Conference Agenda

In this symposium we explore how school leadership policies and practices interact at national and local scales through the lens of place, seeking to identify common themes and implications across diverse international contexts (England, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Sweden). In particular we will ask whether and how a ‘local solutions’ policy mindset (Bunt and Harris, 2010) might enable school leadership to become more sustainable in two, inter-related ways: the sustainability of leadership (i.e. supply and succession planning) and leadership for sustainability (i.e. meeting present needs without compromising future needs).

The urgency of these discussions comes from the rapidly changing needs of children, families and wider societies. Edgar Morin and Anne-Brigitte Kern coined the term polycrisis to reflect how many global challenges are not isolated but interconnected and mutually reinforcing. These crises play out differently in different national and local contexts (Lawrence et al, 2024), impacting on schools both directly and indirectly (e.g. rising inequality, mental health referrals, truancy and dropout etc.).

Education policies worldwide commonly struggle to adapt to the pace and complexity of such changes (Newman and Clarke, 2009). In part, this reflects a tendency for recent school reforms to strengthen national/federal governance mechanisms (e.g. national curriculum, assessment and accountability frameworks) while reducing the role and capacity of local, place-based governance (Greany, 2020). School leaders commonly bear the consequences: seeking to meet the holistic needs of students, while being held accountable for policies and outcomes determined elsewhere. Worryingly high proportions of leaders report unsustainable workloads and stress, with many burning out or planning to quit (Creagh et al, 2023).

In this context, the symposium explores how theories of place might enrich our understanding of contemporary leadership and sustainability. Place and space have been extensively theorised and researched across multiple disciplines (Gilmartin et al, 2024; Massey, 2005; Creswell, 2004) but appear less often in educational leadership research (Thomson and Hall, 2016). Places are material locations, each with its own geographical features which will shape a school’s physical positioning, architectural design and student intake. Places are home to communities which are networked and evolving, deeply imbued with personal and social histories, stories and meanings. Places are connected at different scales – the nation state, the region or local authority area, the school catchment and so on – which overlap and can change, particularly in a digital age. Places are framed by policy, for example relating to transport, housing, the dispersal of refugees, and the governance of school systems, with different policies often interacting. Indigenous perspectives on place challenge the nature-culture divide that underpins much Western thought.

Places are shaped by external forces, such as globalisation, but also shape these in distinctive ways, making each locality unique – a constellation of stories. As Appadurai (1992) puts it, places are both “context derived and context generative”; meaning that while some aspects of modern places might seem like a Russian Doll, with every high street having its replica McDonalds and so on, places also generate their own distinctive responses to globalising influences. These place-making processes are shaped by relations of power and inequality, meaning that some groups may be systematically marginalised.

So, while one school might look superficially like another, and both schools might be inspected using the same national framework, each will also have its own uniqueness within its own place, which school leaders must understand and respond to, even while working to influence and shape.

We draw on findings from a three-year study of sustainable school leadership across three UK nations – England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The mixed methods study included expert interviews (n=17), secondary analysis of workforce census data in each nation, and a survey of school leaders (n=1623), but we focus mainly on findings from seven place-based case studies, selected to provide a spread of contexts (e.g. City, Coast, Shire). In each locality we interviewed senior leaders in a representative spread of schools together with local leaders (e.g. Local Authority) (total n=132). We argue that school leaders work within specific geographic, economic, historical and social contexts that shape what leadership is, who becomes a leader, how leadership is practiced and, crucially, whether such leadership can be sustained (Greany et al, forthcoming). Place here is multi-dimensional, including but going beyond geography. The various dimensions of place do not operate independently but interact in complex ways. Urban concentration in poor communities creates different leadership challenges than rural poverty; historical conflicts intersect with contemporary economic circumstances; organisational structures either leverage or work against geographic proximity, and so on. We show that policy discussions commonly view place as little more than a backdrop upon which leadership is performed. While policymakers might categorise schools in broad terms based on geographic and socio-economic features (e.g. urban vs rural, above or below average levels of deprivation etc.), our evidence shows that even two small rural schools in the same locality might require quite different forms of leadership. In addition, we argue that while national and local policies, frameworks and structures can help school leaders to identify and achieve shared objectives, these standardised approaches can also create tensions and risks where they fail to equip front-line leaders with the agency and capacity required to adapt to the needs of place. We conclude that school leadership across the UK is widely perceived as unsustainable, but that where, how and why this plays out is significantly shaped by place. Finally, we suggest that place should feature more centrally in school leadership research and policy and that policymakers might need to adopt a ‘local solutions’ mindset (Bunt and Harris, 2010).

