This paper explores the perspectives of Flemish secondary school principals and coordinating principals on the government-proposed changes and uncovers their experiences with these changes in an in-depth manner. In a school system characterised by school freedom and free school choice, semi-structured interviews with 21 school leaders revealed the…

Background: Schools are increasingly confronted with the challenges that information about school performance brings with it. It is common for schools' use of performance feedback to be limited. Equally, however, there are documented cases in which school performance feedback is meaningfully used. Purpose: This study looks at how Flemish primary…

Attributes role changes for Belgian principals to turbulence in the policymaking arena and to involvement in large-scale improvement projects during the past 20 years. Principal's tasks are grouped around two sets of activities: assessing the importance of external and internal factors on the local school and making central policies more…

A common theme of both internal and environmental school leadership is the expectation that principals justify permanently the specific decisions they make. This justification is a main requirement for creative leadership. Data from four Belgian primary school studies illustrate that teachers are confronted with different justification styles and…