Sustaining Depth and Meaning in School Leadership

Keeping Your Head

Emil Jackson, Andrea Berkeley, Emil Jackson, Andrea Berkeley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367859411
• eBook ISBN: 9781000070040
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Leadership nella didattica

Sustaining Depth and Meaning in School Leadership: Keeping Your Head concerns the emotional and psychological experience of school leadership—in particular, the felt experience of life as a headteacher. It describes the pressures and rewards of the role, together with some of the ways that school leaders successfully sustain and develop themselves and their teams in what has become an increasingly complex, challenging, and highly accountable role.

This book explores the personal experience of leading schools. Part I provides an overview and analysis of current and historical trends in school leadership and offers some theoretical frameworks for making sense of these. Part II then offers psychodynamic approaches to supporting and developing school leaders and the impact that trends in executive education continue to have on this. Part III looks at approaches to school leadership development more generally, including team development; influences from the business world; the growth of mentoring and coaching as a leadership intervention; the design and evaluation of leadership development programmes; and a case study on whole-system development. The final word is given to ten serving headteachers and deputies and their leadership journeys. This range of chapters, concepts, and perspectives will support school leaders to maintain an emotional equilibrium while navigating the multilayered tightrope of intrapsychic, interpersonal, and organizational dynamics inherent in school life.

Rooted in Jackson and Berkeley's belief that school leaders are likely to be at their best when they find their own unique and authentic way of taking up their leadership role, this book is an accessible, supportive, and developmental contribution for all those involved in education leadership.

PART I

Context and concepts for contemporary school leadership

Chapter one

Keeping your head: the unspokenrealities of headship

Andrea Berkeley

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you …”

“If” Rudyard Kipling (1910)

The ability to “keep one’s head” under any circumstance may not be an official prerequisite for school leadership, although resilience is a demonstrable competence for achieving the National Professional Qualification for headteachers (NPQH). However, Kipling’s words resonate strongly with school leaders and are often quoted by them. Leading and managing a school is a complex task that involves ensuring a safe and stimulating environment so that learning and teaching can take place. This requires the ability to maintain emotional equilibrium and a reassuring authority in the face of the competing and changing demands of a wide range of stakeholders—students, parents, staff, governors, central government, local authorities or academy trusts, employers, and tax payers.

Literally keeping “one’s head” is also a major concern for governing bodies needing to recruit and retain headteachers at a time of teacher shortage, particularly in areas of social disadvantage. Headteachers themselves, and those involved in their training, support, and development, are interested in how they remain focused, resilient, and mentally healthy—how they “keep their heads” in an increasingly complex and constantly changing educational landscape.

This chapter describes some of the complexities, ambiguities, and emotional pressures of educational leadership. Although the chapter makes most frequent and explicit reference to the role of headteacher, its implicit intention is to include the distributed leadership roles of other senior staff and middle leaders, such as heads of subject departments and pastoral leaders. Observations and reflections are based on 14 years’ first-hand experience of headship, combined with 14 years’ experience working as a consultant and coach with school leaders and chief executives of multi-academy trusts and education charities. The chapter concludes with some observations on what seems to help school leaders manage the inevitable emotional and psychological pressures and find fulfilment in their roles.

The narratives heard from headteachers and other senior leaders—collectively, on leadership development programmes like the National Professional Qualification for headteachers (NPQH) or individually, in longer term coaching conversations—resonate strongly with my own experience of headship. Phases, size, and characters of their schools vary: from one-form-entry primary schools to all-through academies with 2,000-plus students; single-sex and co-educational, grammar schools and comprehensives, faith schools and Free Schools. Their social contexts differ: from rural to inner city, from run-down coastal towns in Kent and Northumberland to the heart of the post-industrial north and the Black Country; from Halifax to Hastings, from Liverpool to Brighton. Their student intakes are varied and subject to change: some are socially and ethnically mixed, while others cater for a predominant group or a shifting population. Some have brand-new buildings designed by high-profile architects, and some make do with rundown Victorian buildings and huddles of terrapin huts. Although effective school leadership needs to be sensitive to context, the narratives of leaders in very different neighbourhoods cohere into one compelling, consistent narrative. Regardless of context, school leaders are invariably passionate about learning and teaching and have a strong sense of moral purpose. They relish their power to make a difference to the lives of young people but often feel powerless in the face of external pressures, particularly socio-economic and political ones. Given the burden of their responsibilities and their range and complexity, it is perhaps inevitable that their expectations of themselves and their hopes and wishes for young people sometimes conflict with the pressures of the role. Many of even the most effective and devoted headteachers who love their work describe feeling lonely and full of self-doubt while having to maintain a strong, confident public persona.

