Using data from a national study on principals' responses to the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we describe crisis leadership as boundary spanning -- managing up, down, and outwards to lead the response. School leaders had to manage outside expectations to ensure their schools responded to the crisis in ways that allowed for…

Training School Principals as Talent Developers: An International Perspective focuses on how to prepare school principals to lead their schools by training and supporting teachers in their craft. The main goal of schools is improving teaching and learning in order to maximize students' potential to be college ready and career ready. Principals…

In this paper we report a qualitative case-study of how a primary school Principal enhanced staff belief in their efficacy and practice in relation to children's behaviour. Thematic analysis was used to analyse interviews with the Principal and teaching staff. We identified four main themes relating to their attributions, beliefs and practices:…

Background: The front-line management role in services for people with intellectual disabilities remains rather under-researched. The aim of this study was to examine the experiences of registered managers in services for adults with intellectual disability who exhibit challenging behaviour. Method: Interviews, primarily focussed upon staff…

In 2008 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development presented system leadership (leadership beyond a single institution) as more effective than traditional approaches to public services delivery in responding to the external drivers of globalisation, new technologies and increasing societal complexity. This paper reports the…

A range of different constructs are used to describe and define the way that leadership operates in education settings. This range can be presented as binary categories of leadership, in which either one, or the other form of leadership is preferred, but not both. An example of this is the contrast made between solo and distributed leadership. A…

"Further education" (FE) is a substantial sector in the education system in England. It has funding of approximately £8 billion annually and educates close to three million students. Within the sector are 231 FE colleges which provide a range of courses that are typically vocational/skills-based. They vary in scale and scope with the…

This article considers some of the findings of research undertaken for a PhD into the changing educational agenda and its impact on the role of primary headteachers in England. During the course of the study from 2005-2009, as a result of government policy new roles for headteachers both inside and outside their school increasingly emerged. The…

Documents the growing tension between primary heads' administrative and professional roles and between top-down and collegial management styles, based on qualitative data from a national sample of 50 Welsh and English schools. Highlights the 1988 Education Reform Act's emphasis on monitoring and quality assurance and headteachers' developing…

Explores a British secondary school's 8-year involvement with the Improving the Quality of Education for All reform initiative, comparing three leadership models. Transactional and transformational leadership models are limited in long-term improvement efforts. Leadership themes based on values, shared leadership contexts, and capacity creation…

Concerns about principals' demanding, crucial role may lead to assumptions that strong-minded, charismatic individuals are essential for a school's long-term well-being. A case study illustrates unintended consequences resulting from such archetypal leadership of a British Catholic secondary school, following an effective, unconventional…