Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article investigates, from the perspective of senior and middle leaders, how secondary principals in England lead their schools to achieve sustainable performance despite policy shifts. Empirical data were drawn from structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses of a questionnaire survey from 309 effective and improved secondary schools in England and longitudinal interview data from a subsample of four case-study schools. The research suggests that what the principals were perceived to be doing successfully was to use policies as opportunities—purposefully, progressively, and strategically—to regenerate coherent cultures and conditions which support the staff to learn to renew their practice.
Highlights
Over the last 40 years the research literature has consistently reported that principal leadership is instrumental in bringing about improved learning outcomes in schools (Barth, 1976; Day, Gu & Sammons, 2016; Heck & Hallinger, 1999; Leithwood et al, 2006; Robinson, Hohepa, & Lloyd, 2009; Ni, Yan & Pounder, 2018; Sammons, Gu, Day & Ko, 2011; Silins & Mulford, 2002)
Exploratory factor analysis followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to investigate the possible structures underpinning the questionnaire data from the key staff and to test theoretical models about the extent to which leadership characteristics and practices identified in the earlier literature review (Leithwood et al, 2006) could be confirmed from the sample of effective and improved schools in England
After deletion of missing data, the structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was conducted with data for 1,054 senior and middle leaders from 309 secondary schools
Summary
Over the last 40 years the research literature has consistently reported that principal leadership is instrumental in bringing about improved learning outcomes in schools (Barth, 1976; Day, Gu & Sammons, 2016; Heck & Hallinger, 1999; Leithwood et al, 2006; Robinson, Hohepa, & Lloyd, 2009; Ni, Yan & Pounder, 2018; Sammons, Gu, Day & Ko, 2011; Silins & Mulford, 2002). Through the eyes and experiences of senior and middle leaders, this paper, together with the rest of the papers in this Special Issue, aims to forge new, productive directions for research on policy enactment by linking it more closely with the literature on school leadership, and through this, exploring how principals of high performing schools strategically and purposefully engage with external policy demands for coherent organisational change and sustained improvement, within clear sets of broader educational values. Ball, Maguire and Braun (2012) argue that the enactment of policies is ‘an iterative process of making institutional texts and putting those texts into action’ (2012: 45), and that enactment is ‘always more than just implementation’ because ‘they bring together contextual, historic and psychosocial dynamics into a relation with texts and imperatives to produce action and activities that are policy’ (2012: 71) In their seminal research on how four ‘ordinary’ co-educational, non-denominational and non-selective secondary schools enact policy, Ball and colleagues (2012) observed that. They are precarious networks of different and overlapping groups of people, artefacts and practices
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