Sources of pressure

There seem to be three main sources of pressure: external “on the boundary”, from government agencies, parents and governors, the wider community, and social trends; organizational, from certain interpersonal relationships and group dynamics within the school as an institution; and internal, arising from the school leader’s own psychological make-up and inner world interacting with the pressures of the role.

External pressures: on the boundary

Continuous change, increased accountability, and scrutiny

In common with top leaders in other fields, headteachers have to balance external pressures against the day-to-day management of the school, both subject to unpredictability and change. In that sense, they occupy a boundary role. At one and the same time, they are accountable to both central government and a local authority or academy trust, and to both parents and boards of governors or trustees. Ultimately accountable for the school’s outcomes, they are responsible for the attainment and welfare of students as well as the performance, development and welfare of staff. Ambiguities are inherent in such a boundary role. “They must always be looking both inwards and outwards, a difficult position which carries the risk of being criticised by people both inside and outside the system for neglecting their interests” (Obholzer, 1994, p. 45).

External pressures will vary and change according to a school’s socio-economic context, physical environment, and wider social trends. For example, rising poverty, unemployment, and crime will impact on a school’s capacity to support children from socially disadvantaged homes and to protect them from a potentially harmful environment, so that they can thrive and achieve at school. In such contexts, school leaders are often managing multiple child protection cases, permanent exclusions, and criminal activity among students outside the school, including drug and alcohol abuse, as well as trying to form supportive relationships with hard-to-reach or hostile parents. Demographic changes in an area may result in schools struggling to provide adequately for an increased number of children without English as a first language or a shifting population of refugee children. In middle-class areas school leaders may feel the pressure of more demanding and less deferential parents, with a consumerist approach to what they expect from schools.

Significant changes to the way the education system has been organized and managed in England in recent years have added further pressure and complexity to the boundary roles of school leaders. The education landscape has become more diverse, blurring boundaries around schools and adding new types of schools, such as specialist academies and Free Schools, federations, and alliances of schools. Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) have by and large replaced local authorities, which have traditionally managed schools. These MATs vary in size and are sponsored by a diverse range of private enterprises, universities, and educational trusts. Diversity among schools has created more competition in the system, while at the same time there is more uniformity in the way schools are judged and assessed by the National Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted). Independent schools are also under increasing pressure and scrutiny, struggling with fee affordability and political hostility in turbulent economic times. Both sectors are experiencing unprecedented reductions in funding and are having to provide more with fewer resources.

The source of external pressure most frequently cited by school leaders is increased public accountability and scrutiny, as a result of systemic changes in the way schools are managed and their performance measured. Continuous changes to public examinations and more rigorous inspection regimes have added to the already onerous burden of complying with changing regulations—around governance, safeguarding, and data protection, for instance. Although schools today have more freedom than previously—to choose and organize their curriculum, decide how to spend their budgets, and pay their staff in response to local need, for instance—they are at the same time held to account by nationally determined targets and performance indicators, with attainment and progress bars being raised year on year. Ofsted inspections are now conducted at a day’s notice. As one headteacher put it, “Just when I feel that the school is doing well, the government changes the goalposts, so that we feel that we are failing again. At the beginning of each week I wait for the notification call from Ofsted. If I haven’t heard by 1 pm on Wednesday, I know that I can relax a bit, until it starts all over again the following week.”

Every headteacher welcomes improvements to systemic arrangements for the safeguarding of children and young people from abuse and neglect, and their specific responsibilities and accountabilities in this respect. However, many fear that the legal and reputational consequences of failing to protect children has made their roles so risk-averse that they may be denying their students many activities that enrich schooling. When addressing child protection issues, headteachers often need to make decisions while taking into account a complex matrix of external and internal relationships around the child in question: parents or foster carers, teachers or other staff, social services and the police, to name but a few. Similarly, headteachers often find themselves under pressure when deciding whether or not to permanently exclude a child from school. For example, a headteacher may be reluctant to exclude, given the complex needs of a student and family circumstances, but may feel that the “right” decision is the one that takes into account the benefit for the whole student and staff body. Nevertheless, there may still be external pressure from parents, lawyers and pressure groups and internal pressure from staff and unions, despite having made a decision to exclude—or not exclude—with integrity and compassion.A governing body or an independent appeal panel may also overturn the headteacher’s decision, resulting in additional pressure from staff who are unhappy with a student being reinstated. For many headteachers, especially those leading schools in socially disadvantaged areas, both these statutory responsibilities can be disproportionately time-consuming and bureaucratically burdensome, given their many other duties.

