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Professor David Hopkins - 2005 Department for Education and Skills England, UK
Soon after the National College for School Leadership was established, its Governing Council established a Think Tank to assist with the process of drawing up a new framework for school leadership. The Think Tank brief invited a strategic approach to the achieving of greater coherence in the preparation and development of school leaders, whilst simultaneously encouraging a ' futures ' conversation around the conception of schooling, the teaching profession and the role of government.
The Think Tank developed a series of propositions about the future of school leadership. They are grouped into three sections reflecting the values, nature, and development and support of school leadership. The propositions should be regarded as a set; they build on and amplify each other as the argument develops. Taken together, they constitute the parameters for a framework for school leadership that is firmly grounded in learning.
Proposition 1: school leadership must be purposeful, inclusive and values-driven
Purposeful in so far as there is clarity as to the goals of education and schooling; inclusive to ensure that these aims are widely owned within and outside the school community; and values-driven because it is only an unrelenting focus on learning and empowerment that will ensure success in the knowledge society. Although clarity of purpose and ownership are necessary conditions for effective leadership, it is the underpinning values and beliefs that give leadership its power. It is these values and beliefs that also inform the moral purpose of education and leadership style.
This implies a broader and deeper view of learning. It is broader, because learning refers not just to the progress of students, but also to the learning of teachers and leaders, and organisational learning on the part of the school. It is deeper because learning reflects not just induction into knowledge but the acquisition of a range of learning skills that allow the learner, be they student or teacher or leader, to reach their potential and to take more control of their world.
Above all, school leadership should be infused with a moral purpose. This is the vital importance of closing the gap between our highest and our lowest achieving students and raising standards of learning and achievement for all.
The implications for school leadership that is purposeful, inclusive and values driven are:
Proposition 2: school leadership must embrace the distinctive and inclusive context of the school
There is a paradox that currently confronts leadership in a wide variety of public and private organisations, as well as schools. It is the tension, on the one hand, between ' one size fits all ' policies and strategies, and the contrasting relativism that claims that each organisation is uniquely distinct and therefore cannot learn from other settings, however similar. Both of these positions are evidently fallacious. The challenge for educational leaders therefore is to adopt and adapt well-proven practices from elsewhere, within the context specificity of their own school.
Despite wide variations in setting, the educational challenges facing schools and their solutions are remarkably similar. Raising levels of achievement, enhancing the learning repertories of students and the creation of powerful learning experiences are educational challenges that are independent of social context. Effective teaching and learning is not, it appears, culturally or socially bounded, nor are the organisational settings within which they occur.
Basing school leadership on the distinctive and inclusive context of the school implies that:
Proposition 3: school leadership must promote an active view of learning
A key focus for school leadership is high quality learning and teaching. Powerful learning does not occur by accident, it is usually the result of an effective learning situation created by a skilful teacher. Successful teachers are not simply charismatic, persuasive, and expert presenters; rather, they provide their students with powerful cognitive and social tasks and teach them how to make productive use of them. The focus for school leadership must therefore be the creation of settings that support and facilitate learning for students, teachers and leaders.
It is unlikely that the physical architecture of the school will change dramatically in the next decade or so. What should change out of all recognition, however, is the internal architecture or learning environment of the school. The advances in information technology and the expansion of teachers ' repertoires of teaching strategies will allow us to create and organise learning experiences in radically different ways.
Basing school leadership on an active view of learning implies that:
Proposition 4: school leadership must be instructionally focused
Contemporary educational reform places a great premium on the effective leadership and management of schools. The logic of this position is that an orderly school environment that is efficient and well managed provides the preconditions for enhanced student learning. Leadership to promote student learning needs to give attention to engaging students and parents as active participants, and expanding the teaching and learning repertoires of teachers and students respectively. For these reasons the construct of ' instructional leadership ' is attractive. Instructional leadership consists of:
The focus on instructional leadership is not exclusive of a range of other leadership skills. It implies a general orientation towards leadership, rather than an exclusive approach.
Basing school leadership on a concept of instructional learning implies that:
Proposition 5: school leadership is a function that needs to be distributed throughout the school community
Instructional leadership offers a more sustainable model of leadership for a profession that, by the nature of the personnel it recruits, has leadership potential widely spread amongst its members. If this potential is to be realised, then it will need to be grounded in an approach to leadership that is opportunistic, flexible, responsive and context-specific, rather than prescribed by roles, and inflexible, hierarchical and status-driven. This view of leadership, then, is not hierarchical, but federal and involves clarity of direction, structures and support.
This approach to leadership involves building an evolving consensus around values that will unite and excite members of the school community. It means moving from the lowest common denominator of school aims to the highest common factor of shared values and beliefs. It incorporates being articulate about these beliefs and holding action accountable to them - by those leading at all levels. It follows that instructional leadership is not inextricably linked to status or experience. It is distributed and potentially available to all. In this way, coaching and mentoring, for example, are central leadership qualities, designed to support individuals and, in so doing, expand leadership capacity.
Regarding school leadership as a distributed function implies that:
Proposition 6: school leadership must build capacity by developing the school as a learning community
Contemporary school leadership needs not only to focus on improving student behaviour, learning and attainment, but also on the capacity that supports it. School capacity can be defined as the collective competency of the school as an entity to bring about effective change. Although the concept of school capacity includes ' human capital ' , ie, the knowledge, skills and dispositions of individual staff members, no amount of professional development of individuals will have an impact if certain organisational features are not in place.
