PRINCIPLES of DEMOCRATIC PRACTICE Janet Linda Orchard a Thesis Submitted to the Institute of Educat
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GOOD EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRATIC PRACTICE WITH REFERENCE TO MAINTAINED SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND Janet Linda Orchard A thesis submitted to the Institute of Education, University of London for the award of Ph.D. February 2012 I hereby declare that, except where explicit attribution is made, the work presented in this thesis is entirely my own. Word count (exclusive of bibliography): 84,269 Signed: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In producing this thesis I owe many debts of thanks. One lesson I have learned from this research project has been how the development of academic ideas depends on the help and advice of those prepared to give their time and intellectual energy freely to others. I am grateful to many such people even though I may not mention their names explicitly. At the Institute of Education I am very grateful to those staff in the Department of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies who have supported me over an extended period. First and foremost, my supervisors John White and Anne Gold have provided generous guidance and encouragement throughout the process. Past and present members of the Philosophy of Education section at the Institute of Education, particularly Judith Suissa and Michael Fielding, Patricia White and Jane Green have made very helpful observations in response to ideas I have presented during research seminars. Gerald Grace and Graham Haydon's careful consideration of early drafts of chapters proved invaluable at a critical stage. Like so many others who have carried out research in the Philosophy of Education, I am indebted to the collegial support of members of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. I am grateful to Chris Winch, Andrew Davis, Mike Smith and Gerard Lum for constructive feedback they have given me when I have presented my work at PESGB conferences. I would like to thank my former colleagues in the Department of Education, University of Oxford for their encouragement, particularly Geoffrey Walford and John Furlong and fellow members of the PESGB Oxford Branch, Lorraine Foreman-Peck, Alis Oancea and Richard Pring. I acknowledge my indebtedness to the following organisations for financial support: the PESGB, the All Saints Educational Trust, the Institute of Education, University of London and the Farmington Institute. I am grateful for sustaining lunches and library facilities at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, and to the ongoing moral support of its Principal, Ralph Waller. Finally, I should thank my family and friends who have helped me in so many ways over the long period it has taken me to complete this thesis, especially Mum and Dad, Marion, Jean, Ruth, Stacey, Bill, Nick, Catherine and, above all, Oliver. He has weathered the storm of a "part time" student in the family with far greater fortitude than I could have done in his place and is entitled in return to a number of extended and work free holidays. ABSTRACT Accepting that "good" leadership is critical for a school to flourish, in a democratic society such leadership should be informed by democratic values. I develop this argument with particular reference to maintained schools in England. These are designated places that prepare the next generation for future lives as citizens, but their leadership practices promote an autocratic model of leadership centred on the agency of an individual, the headteacher. I consider the influence of past practice on this hierarchical tradition of school leadership and criticise its continuing presence in current policy and practice. I offer an alternative conception of good school leadership, based on democratic principles of political liberty and equality. I show, with reference to empirical research by other scholars, how this might be applied to future policy and practice. My argument applies theory to a significant problem in educational practice, working across the foundational disciplines in the study of education. While my critique of current arrangements is interdisciplinary, it leans most towards a philosophical approach. I draw on earlier work within that discipline which establishes what a characteristically democratic approach to school leadership must logically entail. I argue that existing school leadership practices may be democratic when undertaken in the right spirit by people morally committed to those values and skilled at translating them into daily life. I conclude that schools should determine freely for themselves how they wish to be led, within limits identified by a new national framework for school leadership; this should replace the current system, focussed on "standards". Schools should ensure that strategic decisions concerning their future direction are shaped by directly interested parties. This alternative conception of good school leadership will require existing professional development programmes to be revised, because learning for and