Leadership for Sustainable Improvement
Leadership for Sustainable Improvement
Good school leaders have a strong positive impact on students and school performance, Whelan argues (2009). As shown in the previous section, the role of the school principal in communicating the purpose of the improvement, outlining the expected outcomes, securing the needed resources for the change, and talking with teachers and parents about the change, were important in building school capacity (Berends, Bodilly, & Kirby, 2002). Dinham (2005) believes that effective principals must develop good relationships with all stakeholders, arguing that relationship management is more important than the technical aspects of management and administration.
There are plenty of definitions of leadership, leadership roles and leadership practices, almost all of which are associated with enhancing students’ outcomes (Hopkins, Stringfield, Harris, Stoll, & Mackay, 2014). Harris and Lambert (2003) indicate that leadership is about learning together, working collectively and collaboratively to enhance students’ performance: Leadership involves generating ideas together, sharing visions, common values, and taking actions to implement the agreed plans, forming in effect a learning community in which learners maximise their skills and translate the vision into day-to-day work. In the learning community model the leadership manages teaching and learning effectively to ensure a high degree of consistency in quality teaching practices to enable each student to maximise their potential through becoming active learners (Hopkins et al., 2014). Dinham and Crowther (2011) suggest that a distributed leadership style is a key factor in school capacity building. Similarly, Alma Harris and Lambert argue that effective leaders know how to generate and share knowledge with the school community, and create opportunities for others to take leadership roles and share responsibilities for the change (2003). Similarly, Whelan argues that good school leaders have a strong positive impact on students and school performance (2009). A highly motivated and committed leader seeks to work more efficiently and effectively, and this type of leader is one of the main elements required for school capacity building for sustaining school improvement (Mourshed, Chijioke, & Barber, 2010; Wrigley, 2012).
The quality of schools depends significantly on the quality of teaching and the quality of learning. In summary, this section has shown that outstanding school leaders create a supportive and challenging school environment that enables students and teachers to perform well, one in which students and teachers stretch their abilities to the maximum, Whelan (2009) explains. As will be discussed further in the next section, effective school leaders set high expectations and share a vision enabling all staff to take responsibility to achieve.
Effective School Leaders
Building on what is known about organisational culture, effective school leaders restructure the school environment to support students and teachers to learn continuously, motivating them to effectively use the available resources to plan and implement the required strategies for improvement. Such leaders also support teachers to plan for improving teaching and learning strategies, to facilitate a positive learning environment, and they hold teachers accountable for implementing the improvement initiatives, according to Whelan (2009). Therefore, it can be seen that in outstanding schools, teachers take leadership roles and share collective responsibility to improve and sustain school performance.
These findings about effective school improvement from highly performing schools are confirmed by studies conducted in other schools too: Barber and Mourshed (2007) and Dinham (2005), for example, found that school leadership is essential in improving the effectiveness of poorly preforming schools. Supporting the notion that leadership is a key element, it was found that schools that had higher levels of implementation with regard to the school improvement initiatives and better student outcomes also had strong school leaders, unlike schools without strong school leaders (Desimone, 2002).
This finding is also congruent with an analysis of support provided in the study of the New American Schools in Berends et al.’s (2002) review of a decade of reforms in forty schools in the USA: This review indicated that school leadership was the most important indicator of the implementation level achieved in the school improvement process. Consequently, educational systems throughout the world are holding the school leadership accountable for student performance, where student performance has become the key performance indicator used by many education policy makers (Heck & Hallinger, 2010).
The literature suggests that the role of educational leadership has changed significantly as greater demands are being made of the principal and the school (S. Lambert, 2011). Because of these increasing demands placed on principals, some writers argue that school change that leads to deep learning is almost impossible to sustain over time, posing as well challenges for policy-makers (Hargreaves & Fink, 2003). Sustainable change requires a school leader who is able to affect the academic students’ outcomes indirectly, building the school’s professional capacity, and focusing on teaching and learning. Sustainable change needs a reconceptualization of the role of school principals, enabling them to distribute their authority and power among teachers, building capacity for improvement to facilitate the changes to teaching practice needed to enhance students’ learning (Heck & Hallinger, 2010).
However, ensuring that every school has the effective leadership required for the improvement of schools requires leadership at government level as well, both policy guidance and practical support. Three things are required from leaders at governmental levels: selecting and promoting the right people to become school leaders, creating the right professional development programme to enhance leadership practices, and providing support and guidance to all schools but especially to those performing less well (Whelan, 2009).
Distributed School Leadership
In successfully implemented sustainable change, where the principal leaves the school, the good practice stays and the improvement initiatives do not disappear, Hargreaves and Fink (2003), and also Lambert (2003) argue. By building leadership capacity across and within the school, the school community can lead itself and sustain the effort even if one or more of the key individuals leave (Harris & Lambert, 2003). Distributed leadership can be implemented as part of the improvement initiative to avoid leadership burn out, support deep learning and to ensure that the school improvement initiatives will last over time, even after the initiating principal themselves has left the school (Hargreaves & Fink, 2003). In this distributed leadership model, school leaders and teachers not only participate, but collectively take the responsibility for the improvement (Fullan, 2014).
