The two research questions consider school leaders’ understanding of excellence (1) and their role in achieving and sustaining it (2). I have drawn together the themes emerging from the Literature Review and summarised them in figure 1, a conceptual framework to support field work planning, analysis and discussion. The emerging school and leadership characteristics shown (top-right) have been established from the theories and models of leadership (left) reviewed, together with the findings from the literature on successful and high-performing schools and CPD (top-left).
I reported earlier (section 2.4) the suggestion (Kwan, 2019) that there should no longer be a separation between these models and that instructional leadership and transformational leadership together could be viewed as a conception of ‘Integrated Leadership’ (Marks & Printy, 2003), to support high-performing outcomes.
If we accept this increasing convergence over time and the suggestion by Robinson, et al. (2008) that the focus of research should be on the leadership activities that maximise pupil outcomes, this leads to consideration of models of Leadership for Learning as a way to define the characteristics of school leaders in these schools.
I have focused mainly on the work of Murphy, et al. (2007) whilst also considered the model offered by Kelley & Halverson (2012). In common with Instructional and Transformational Leadership models, as I discussed in section 2.5, there is a focus on vision, high expectations, management and visibility, modelling and the articulation of best-practice. CPD continues to be a key aspect of the school culture which is now supported by a formalised acknowledgement of Distributed leadership practices and ‘communities of learning’. A focus on pedagogy and particularly learning, is seen in a student-centred approach to leadership. These characteristics are summarised in figure 1 (top right).
Hence, figure 1 shows both Transformational and Instructional leadership models connected to the Learning for Leadership framework. Distributed Leadership is also included with sufficient separation for consideration as a separate entity.
In terms of successful school leadership (section 2.6) and high-performing schools (section 2.7), I confirmed the presence of characteristics in the Learning for Leadership models, including the importance of CPD and Distributed leadership. The literature on CPD (section 2.10) reinforces its importance in school improvement (Barber & Mourshed, 2007) and underscores collaboration (Cordingley & Bell, 2012), which aligns with distributed leadership practices. These contributions to the model are shown to the top-left of figure 1.
Leadership for Learning, as envisaged by Murphy, et al. (2007), has a connection to the moral purpose and stewardship in the conception of Servant Leadership suggested by Sergiovanni (1992, 2013). However, there are also sufficient differences, particularly in the focus on colleagues in terms of their support and care in the Servant Leadership model to include this as a separate strand in figure 1, providing contrast with the emphasis on pupils and learning seen in the Leadership of Learning model.
There are two remaining aspects of figure 1. The first (bottom-left) shows the contextual themes introduced in chapter 1. School improvement and effectiveness (section 1.3) research traditions are congruent with issues discussed in the literature review. For example, the focus of school improvement research on the quality of teaching (Stoll et al., 2006a) and the focus in phase 4 of school effectiveness strategies on building capacity by, for example, the emergence of professional learning communities (Department for Education & Skills, 2005).
Accountability measures and specifically the impact of OFSTED (section 1.4), create a powerful context in which school leaders work and schools are judged. Hence, characteristics should be considered in this light. The academies and MATs policy issue (section 1.5), whilst not the main focus of this study, provides a context where an institutions’ status, whether maintained school or academy, may contribute to the school improvements activities. Hence, an institution’s status has been included during analysis and discussion, to provide transparency.
The remaining leadership and management concepts in figure 1 (bottom-right) arise from both initial literature searches and professional knowledge and experience. They are also related to the other elements of figure 1, providing a more complete framework in which to consider leaders and their schools.
I now turn to how the research was conducted and the methodological considerations pertinent to my position as a headteacher-researcher undertaking a qualitative study with other school leaders. Importantly, the conceptual framework will be used to guide the construction of interview questions. The analysis of interview transcripts will then lead to a review of this conceptualisation and its further development.
3 Methodology
3.1 Introduction
In this chapter I start by discussing the philosophical position of the study as a piece of qualitative research. I then consider the issue of reflexivity which attempts to make transparent my ‘situatedness’ and ‘personal investments’ in the study as well as any ‘biases’ and, as they arise, any ‘surprises and ‘undoings’ during the research (Gergen & Gergen, 2000, p.1027 referring to Behar, 1996 and Kiesinger, 1998). As a headteacher-researcher, interviewing other school leaders who are my peers, I also acknowledge issues related to any claims to knowledge that can be made even tentatively in research which is in the field of social interaction. The notion of power relations in the context of the interview process is also discussed as part of this reflexive reflection.
The practicalities of the study are then presented in terms of how schools were selected to be part of the study, the way questions were created and the semi-structured interview conducted. I will outline the refinements and changes made after the first tranche of interviews were completed and how the study changed in terms of its scope and methods.
Ethical issues are considered and methods for supporting the reliability and validity of the data are discussed, in the light of this qualitative study. In the final section I present how the post- interview analysis was conducted; from transcription to coding and theme development, to the final stage of the thematic analysis, involving the ‘narrative rendition’ or creation of the
metastory (Riessman, 1993, pp. 8-15).