Creative Leadership and the Culture of Effective Schools: Evidence from English Primary Schools.

N

38

Collegiality; Elementary Education; Foreign Countries; Instructional Leadership; Leadership; Leadership Qualities; Professional Development; School Administration; School Culture; School Effectiveness; Teacher Attitudes

The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), which arranges for the inspection of all primary and secondary schools in England, uses a model of leadership as part of its comprehensive handbook on inspection. This paper will look at the cultures of a number of effective schools to see to what extent they are congruent with OFSTED expectations and at the role of heads and chairs of governors in bringing these cultures about. The report presents the perspectives of teachers, drawing on teacher interviews collected as part of the Managing for Efficiency and Effectiveness in Primary Schools Project, which began in 1996. In addition to the interviews, teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire that compared schools that were hierarchical and bureaucratic to those where the basis of operation was one of the collegial interaction of autonomous professionals. The text emphasizes the means through which policies were constructed, the basis of decisions, and the relationship between policy planning and practice review. Staff were asked to indicate where on a set of six categories they rated their school currently and where in the same set they felt their ideal school would sit. The 10 questions addressed the nature of current and ideal cultures; the degree of consistency between the current and the ideal; consistency across schools; consistency across subgroups; current culture by subgroup; and other factors. (RJM)

1999

ED424679