In summary, leadership involves the valuing of all stakeholders’ voices to improve school performance. It requires collective activities, shared goals and collaborative effort to reach the school’s destination. Leaders are required to distribute power and authority and therefore the main concept underpinning distributed leadership is that every member of the school community can lead in a supportive context. (Harris & Lambert, 2003). Desimone found that the schools that experienced greater implementation success were the schools where teachers took roles in leading the improvement (2002).
Principals as Instructional Leaders
When the school principal succeeds in involving almost all teachers, the majority of parents and the students in leadership of the project, then the school will most likely develop a “high leadership capacity that achieves high student performance,” according to Lambert (2003, p. 4). This link between school leadership and students’ outcomes is also supported by Hopkins et al., (2014). Indeed, learning is seen as the core activity for school leadership capacity building and it is the key to developing professional learning communities (Harris & Lambert, 2003). This approach is termed instructional leadership, where the principal, spends more time on tasks related directly to improving students’ achievement than administration (Barber & Mourshed, 2007), including conducting formal and informal class observation visits. During class observation visits school leaders observe and improve the teachers’ performance, monitor the implementation of daily plans, establish an educational channel with teachers, develop standards in assessment of the students, and provide a process of self-evaluation (Zendeli, 2011). Thus, not only do the school leaders themselves lead the learning, they work with their staff to ensure that learning is the core work of the school (Fullan, 2014). A successful school leader is therefore someone who is both confident enough to introduce sound management practices as well as having the capabilities to engage themselves and others in the enhancement of teaching and learning in their schools (Hallinger & Murphy, 2013). It is believed that most school leaders want to engage in the improvement of teaching and learning in their schools, but what stops them from achieving this aim is often cited as their involvement in day-to-day management tasks. The tension of responding to urgent managerial issues raised by students, teachers, parents, as well as urgent and unexpected meetings at the MoE hinders principals from observing learning inside classes and focusing on school improvement (op. cit.). Class observation visits require time for the preparation, time for class visits, and time to implement the professional development needed to support change. Waters, Marzano, and McNulty (2003) confirm the significance of the role of the leadership, especially instructional leadership, as one of the characteristics found in successful schools. Maximising the impact of the instructional leadership can occur by making leaning more important and improving the professional development of teachers as a group (Fullan, 2014). However, Waters et al., (2003) indicate that whilst there are many theories underpinning the concept of instructional leadership, in general the literature fails to provide school leaders with practical guidance for becoming effective leaders.
In summary it can be seen that successful schools have high leadership capacity, which enables collaboration among all stakeholders to take leadership roles in the school improvement and learning enhancement. Successful schools are those where teachers have developed effective leadership skills and have a clear instructional focus in their roles and responsibilities, to enhance students’ outcomes (Harris & Lambert, 2003). In the most successful schools. teachers are given the opportunity to become leaders in one area of the improvement system (Barber & Mourshed, 2007), and duties are managed and shared between teachers and the school principal (Zendeli, 2011). Successful schools are those where the focus is on both students and teacher learning, where each staff member takes a personal and a collective responsibility to improve students’ achievement, and above all where the school principal believes that every stakeholder has the “right, responsibility and capability to work as a leader” (A Harris, 2003, p.4). Because of its vital importance to successful school improvement and sustainable change, the issue of teachers as leaders in further elaborated in the next section.
Teacher Leaders
Teachers’ role in the process of improvement is essential because the improvement happens normally in their classrooms and daily practices. For effective school improvement, individual teacher effort is not enough to maintain the impact on students’ achievement as teachers change their positions, or leave the school. The school community needs to work collectively to achieve major changes in school practices and to sustain the improvement (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008). Therefore, teacher leadership is essential to develop high quality learning and teaching across the whole school (Harris & Lambert, 2003). Similarly, Muijs, Chapman, and Armstrong also identify the link of teacher leadership with the notion of distributed leadership (2013). Three roles for the teacher leaders have been identified by Alma Harris and Lambert (2003): firstly to enhance students’ outcomes through improving teaching practices; secondly, to build collaborative professional communities – through coaching, mentoring, and leading other teachers; and thirdly, by setting the operational tasks for improving the teaching and learning methods. Teacher leaders can be involved in collecting the students’ achievement data, analysing and interpreting it and then using it for improvement by building action plans towards enhanced students’ learning and achievement (Fullan, 2000), and in this way, teacher leadership can be the driver to achieve better measurable results for students (Fullan, 2011). However, assigning leadership roles and responsibilities to teachers does not mean giving them more work to do. It means giving teachers the authority and autonomy to take decisions within their scope of work so they can make the decisions that might enhance student learning and outcomes (Harris, 2001; Mclnerney, Dowson, & Etten, 2006). That this approach is successful is shown by studies in school improvement, such as those by Hopkins et al. (1999), Potter et al. (2002) and Harris (2001), which show that teachers’ participation in taking decisions regarding improving their school is essential to ensure teachers’ support and acceptance (Desimone, 2002).
In summary it can be seen that effective leadership involves the valuing of all stakeholders’ voices to improve school performance. It requires collective activities, shared goals and collaborative effort to reach the school’s destination. However, the ability of teachers to participate fully in learning communities and to take on board the opportunities offered in the distributive leadership model needs to be developed through appropriate professional learning programmes.
Dr. Ahmed AlKoofi
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