Conference Agenda

Research indicates that planning is an essential element contributing to improve organizational performance, outcomes and processes in schools (Bickmore, Roberts & Gonzalez & 2021; Caputo & Rastelli, 2014; Fernandez, 2011; Huber & Conway, 2015; Strunk et al 2016; Meyers & VanGronigen, 2019; Mintrop, 2016; VanGronigen & Meyers, 2020), especially in educational systems that are data-driven, results-oriented, where accountability is a trend (Caputo & Rastelli, 2014; Mintrop & McLellan, 2002). Typically, the process of improvement planning culminates in a yearly “school improvement plan” (SIPs) led by principals and their teams. SIPs are comprehensive documents that help to establish priorities, goals, strategies, actions, indicators and results, among other elements (Férnandez, 2011). Some studies have shown a correlation between the quality of SIPs and student learning outcomes (Fernández, 2011; Strunk et al 2016), thus careful planning is key to obtain positive changes. Unfortunately, there is evidence that SIPs are not well-designed suggesting an unwillingness or inability of school teams to engage fully in a meaningful planning process (Meyers & VanGronigen, 2019, p.274). A significant challenge is moving from a perception of SIPs as a bureaucratic and administrative tool for documentation, essentially perceived as an external accountability demand, to an authentic plan responding to real improvement needs and organizational learning (Meyers & Vangronigen, 2019; VanGronigen & Meyers, 2020).

Following the international trend, Chile has implemented SIPs as a national educational policy since 2014. Based in a continuous improvement cycle, The Ministry of Education mandates schools to design and implement a four year-long SIP. This cycle is composed of two phases: a first strategic phase and then an annual phase. The following steps contain the continuous improvement cycle in Chile: (1) Analysis of the educational project and developing a self-assessment process, (2) Planning goals and objectives strategically, (3) Planning annual strategies and actions (4) implementation and (4) evaluation. Schools submit their plans to an online platform to be checked by their school district. This traditional approach of school improvement may not create a sense of urgency required for schools who need to improve quickly (Mintrop, 2016; VanGronigen & Meyers, 2020). An alternative and complementary approach for improving more rapidly to the constant environmental changes is the short-cycle planning. This approach builds confidence, increases collective efficacy and allows to gauge progress and assess outcomes (VanGronigen & Meyers, 2017).

Using the short-cycle planning approach, this research presents perceptions of 19 schools in 6 different districts in designing, implementing and evaluating the first short-cycle plan during 2023.This qualitative study addresses the following research questions: How do participants compare yearlong improvement planning to short-cycle approach? How do participants perceive short-cycle plans as a approach to improve with sense of urgency?

Neoliberal imperatives have arguably driven education policies in England and Europe (Wilkins et al., 2019: Grimaldi et al., 2016) over the past four decades, leading to the depoliticisation (Flinders and Woods, 2015) and radical marketisation of the sector (Ball, 2021). The creation of an education marketplace purposely fuels competition between providers, positioning parents and communities as consumers and schools are corporatised entities (Gunter, 2018). Successive British and European governments (Gunter et al., 2016) have proactively adopted dominant private sector methods and practices transforming the operations in the education system to become more like businesses; a process coined by Ball and Youdell (2007:13) as ’endogenous privatisation’. As such, the utilisation of ‘brand’ has arguably become a distinguishing indicator which establishes positionality and thus, positions the organisation advantageously in the field. Significantly, Simon et al. (2021) have postulated brand advantage, or positioning, in the edu-business world is crucial, securing status in what they deem as a hierarchical system of MATs. Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) are groups of publicly funded, independent schools (Wilkins, 2016) and are comparable to Charter Schools in the USA or Friskolor in Sweden (Simkins et al., 2019). The more prestigious brands are privileged or positioned in the high-stakes play of school acquisition and the promotion of their brand to potential consumers or clients. Subsequently, risk mitigation strategies are needed to maintain and gain brand market advantage, but also brand protection in the performative, marketised and choice-focused context of education (Courtney et al., 2018).