Collaboration and competition

New types of schools, together with public examination league tables, have brought new and unexpected external pressures, creating a climate of competition among professionals whose culture has been traditionally cooperative and collaborative. In addition to concerns about their school’s position in the examination and test leagues tables, headteachers may be surprised to find themselves competing for students and limited resources with emerging academy trusts and Free Schools. Although the DfE’s stated intention was to offer more choice to parents and to provide additional school places in areas where there is a shortfall, some headteachers are openly hostile towards new types of schools for ideological reasons. They claim that new types of schools are covertly selecting students by introducing complicated admissions criteria and effectively undermining comprehensive education. Others fear that academies and Free Schools exclude students too readily and put a great deal of energy into trying to prevent the admission of students who have been excluded from other schools. The validity of these claims is difficult to verify—and some may be apocryphal—but it is fair to say that a newly built academy with state-of-the-art facilities can have a devastating effect on neighbouring schools, attracting more students and indirectly reducing the funding of other schools.

Ironically, as competition between schools grows, there is pressure to collaborate from the Department for Education (DfE), which encourages and—most importantly—funds a “self-improving system”, where schools support each other in improving standards of provision and attainment. Naturally school leaders welcome opportunities for professional development and learning from each other. When asked to evaluate training programmes, such as NPQH, they invariably rate the opportunity to network with other heads and deputies most highly. Elsewhere in this book, we have illustrated how work discussion groups can facilitate leadership learning and mutual support among senior leaders. Similarly, headteachers and their teams have responded positively to schemes such as National Leaders of Education (NLE), where headteachers of successful schools assist others of raising standards and head up Teaching School Alliances (TSAs), responsible for initial teacher training, in partnership with universities, and continuing professional development at all levels. However, the impact and reach of TSAs and NLEs has been mixed (NCTL, 2016). Alliances work well and relationships are amicable if they are formed on an equal footing, but, like other systemic attempts at inter-school collaboration, the DfE’s intention has been met with scepticism by some headteachers, suspecting cost-cutting motives. As one cynic observed, the rise of public sector partnerships can be attributed to “the suppression of mutual loathing in pursuit of government money” (Parker & Gallagher, 2007, p. 15).

It is also not easy to embrace collegiality if you are the headteacher of a school in “special measures”, assigned an “interim governing body” and an “executive or consultant head” to oversee improvements. Feelings of resentment, hostility, and often shame need to be suppressed in order to make relationships with supporting professionals work and may also sometimes result in unproductive mutual dependency. Several headteachers I worked with found difficulty in taking up their own authority when consultancy support ceased as the school came out of “special measures.” In another situation, the consultant had gained so much personal satisfaction from his helping role that he was loath to leave at the end of his contract. In turn, the headteacher he had supported feared offending him by showing that he no longer needed support.

Parents and carers

Probably the most important and ambivalent boundary relationship for school leaders is that with parents and carers. Schools may rise or decline in popularity and local demographics may change, so headteachers need to recruit students proactively, attracting parents and raising the profile of their schools. One of the most important dates in the school calendar is the annual open evening, a highlight of which is the headteacher’s address to prospective parents. The impact and influence of the headteacher’s words cannot be underestimated, as I have experienced from both sides of the school gates—as a former headteacher, carefully and nervously crafting my speech and, as a mother and grandmother, eagerly and anxiously interpreting every nuance of the headteacher’s words. What aspects of school life are highlighted? What are the headteacher’s values and beliefs? Will my child fit in?

Headteachers recognize that parental choice, support, and engagement is crucial to their school’s survival and success and acknowledge that all parents, even the most wanting or vulnerable, want the best for their children. However, cultivating and maintaining good home–school relationships requires consistent effort, empathy, and high-level communication skills. Ideally, parents want to feel very much part of the school community, especially during the early years and primary phases of schooling, and headteachers want parents to actively support their child’s education. In practice, meeting the expectations of a diverse community of parents is almost impossible. Parents may feel excluded or objectified by school staff, especially during adolescence, when a natural distancing between children and parents occurs. And school leaders, when under pressure, may sometimes experience parents as interfering and demanding, over-anxious and protective, hard to engage and unsupportive of school aims or rules, while acknowledging that the majority are supportive, concerned, helpful, and available.

Despite increased security measures, schools have become more accessible and welcoming to parents. A large majority of headteachers make an effort to be physically present at the schools gates, recognizing the benefits of parental contact, listening to concerns and observations, suggestions, complaints—and compliments—and responding to them promptly and sensitively. Ho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• series editors’ preface
• Acknowledgements
• about the editors and contributors
• Introduction
• Part I: Context and concepts for contemporary school leadership
• Part II: School leadership development: psychodynamic approaches
• Part III: School leadership development: trends and approaches
• Part IV: The last word
• References
• Index