Increased school autonomy and a greater focus on achieving school effectiveness and improvement has made it essential to reconsider the role of school leaders (OECD 2009, "Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS." Paris: OECD Publishing). This recommends that leadership development in this rapidly…

Busy leaders need time to reflect and renew. They need to consider the particularities of their school and the ways in which they can work with others in the school community to address pressing issues, as well as to make future plans. The metaphor of the studio offers some helpful avenues for thinking how this reflection might occur. Artists use…

Research by Grace, G. R. (2002. "Catholic Schools: Mission, Markets, and Morality." London: Routledge/Falmer) and Wilkin, R. 2014. ("'Interpreting the Tradition': A Research Report." "International Studies in Catholic Education" 6 (2): 164-177) has drawn attention to the importance of spiritual capital amongst…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how internationally recognized styles of transactional, instructional, transformational and distributed leadership have emerged in the Japanese education system. Design/methodology/approach: National legislation and policy documents in Japan since 1945 were collected by searching for the word…

This article uses edvertising as a vehicle through which to examine autonomy and control for key agents in education when market-like reforms are combined with privately led management of schools. We begin by outlining the philosophical foundations of school choice from the perspective of autonomy and control, and then lay out the case of…

The world faces a great developmental revolution in all scientific fields which in its turn affects different aspects of life, such as: the medical, engineering and educational fields, etc. The educational school's aspect in particular will be the topic of this research. It tries to assist in developing the different aspects of the educational…

Headship transitions in U.S. independent schools represent critical organizational events that affect multiple school constituencies, including faculty, staff, and students. With recent projections forecasting a high level of impending headship transitions in independent schools, this paper seeks to capture how second-year U.S. independent school…

Principals have a difficult job. It requires them to be instructional leaders, managers and mentors, all with the goal of helping every student succeed. How can school districts provide principals the support they need to excel in this challenging position? This Stories from the Field report explores how some school districts are responding to…

A core role of the K-12 school leader is to support and nurture the growth of others. That growth is commonly thought to be at the student level. However, school leaders must also focus on the growth of their teachers. School leaders are adjusting to a world where technology has crept into many aspects of the profession. And sometimes, technology…

This article presents findings from a study into the reality of beginning as a principal in a New Zealand secondary school. The views of beginning, experienced and former principals are presented and discussed drawing on the literature of organisational sensemaking. The findings suggest that the challenges of unexpected occurrences, relationship…

This playbook shares the findings of three researchers who set off to discover what K-12 schools can learn from the best-run organizations in America. They looked systematically at the structures and processes that high-performing managers put in place to create their dynamic cultures. They found that the best managers had many things in common…

Effective school leaders focus on identifying the changes needed to improve student learning. However, school improvement is often reduced to a checklist of compliance activities, and, consequently, achievement gaps continue to stay the status quo, or even widen. This paper reports on a qualitative case study analyzing how professional learning…

The purpose of the study reported on here was to explore the extent to which the role of the principal as ex officio member of the School Governing Body (SGB) facilitated or hindered the development of strategies that are effective and sustainable for the maintenance of school facilities. The rationale for this study was that the South African…

This quantitative study investigated the relationships among elementary school principals' efficacy beliefs (Instructional, Moral, and Management Leadership), principals' goal expectations for student achievement (expected outcome), and their impacts on actual student achievement. Two hundred and fifty elementary school principals completed an…

Principals are understood to be critical actors in improving teaching and learning conditions in schools; however, relatively little is known about the leadership strategies to which principals should dedicate their time and effort to improve outcomes. We review the empirical literature from 51 studies of principal behaviors and student, teacher,…