Conference Agenda

School improvement has become a central concern for education systems worldwide as schools are increasingly expected to respond to rapid social, technological, and economic changes while enhancing student learning outcomes. Since school improvement is ideally a holistic endeavour that focuses on enhancing the overall capacity of the school as an organisation, it seeks to influence the collective ability of the school to adapt and evolve, enhance the skills of its staff, and improve the learning environment and outcomes for students. Within this framework, school improvement is understood as a school-level process that involves multiple and interconnected changes, including curriculum reform, pedagogical innovation, instructional practices, the integration of digital technologies, and responsiveness to diverse student needs (Feldhoff, Radisch and Bischof 2016). Contemporary reform agendas emphasise the role of school leaders and teachers as key agents of change responsible for improving planning practices, fostering professional collaboration, building trust, and restructuring school organisations to meet evolving demands (Fullan, 2007; Hopkins, 2001).

Despite sustained policy attention and extensive research, school improvement remains a complex and challenging endeavour. Improvement initiatives often generate mixed responses among educators, ranging from strong commitment to resistance, particularly when changes are perceived as externally imposed, poorly aligned with school contexts, or adding to existing workload pressures. Research has identified several recurring pitfalls in school improvement processes, such as limited leadership capacity, insufficient teacher involvement, weak professional trust, fragmented planning, and policy overload (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012; Datnow and Park, 2018). These challenges can undermine implementation efforts and restrict the sustainability of change.

Despite these shared aspirations, school improvement unfolds differently across national contexts. England and Türkiye represent contrasting policy environments that shape how improvement is conceptualised and enacted at the school level. In England, school improvement is strongly influenced by accountability mechanisms, inspection regimes, and performance-based evaluation, with school leaders expected to drive change through data-informed decision-making and external monitoring. Schools in England are subject to accountability across multiple dimensions of performance, primarily through inspections conducted by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) and through national assessment outcomes that are published in school performance tables (Ehren, Hutchinson and Muñoz-Chereau, 2023). In Türkiye, school improvement operates within a more centralised governance structure, where national regulations, standardised curricula, and limited school autonomy shape leadership practices and improvement strategies (OECD, 2020) These systemic differences influence how schools experience change and the extent to which teachers and leaders can exercise professional agency.

Research indicates that improvement initiatives in both contexts are frequently accompanied by significant challenges. Common pitfalls include resistance to change, increased workload, limited teacher participation in decision-making, insufficient professional development, and tensions between external accountability demands and internal school needs (Datnow and Park, 2018; Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012;). However, the nature and intensity of these challenges may differ across education systems due to variations in policy design, leadership autonomy, and organisational culture. While England’s performative accountability structures may generate compliance-driven change, Turkey’s centralised system may constrain local innovation and school-based decision-making.

The problem addressed in this study is the limited comparative understanding of how school leaders perceive and navigate pitfalls during school improvement processes in different policy contexts, and what strategies they employ to address these challenges. Existing research often examines school improvement within single national settings, offering limited insight into how systemic conditions shape leaders’ experiences and responses to change. By comparing school leaders’ views in England and Turkey, this study aims to identify context-specific and shared pitfalls, as well as effective strategies for navigating improvement processes. Such comparative insights are essential for developing more context-responsive school improvement policies and leadership practices in both education systems.

School Improvement Support (SIS)—also referred to as School Development Support or external school consultancy—has increasingly gained recognition as a long-term support mechanism for schools aiming to ensure and enhance the quality of schoolwork. SIS encompasses sustained, structured support delivered by an external professional who collaborates with schools to foster strategic development and quality improvement. Although the role of SIS has expanded across education systems, there remains a limited understanding of how SIS is concretely implemented in practice, particularly in socially disadvantaged school settings where structural challenges intersect with intensified developmental needs. These gaps persist despite emerging literature on school development consultancy and its empirical foundations (e.g., Altrichter et al., 2021; Dedering et al., 2022), and despite policy interest in SIS as a systems-level instrument to support educational equity. Education Leadership plays an important part in the communication and collaboration of the members of the school and the SIS agents but also with other members related to this appraoch like the regional supervision and other regional partners.

This contribution builds on findings from the longitudinal mixed‑methods accompanying study of a five-year programme in Germany. The programme engaged diverse school types situated in socioeconomically disadvantaged environments and aimed to support school leadership and organizational development by providing external consultancy. The study investigated school leaders’ and staff members’ perceptions of SIS quality and benefits and examined how SIS processes unfold across roles, procedures, formats, and methods. It further explored the conditions that facilitate or hinder successful SIS implementation at the consultant, school, and system levels.