Bunt, L. and Harris, M. (2010), Mass Localism: A Way to Help Small Communities Solve Big Social Challenges, London: NESTA. Greany, T., Thomson, P., Perry, T., & Collins, M., (in press) Sustainable School Leadership UK: final report. Available: https://sustainableschoolleadership.uk/

This paper builds on the evidence presented in paper one, that leadership practice and sustainability are profoundly shaped by place, and that uniform national policy frameworks can constrain leadership agency and compromise school flourishing and sustainability (Greany et al., forthcoming). It offers a Scottish perspective, examining how the sustainability of secondary school leadership in rural and island communities in Scotland is determined by the interaction of the specificities of place and context, governance arrangements and national education policy. Rural and island schools sit at the heart of their communities and play a key role in sustaining cultures, languages and local economies (CoDeL, 2024; Gill, 2017); yet leaders operate within national policy and funding architectures largely designed for urban and mainland settings. Arguably, policy and funding decisions are underpinned by assumptions of homogeneity across Scottish schools with limited recognition of the place-specific manifestations of polycrises (Lawrence et al., 2024) that require contextually informed moral and ethical leadership responses (Söderström & Seiser, 2024). This paper draws on anonymised data from a project led by a professional organisation representing Scottish secondary school leaders; the co-creation of an education manifesto reflecting voices of secondary school leaders across diverse roles and contexts (School Leaders Scotland, 2025). Data comprised responses to a national survey, categorised by role, tenure, sector and place, and open-ended questions discussed in nine focus groups. The manifesto process functioned as a structured conduit for collective leader voice, translating place-based knowledge and experience into national policy discourse (Mitchell et al., forthcoming). Leaders in rural and island contexts described acute challenges that constrain their capacity to provide equitable educational experiences and support community thriving, including ageing infrastructure and higher maintenance costs in remote settings; limited curricular pathways linked to staffing formulae for small school rolls; fragile recruitment and staffing pipelines; scarcity of specialist provision amid rising Additional Support Needs (ASN); and persistent shortages of Gaelic Medium Education (GME) specialists. Findings highlight the need for policy responses that recognise the real costs of rural and island provision through proportionate funding, and minimum staffing guarantees to secure curricular breadth, GME provision and ASN specialist support. Further, systemic routes for including practising leaders’ place-based knowledge into national decision-making are essential if we are to have equitable and sustainable school leadership in rural, remote and peripheral education systems where national and global pressures are interpreted through the lens of distinct local contexts and histories.

CoDeL (2024). A review of rural education in the Glenkens. Available: http://codel.scot/rural-education-and-the-sustainability-of-rural-communities Gill, P. (2017). A Case Study of How an Irish Island School Contributes to Community Sustainability, Viability and Vitality. The Australian and International Journal of Rural Education. https://doi.org/10.47381/AIJRE.V27I2.127 Greany, T., Thomson, P., Perry, T., & Collins, M. (in press). Sustainable School Leadership UK: final report. Available: https://sustainableschoolleadership.uk/ Lawrence, M., Homer‑Dixon, T., Janzwood, S., Rockström, J., Renn, O., & Donges, J. F. (2024). Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement. Global Sustainability, 7(6), 1–16. Mitchell, A., Barnett, D., Ayed, K., & Craigie, J. (forthcoming). Co-constructing Leadership Futures: A Critical Manifesto for Secondary School Leaders in Scotland. BELMAS Annual Conference 2026, Cardiff, Wales, 3 - 5 July 2026. School Leaders Scotland (2025). A Manifesto for the Future of Education in Scotland. Available: https://www.sls-scotland.org.uk/ Söderström, Å., & Seiser, A.F. (2024). Ethical and moral perspectives in leading schools. Teacher Ethics and Teaching Quality in Scandinavian Schools: New Reflections, Future Challenges, and Global Impacts,126-142. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003407775-11

