Special Issue on Leadership, Preparation and Development

Abstract

This Special Issue of Management in Education originated from the new research interest group (RIG) launched in May 2015. The RIG was a response to a BELMAS EdD symposium, held at the University of Nottingham, back in October 2014, where it was thought that the leadership preparation and development of school teachers required more in-depth research. The Leadership Preparation and Development (LPD) RIG has held two or three very well attended events each year since. These have examined the fast-moving changes in this area. England is the only country in the world that has introduced a mandatory qualification for headship, and then removed it again, and it was following this decision that this RIG was established to shed light on what preparation and development is taking place for school leaders within current systems. Early on, the RIG convenors decided that a way forward for the group was to look at LPD from the angles of global, macro, meso and micro levels. We have used this at all RIG sessions since, sometimes having presentations on the micro level – an in-depth look at what individual schools are doing to help prepare and develop their future leaders, through to our last RIG meeting where a panel event was held in order to ascertain what strategies are currently being deployed to effectively prepare and develop our future school leaders both nationally and internationally. Information on all these events and our forthcoming RIG meeting are available on our RIG page: https://www.belmas.org.uk/Rig-LD/Overview.