Two organisational features are key. The first is the establishing of a ' professional learning community ' , in which staff work collaboratively to set clear goals for student learning, assess how well students are doing, develop action plans to increase student achievement, whilst being engaged in inquiry and problem-solving. These are the ' social capital ' aspect of capacity. The other component is programme coherence. This is the extent to which the school ' s programmes for student and staff learning are co-ordinated, focused on clear learning goals and sustained over a period of time.
Basing school leadership on building school capacity for developing the school as a professional learning community implies that:
Proposition 7: school leadership must be futures oriented and strategically driven
School leadership that is ' futures ' driven has three characteristics. The first is an articulate vision for the future of the school, based on the values and beliefs that the school community is committed to. Second, is an ability to scan the environment for ' futures ' trends and directions and to adapt or work with them to help develop the school ' s internal purpose. Third, is an ability to manage the change process.
Leadership that is strategically driven reflects the balance between the schools ' maintenance and development functions - in the context of both improvement and transformation. At present, schools are facing two kinds of pressure. The first is that of development. Schools cannot remain as they now are if they are to implement an ambitious reform agenda. The second pressure is that of maintenance. Schools need to maintain some continuity with their present and past practices, partly to provide the stability that is the foundation of new developments and partly because the reforms do not by any means change everything that schools now do. There is thus a productive tension between development and maintenance.
The implications for school leadership that is ' futures ' oriented and strategically driven are:
Proposition 8: school leadership must be developed through experiential and innovative methodologies
Almost all of the innovative programmes of leadership development in the public and private sector are connecting participants to practice in a variety of ways, particularly through the use of mentors and coaches. In education this involves both an access to local professional learning teams, mentors, and coaches, as well as support from a coordinated network of providers. In addition, ICT is increasingly emerging as a central, integrative, interactive part of the learning cycle, with emerging online learning, virtual activities, and the use of websites, e-network and e-discussion groups.
The challenge is to identify a range of opportunities that will enable school leaders with different life experiences to learn effectively within a context that acknowledges their preferred learning style, their personal characteristics and their different working environments. Further, the challenge is to design learning opportunities that promote concurrently the continual development of knowledge, skills and understanding, and social and emotional intelligence.
Basing school leadership development on experiential and innovative methodologies implies:
Proposition 9: school leadership must be served by a support and policy context that is coherent, systemic and implementation driven
Large-scale reform requires policy implementation that is both system wide and system deep. That is, policies need to reflect ' joined up thinking ' horizontally across the policy spectrum, as well as linking downwards vertically through the layers of the system. ' System wide ' applies to the coherence and contingency across a policy spectrum; this applies both to coherence in structures as well as to coherence at the level of values, aspirations and ways of working. ' System deep ' refers to clarity and coherence at both the top and the bottom of the system - at the level of policy and in the minds of the majority of teachers.
The key point is that working with systems means conceptualising strategies with whole systems in mind. Networks, partnerships and alliances (involving both traditional and new sources of support) are ways of achieving the level of support required by schools in rapidly changing and volatile contexts. They not only assist in disseminating ' good practice ' , but they also help to overcome the traditional isolation of schools, and, to a certain extent, challenge hierarchical structures.
That school leadership is served by a coherent, systemic and implementation-driven policy and support context implies:
Proposition 10: school leadership must be supported by an agency such as a National College that leads the discourse around leadership for learning
The vision of leadership encapsulated by these propositions reflects both an evolution and a step change from previous conceptions of school leaders. The strong and unrelenting focus on student learning, professional learning communities and capacity building, as well as organisational coherence, is more compelling and liberating than images of avuncular school leaders beset with short-term administrative tasks. It is also the leadership profile that holds most promise for genuine school transformation. To achieve such a leadership role, what is required is a ' champion ' for school leadership that can lead the debate in the country, with teachers, senior managers, governors, communities, educational officers and politicians.
That school leadership is supported by an agency such as a national college implies that the:
The implications of these propositions for school leadership are as obvious as they are profound. Reform strategies and leadership programmes can no longer take only an incremental approach to change to student learning and attainment. This implies an expansion in the capacity of the school to manage change in the pursuit of student learning and achievement, and the creation of professional learning communities within the school to support the work of teachers. Leadership now needs to be seen within a whole school or systems context and to impact both on classroom practice and the work culture of the school.
Notes
(1) This paper is an abridged and updated version of the ' Think Tank ' report to the National College for School Leadership Governing Council, on ' Leadership for Transforming Learning ' . The Think Tank was chaired by David Hopkins, and reported in September 2001.
(2) Professor David Hopkins has been Head of the Standards and Effectiveness Unit in the Department for Education and Skills and Chief Adviser to Ministers on School Standards since February 2002. He previously served as Chair of the City of Leicester Partnership Board, Dean of Education at the University of Nottingham and as a Tutor at the University of Cambridge Institute of Education. Before becoming a civil servant he outlined his views on school improvement, leadership, networking and large scale reform in Hopkins D (2001) School Improvement for Real London: Routledge/Falmer. He is writing here in a personal capacity: the views expressed in this paper do not necessarily represent a policy position on the part of the Department for Education and Skills.
Professor David Hopkins is the Chief Adviser to the Secretary of State on School Standards at the Department for Education and Skills. Previously, he was Chair of the Leicester City Partnership Board and Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham, where he served as Head of the School, Dean of the faculty of Education and now as Professor Emeritus.
Before that again, he was a tutor at the Institute of Education at the University of Cambridge, a secondary school teacher and an Outward Bound Instructor. David is also an International Mountain Guide who still climbs regularly in the Alps and Himalayas.
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