The Composite Head: coping with changes in the primary headteacher's role

Abstract

AbstractIt has been argued that the role of the head has changed dramatically in recent years, following the introduction of the Education Reform Act and Local Management of Schools in 1988. A case‐study of a lower school headteacher is used here to explore how she has developed her own form of leadership in the face of the changes. In contrast to many accounts of headteachers, which report their practice in the form of typologies or bimodal polarities, we report a headteacher who has made a comprehensive, multivaried role for herself, despite conflicting elements within it, which reaches across the standard dimensions. The chief characteristic of her role is a universalism, evidenced in her self‐expression through teaching, her orchestration of disparate elements of the role, and controlled collaboration with her staff. She accomplishes this difficult task through objectifying the problems, taking ‘time out’, using ‘resistance humour’, and with the aid of a number of personal qualities, including her love of her job and of her children, her stance as a ‘professional mother’, and her motivation through feelings of guilt. The role of the headteacher is seen to be complex, full of conflicts and contrasts, and irreducible to a polarised position. Rather, there is adaptation to particular circumstances which produces a composite form of leadership.