from leadership start at school, both "taught" and "caught" from experience. ii CONTENTS 1 Understanding school leadership 1 1.1 Good school leadership 1 1.2 Interpreting good school leadership 4 1.3 Outline of the thesis 6 2 Engaging with Educational Leadership, Management and Administration research 14 2.1 Introduction 14 2.2 Links to other Educational Leadership, Management and Administration (ELMA) research 15 2.3 Distinctions from other Educational Leadership, Management and Administration (ELMA) research 20 2.4 Weber, authority and school leadership 28 2.5 Conclusion 37 3 Philosophical perspectives on school leadership 39 3.1 Introduction 39 3.2 Existing philosophical literature 39 3.3 The "Philosopher Ruler" and school leadership 48 3.4 Conclusion 57 4 From all kinds of everything to the linchpin head: English schools and their leaders 58 4.1 Introduction 58 4.2 School leadership in England 1800 - 1870: a brief review 59 4.3 School reform and the Education Act of 1870 63 4.4 The archetypical linchpin school leader: Thomas Arnold 66 4.5 The ongoing influence of linchpin leadership 73 4.6 Conclusion 89 5 National standards for headteachers in England 90 5.1 Introduction 90 5.2 Origins 90 5.3 Problems with standards for school leadership 94 5.4 Can anything positive come from the National Standards? 99 5.5 Future regulation of school leadership? 103 5.6 Conclusion 105 6 Are good headteachers visionary? 106 6.1 What vision means 107 6.2 Without vision, would schools perish? 111 6.3 Conclusion 119 7 Practical wisdom and the good school leader 121 7.1 Introduction 121 7.2 "Principled Principals" and their leadership qualities 121 7.3 Limitations to the notion of "Principled Principals" 125 7.4 Practical wisdom (phronesis) and school leadership 129 7.5 Conclusion 138 8 Should school leadership be shared? 139 8.1 Introduction 139 8.2 What is shared school leadership? 139 8.3 Five models of shared school leadership 142 8.4 Principles and shared leadership 151 8.5 Democratic school leadership 152 8.6 Conclusion 154 9 Democratic values and English schooling 155 9.1 Introduction 155 9.2 Democracy 155 9.3 Democratic governance and maintained English schooling 170 9.4 Potential difficulties with democratic school governance 176 9.5 Conclusion 182 10 Direct democratic participation in schools 184 10.1 Introduction 184 10.2 The rights of relevant parties to decision-making 185 10.3 Claims to special rights of consideration 196 10.4 Governors and democratic school leadership 200 10.5 Should directly interested parties be required to participate? 205 10.6 Conclusion 209 11 Learning through leadership 210 11.1 Introduction 210 11.2 Learning from experience 211 11.3 Learning and leadership at school 219 11.4 Conclusion 226 12 A National Framework for School Leadership 228 12.1 Introduction 228 12.2 A National Framework for School Leadership 229 13 Conclusion 240 13.1 Summary 240 Bibliography 250 iv 1 UNDERSTANDING SCHOOL LEADERSHIP English schooling culture in the twentieth century ... (has) ...at its heart, a major paradox and contradiction. Formally designated as the cultural agency for 'making democracy work' and involved, at specific periods, with explicit pedagogical projects to enhance education for citizenship, its own practice has remained largely undemocratic. (Grace, 1995: 65) 1.1 Good school leadership The ideas reflected in this thesis began to form when I considered becoming a headteacher. Professionally ambitious as I was, I Was not interested in adequate or competent headship: I wanted to do it extremely well. Yet no headteacher from my own teaching experience, whatever their strengths, captured the approach to leadership to which I personally aspired that was based on my experience of middle management. As head of humanities in a secondary school in London, as a matter of principle I tried to ensure that decisions were made democratically, within the confines of my particular sphere of influence. The approach could be time consuming, particularly in the short term, but yielded positive results. Experienced practitioners contributed their complementary skills and perspectives, making careful, considered choices. We honoured the commitments we made collectively, presumably because we had all agreed to them. In short, I felt that we led our faculty together, both wisely and well. However, I doubted that this approach could translate to the leadership of a whole school. In English schools decision-making tends to be dominated by the headteacher. Although they may consult other people through the process, invariably they determine the final outcome, operating a form of benign dictatorship. This situation is commonly justified on the grounds that headteachers as "experts" are uniquely well placed to know "their" school's best possible future. In this thesis, I challenge this assumption, on pedagogical and moral grounds, arguing that maintained schools in England should be led democratically. I do not Chapter 1: Understanding school leadership bring a particular conception of the democratic school to my argument, nor do I attempt to define a "one size fits all" account of the democratic school leader.