Navigating Accountability in English Schools: Leadership Challenges and Innovations

1. Responsibility in a high-accountability system: leading schools in England Daniel Muijs, University of Southampton

2. A hotbed of reform • An era of rapid policy change and strong government intervention • Dual policy direction since 1988: • Greater autonomy for schools (especially from local authorities) • Increasingly strong central accountability mechanisms • Current trends: • Academies and Free schools • Tightening up of Ofsted inspections and performance standards

3. Current trends • Academies and Free schools • Tightening up of Ofsted inspections and performance standards • System leadership and executive headships

4. The role of the head teacher • Long tradition of strong head teacher leadership • Hierarchical school structures • More recent: • School-based management • Emphasis on role of head teacher in school improvement • National training programmes

5. Role of the head teacher • Central and broad • Issues of • Head teacher capacity • Recruitment to headship • Distraction from key instructional leadership roles under SBM

6. Responses to these issues • Leadership development • Distributed and delegated leadership • School Business Management • Networking and collaboration

7. Leadership development • Strong emphasis with development of NPQH • NPQH regularly reformed, now more collaborative model • Based on view that leadership is learned • Limited evidence of impact

8. Distributed and delegated leadership • Relatively strong research evidence • Encouraged by National College and other (quasi) governmental organisations • In practise, differential uptake in schools • Sometimes strong central leadership may be more appropriate model • Common half-way house: extended leadership teams

9. School business managers • Central theorem: • Head teachers should concentrate on instructional leadership • Head teachers not necessarily best skilled at business management • Therefore, SBM’s appointed in many schools • Increased specialised training provision for SBM’s • Positive evidence for this model, though does not work in all circumstances

10. Leading networks • Increasing prevalence of school networks and Federations of schools • System leadership – interdependence between schools • Evidence of positive impacts • New roles for head teachers: • Horizontal leadership • Network leadership • Executive headships

11. Conclusion • Leading under pressure: • Strong accountability + strong autonomy + rapid system change • Some creative solutions have emerged • More needed: • Policy support • Creative use of capacity of HE, private providers and schools themselves • Chains of schools