Aspiration, Perspiration and Reputation: idealism and self‐preservation in small school primary headship

Abstract

ABSTRACT Interviews with six headteachers of small primary schools showed that they had chosen to be teaching heads for similar reasons: to continue teaching, to be autonomous, to fulfil an educational vision and to ‘make a mark ’. Once in post, they found they could not successfully meet all the demands of the job, but the need for self‐esteem through publicly attestable success was so great that they could not admit this. Instead, they developed strategies which preserved their image in the eyes of parents and governors while masking their declining idealism.