Ireland's education system, shaped by post-colonial and post-conflict legacies, operates as a small, highly centralised system. Like education systems globally, it faces pressures of rapidly changing societal needs and intersecting crises - both national (post-economic crisis child homelessness, post-COVID, migration, multilingualism) and local (governance, language of instruction, inclusion)- yet its policy structures and evaluation mechanisms have struggled to adapt. Despite relatively limited governance diversity (reflecting historical dominance of the Catholic Church), significant variation exists beneath this apparent uniformity. Even within primary and post-primary sectors, diverse school types operate: schools differentiated by language of instruction, urban/rural locations (with distinct patterns of disadvantage and diversity), and mainstream versus special or alternative provisions, all affiliated to governance structures currently under review. While school leadership in the Republic of Ireland has received increased research and policy attention over the past 10 years, an emerging consensus reveals a paradox: even within this singular place, the principalship itself - including pathways, preparation, professional development, and perseverance in role - appears markedly different from one school type to another. This diversity challenges assumptions that schools operating under similar policy and evaluation frameworks experience comparable leadership realities, revealing a tension: the appearance of system uniformity masks remarkable differences in leadership practice. Schools that seem structurally similar experience different leadership realities, yet policies continue to treat them as comparable. These differences have profound implications for leadership sustainability. Principals across school types report unsustainable workloads, yet the nature and sources of these pressures vary significantly by context, as does principals’ perseverance in the role. Study Aims Building on research conducted post-COVID, this study aims to distil principals' considerations within this system - one system encompassing many distinct contexts, each serving particular educational purposes. Drawing on theories of place, the intention is to introduce a meta-narrative that honours local specificities while informing national discourse. This approach recognises that sustainable leadership development and policy reform require locally responsive solutions, even as they operate within shared structures, which is a critical consideration as the national Convention on Education unfolds. Methodological Approach Drawing on interviews with approximately 15 principals across diverse primary and post-primary settings, this study employs sense-making theory to unpack the contemporary complexities of their work, capturing how principals navigate distinct contexts within a shared structural framework. This localised analysis contributes to global conversations about school leadership while resisting universalising tendencies that obscure place-based differences essential to understanding leadership sustainability.

None

This paper contributes a Swedish perspective to the symposium by examining how school principals’ opportunities for recovery and sustainable leadership following periods of crisis are shaped by the interaction among emotional demands, organisational conditions, and place-specific contexts. The study forms part of a broader programme of research on Swedish school leadership and builds on previous studies of principals’ leadership during and after the COVID-19 pandemic (Sahlin et al., 2023; Sahlin et al., 2025). It is situated within a national context characterised by growing concern about the sustainability of the principalship, reflected in recent studies on principal turnover and working conditions (e.g., Richards, 2025; Leo et al., 2026) and in the governmental inquiry on principals’ preconditions for pedagogical leadership (SOU 2026:4). Empirically, the paper draws on ongoing qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with 20 experienced Swedish principals from diverse geographical and organisational contexts. The analysis is informed by sensemaking theory (Weick, 1995) and examines the emotion work associated with crisis leadership, and adopts a thematic, interpretive approach to how principals retrospectively narrate and interpret their experiences of crisis leadership and recovery. The preliminary analysis indicates that recovery and resilience are not primarily individual traits but are shaped through relational and organisational conditions. Principals describe extensive emotional labour during and after a crisis, involving the sustained performance of stability and the suppression of vulnerability, with long-term implications for well-being and how principals make sense of their leadership and professional role over time. Opportunities for recovery appear unevenly distributed and closely connected to local conditions, including access to collegial support, organisational buffering, leadership teams and supportive governance structures. In contexts characterised by weak support structures, high administrative burden, and limited autonomy, principals report persistent exhaustion and difficulties sustaining their leadership over time. Leadership sustainability emerges as a systemic and place-sensitive issue rather than an individual responsibility. By foregrounding how local organisational conditions enable or constrain recovery and long-term leadership capacity, the paper contributes to the symposium’s broader critique of ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy approaches and highlights the need for more place-responsive and post-crisis support and recovery structures for principals.

Leo, U., Håkansson, C., Persson, R., & Arvidsson, I. (2026). Perceived Positive or Negative Changes in the Work Situation: A Study of Swedish School Principals’ Intention to Leave, Leadership and Policy in Schools. Richards, T. (2025). School leadership turnover in Sweden: A study of why new school leaders change jobs (Doctoral dissertation). Sahlin, S., Sjöstrand, M., Styf, M., & Lund, S. (2023). Novice Principals' Coping Strategies During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Sweden. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, OnlineFirst, p. 1-18. Sahlin, S., Sjöstrand, M., Styf, M., & Lund, S. (2025). Swedish Principals’ Adaptive Leadership in Unprecedented Times: Learnings from the Pandemic Experiences. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, Online First, p. 1-17. SOU 2026:4. Rektor i fokus – Förutsättningar för ett pedagogiskt ledarskap. Stockholm: Regeringskansliet. Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Sage.