Annual surveys administered over three years captured quantitative data from 69–122 schools per survey cycle. These surveys focused on SIS quality (process and outcome dimensions) and perceptions of school quality indicators such as communication climate and organizational development. In addition, semi‑structured interviews were conducted with eleven consultants supporting 50 project schools, complemented by consultant process diaries, project plans, and 40 interviews with deputy principals, steering committee members, teachers, and other educational professionals.

The findings indicate that schools generally perceive SIS as beneficial and of high quality. Regression analyses demonstrate that higher‑rated process qualities—such as trustful relationships, professional competence of consultants, and clarity of role understanding—are associated with more positive perceptions of outcome qualities, including competence development and organizational change. In turn, favorable outcome ratings correlate with improvements in school quality indicators over time. These findings align with earlier German‑ and English‑language research highlighting the value of external consultancy for school improvement (e.g., Goecke, 2018; Cameron, 2010) and confirming its complexity and context dependence.

Qualitative analyses reveal substantial variation in how SIS is implemented in practice. Consultants’ roles range from non‑directive facilitators who enable reflection and support need‑driven developmental processes to more directive experts guiding strategic problem‑solving. This tension—between open, process‑oriented support and targeted, results‑oriented consultancy—reappears across schools and is shaped by institutional expectations, consultant expertise, and the specific challenges present in disadvantaged settings. SIS addresses a broad spectrum of developmental areas, including teaching and learning, personnel development, organizational structures, and networking with external partners, rarely focusing on a single topic. Success factors include methodological expertise and neutrality at the consultant level; resources, willingness to change, and trust at the school level; and goal clarity, role definition, and system alignment at the overarching system level.

The study’s multi-perspective, longitudinal, and methodologically differentiated design provides a unique empirical foundation for advancing SIS as a powerful and sustainable support mechanism within education systems. Its findings not only deepen theoretical and empirical understandings of SIS but also offer practical insights into designing effective consultancy processes tailored to schools in challenging circumstances.

This proposal is based on a chapter for an edited book Understanding Educational Leadership. It is included in the section ‘The Practice of Educational Leadership’. The aim is to provide leaders with options for developing people.

Conceptual Framework

There are several key educational practices important in creating school success (Drysdale & Gurr, 2017). These include setting direction, developing people, developing the organisation, improving teaching and learning, understanding the context, self-leadership and strategies for influencing others. While we argue that all these practices are important, in this proposal we focus on the leadership practice of developing people.

Developing people is crucial for educational leaders because it directly impacts the overall effectiveness and success of the school (Goode et al., 2023; Sun et al., 2024). When educational leaders at all levels invest in the growth and development of their staff, they are building the capacity of people and enabling them to do what is expected of them to achieve their goals effectively and sustainably.

In line with the conference theme of knowing and acting, we propose three approaches or lens for developing people: human resources, professional learning, and talent management. These approaches reflect a multidisciplinary perspective. While they can be conceived as separate approaches they also overlap.

The human resource approach encompasses a systematic approach to developing people within an organisational setting. To put this into practice, we offer a conceptual framework for building capacity. The framework is based on six key HR functions: career aspiration; teacher preparation; sourcing quality teachers; induction/socialisation; human resource development; and performance management. These are key stages in a teacher’s journey. We unpack each stage and show how leaders can lead and manage teachers’ career journeys through strategic interventions. Underpinning this is a leader’s influence on culture, renumeration, working conditions and motivation. While adopted from business management, the human resources approach has been applied to education for over two decades Castetter (1996); Rebore (2003); Bush et al, 2019).

The second approach is professional learning derived from education research (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017). This includes of a range of formal and information activities and opportunities. We propose four guiding questions for leading professional learning: 1. What to learn? 2. How to learn? 3. From whom to learn? 4. What is the role of school leaders in this process? What learning is worthwhile for teachers and leaders, focuses on content and pedagogy: professional learning is embedded discipline knowledge (content) and professional learning is embedded in classroom experience (pedagogy). In determining how to learn, leaders will consider the level of learning, what is current, best and next practice, adult learning principles, stages of learning, and methodology design. From whom to learn will include experts, peers, authoritative sources, teacher leaders, mentors and coaches, student voice and AI. The role of leaders is to create a relational work environment, develop structures for learning, create and maintain a learning culture, build a learning community, and help teachers move from theory to practice.

The third approach is talent management. Derived from business, the talent management approach has recently been adopted in education. It focuses on the attraction, selection, development, deployment and retention of quality teachers and leaders (DeArmond et al., 2012). It involves a comprehensive set of practices that foster and maximise the potential and performance of teachers and leaders. Leaders will build teacher and leadership capacity by adapting a talent management mindset and strategy (Tran & Jenkins, 2022). While attempting to attract quality teachers is important, a talent management strategy will adopt a ‘grow your own’ approach (Edwards & Kraft, 2024).