School Leader Appraisal — A Tool to Strengthen School Leaders' Pedagogical Leadership and Skills for Teacher Management?

Abstract

With increasing school autonomy, often coupled with greater accountability requirements, school leaders are increasingly responsible for new human resource management tasks. Policies to improve the teaching workforce, therefore, cannot do without policies to improve the school leadership profession. Teachers' effectiveness depends, among others, on effective school leaders who shape teachers' working environment and influence their motivations. Furthermore, as recent research indicates, school leaders are the second most important school‐level factor affecting, even if mainly indirectly through their influence on teachers, student learning after classroom instruction. Considering the role school leaders play for the effective school‐level management of teachers and for teaching and learning through their pedagogical leadership, it is essential that school leaders are adequately prepared and supported for their role. As part of their school reform programmes, more and more countries have been introducing a range of evaluation and assessment policies to improve school, school leadership and teaching practices. The individual appraisal of schools leaders and teachers is a key component of evaluation and assessment policies. This article explores if, and how, individual school leader appraisal can develop school leaders' pedagogical leadership, a key element of which is teacher management. It analyses the policy approaches of several European countries and the extent to which formal frameworks in these countries focus on developing pedagogical leadership. The article concludes with ideas for policy to strengthen appraisal as a tool to improve school leaders' practices and behaviours and their competencies for pedagogical leadership and teacher management.