A growing national and international distrust in the functioning of public services such as education (Wilkins and Gobby, 2022), combined with governments driven to achieve political and economic goals, determines the need for governments to perceive and manage risk to their own brand. Disintermediation (Lubienski, 2014), where power and influence are withdrawn from the traditional meso-layer of education, has responsibilised this new private middle tier of educational leadership and governance for the risk and responsibility of the sector, and brand advantage. This has facilitated an extension of central control in new spaces, removed from local or federal government influence and controlled at a distance (Wilkins and Gobby, 2022). The resultant hegemony of managerialism and New Public Management (NPM) (Gunter et al., 2016), and corporatisation, which has removed decision-making from representative institutions to corporately controlled entities (Gunter 2018), have transformed the management and governance practices of schools (Newman, 2001). The professionalisation of education leadership and school governance, a neoliberal political rationality and a new middle tier have signified a democratic deficit raising questions over stakeholder representation (Connolly et al., 2017) and the accountability of school governance, to be responsive to community and parental needs (Woods and Simkins, 2014).

This research explores the relationship between MAT brand objectives, brand advantage and subsequent risk mitigation strategies employed by educational leadership in England. Specifically, the Co-operative Academies Trust’s (CAT), sponsored by The Co-op Group, model of school governance, and the tension between democratic practices, co-operative values and brand advantage are illuminated. Democracy is one of six values determined by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) a significant feature of a co-operative enterprise to which CAT is committed to. The research explored how the CAT engaged with parents and community groups in an area of deprivation, to secure authentic decision-making partnerships based on ICA values, specifically democracy. As such, given its association with the Co-op Group brand, the CAT makes for a significant case to investigate as an alternative in the marketised context of education in England and internationally, given the Euro-prevalence of neoliberal contexts of education and interest in democratically engaging educational leadership internationally (Caravantes and Lombardo, 2024; Scuola Democratica, 2024).

This paper focuses on an empirically grounded insight into the experience of leading an educational organisation in complexity. A case study of executive leadership in an English Multi Academy Trust (MAT) is used to illustrate the nature of the complexity leaders experience in that context. Qualitative and Social Network data are combined to characterise the experience of complexity and significant features of leaders’ responses and some conceptual tools are introduced.

Drawing on a complexity perspective that starts with the experiences of people in organisations, the implications of the perspective for conceptualising leadership and designing an empirical study are presented. The methodological approach is explained followed by presentation and discussion of data to illuminate the experience of complexity and relevance of the perspective adopted.

The argument is made initially for a complexity perspective drawing on the principles of complex responsive processes of relating (Stacey, Griffin & Shaw, 2000), recognising that starting with leaders’ experiences in organisations means understanding them to be participants in processes rather than actors on systems (ibid). The experience of complexity thus involves paradox, ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty, which are all also features of a social process of sensemaking (Weick, 2005).

The complexity perspective adopted leads to a conceptualization of leadership that is understood as influence (Northouse, 2021), but is relational (Eacott, 2018) arising in human relationships whether they are direct, indirect or mediated. Leadership is also considered as plural (Denis et al 2012), having multiple loci which may be dyadic, group, collective or contextual (Hernandez, 2011). It follows that to explore leadership of, for example, educational improvement in a MAT, it is necessary to study the enactment of practices and the processes of relating taking place.

A case study of an English MAT comprising seven schools led by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is introduced and the methodological approach to the single embedded case study (Yin, 2017) is described. Qualitative data is presented revealing practices and underlying thinking frames on which leaders drew as they talked about enacting educational improvement. The qualitative data is combined with social network data that reveals the socially constructed networks of relationships relevant to leadership in which a core group of people, identified by the CEO, perceived themselves to be embedded.

The empirical data is discussed in terms of the sensemaking processes taking place, their dynamic patterning, what is revealed about the emergent nature of executive leadership in the trust and the experience of complexity. The paper concludes by highlighting some significant conclusions and the value of embracing a complexity perspective to fully understand current realities and future possibilities.