASSP approach has extended to Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Because of the hiccup in the late 1960s competence approaches in the USA moved into education as a result of developments elsewhere. The US Government supported the development of competencies but did not attempt to create a national set of standards or requirements.

Developments in the United Kingdom

The work done in the USA was modified and developed in the United Kingdom. Research in British universities had been limited. Before the British government took a major initiative in this field, some major companies had developed the use of competence approaches based on the work done in the USA.

The United Kingdom Government has sought to develop a national strategy for vocational qualificati...