Conference Agenda

This paper examines the characteristics of leadership that underpin an effective Professional Learning Community (PLC) in Northern Ireland (NI). In light of a renewed focus in NI on Teacher Professional learning (TPL), PLCs are increasingly being seen as a vehicle for school improvement, and promoted as such within policy (Department of Education, 2016). However, exactly how effective PLCs are to be cultivated and developed remains elusive, with many potential pitfalls (Eaude, 2019; Gray et al., 2016). With this as a backdrop, recent discussion on the topic of PLCs in schools has focussed on the role of school leadership teams in facilitating PLCs that stimulate inquiry, reflective dialogue and a commitment to positive change (Azorín et al., 2020).

The research question was therefore identified as: How is leadership manifested in an effective Professional Learning Community?

The paper is a case study of a large, comprehensive post-primary school in Belfast, NI. In this school, the recent adoption of the formal PLC model coincided with a new management structure: a principal and vice-principal supported by five assistant principals who each oversee one area of development. Consensus from non-hierarchical, open PLC meetings is fed back into formal management structures for inclusion in the school’s development plan.

The study used a qualitative approach within an interpretivist paradigm. Semi-structured interviews with school leaders (principal, vice principals) and teaching staff were conducted in order to elicit and explore the particular characteristics that contributed to the effective functioning of a PLC in this context. The approach was one of looking for strengths, and sought a practical understanding of the nature of leadership within an effective PLC, while also recognising the need to examine critically a phenomenon that has often been overapplied. Interviews were coded thematically using a Braun and Clarke analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Results coalesced around several main themes, which were further structured into the why, the how and the what of effective leadership. The why was concerned with ethos and values, particularly the centrality of a service ethic among leaders. This emanated forth in the how: distributed leadership, collegial trust amongst staff, and between staff and leadership, and in school structures that enabled professional learning to be dispersed across the staff body. Finally, the what examined the results of effective leadership of the PLC: powerful teacher professional learning, increased teacher agency, and, ultimately, positive impact on pupils.

The results of this study shine a light on the shape of effective leadership in the implementation of PLCs. The study has importance for schools seeking to journey along this path, and for those responsible for policy development in the area of school leadership and TPL. With its emphasis on leadership for professional learning in service of wider school improvement, this paper connects clearly with the theme of ICSEI 2024. In particular, it contributes to the conference sub-theme of Leading improvement collaboratively and sustainably, by providing insight into a successful approach to collaborative, sustainable leadership.

Introduction

Continuing professional development for school leaders, based in their specific leadership contexts is essential for school effectiveness and improvement. This research explores a professional learning and research intervention program between two researchers and three diverse Australian schools that form our cases, as school university partnerships over a one year period, and longer. The overarching goal was for leaders to work well together to support the development of people, pedagogy and wellbeing in their school. These goals were specifically aligned with the strategic plans of each school. The aim was for middle leaders to develop a collective framework for long term change, as they made decisions about their interactions, cultural norms, and improvement practices and the individual and collective habits about people and pedagogy that underlie practices and develop knowledge and skills that could enable them to lead learning together in a sustainable way.

Background literature

Middle leaders in schools have the capacity to directly influence pedagogical practices that enhance student outcomes whilst supporting the wellbeing of students and colleagues. At the same time, the role of middle leaders in schools is not always certain or consistent. Middle leaders are the key enactors of curriculum reform and professional learning in schools as they lead their colleagues in classrooms and the students in their learning area (Grootenboer, 2018). Middle leaders bridge the academic and pastoral spheres of learners. Learners are both teachers and students. Middle leaders do not lead effectively in isolation, even if they are excellent. When middle leaders develop their full capacity to work together with leaders, teachers and students, increasing their sphere of influence, they lead beyond the middle, as they advocate for excellence, which we believe is advocating for the most appropriate learning needs of students and teachers (Day & Grice, 2019). This form of collective efficacy is in contrast to middle managers, who administrate in silos, confined to their teaching team, and remain ill-equipped to share in the enactment and ownership of a whole school strategic plan. Middle leaders who are leading beyond the middle (Day and Grice, 2019), inspire teachers and students to further develop their learning strengths through professional relationships that are supported by carefully planned school structures, communicative learning spaces (Sjolie, Francisco & Langalotz, 2019), and architectures over time.

Findings

Our work is centred around a continuous research and evaluation framework. Interviews and surveys with participants have given us insights into the role and impact of quality professional education in the context of school effectiveness and improvement, and the strengths and limitations of a partnership approach from a researcher perspective. Research and professional learning opportunities supported the middle leadership team to grow in their collective efficacy, and was dependent upon the leadership conditions, interactions, and beliefs within each of the schools. Findings support the growing body of international evidence demonstrating the impact of research/policy/practice collaboration and partnerships on improving the effectiveness of education in schools, particularly in diagnosing school readiness for professional learning partnerships.

This paper explores perspectives on politically cognisant leadership for school effectiveness and improvement, internationally and through a university and school district research/policy/practice professional learning partnership. Principals worldwide are navigating a complex global landscape in which volatility and inequity have been heightened through and since the Covid-19 pandemic. Given such global challenges, reflected in glocal policy trajectories, political literacy is increasingly essential in principals/headteachers if they are to reconcile the fundamental and escalating tensions around the purpose(s) of education and learning, not least the paradox of Equity and Excellence. Political astuteness, as a leadership attribute, is promoted in many systems globally, including Scotland, where the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s (GTCS) mandatory professional standards for headteachers (principals) highlight the imperative of leadership that is research informed, with leaders who are adept at interrogating and navigating the complexities of education policy and politics. Articulations of the principal role are underpinned by social justice, and a recognition of the power of education to challenge pervasive political and social injustices that undermine inclusion and equality.

This paper uses Scotland’s context as a case study to report on an innovative university/district partnership; the Enhanced Political Awareness (EPA) programme, designed to realise the prescribed GTCS standards around political literacy to improve student learning and school effectiveness. EPA aims to nurture school leaders’ political astuteness and their knowledge, confidence and capacity to foster critically conscious school communities that will advance and enact positive social change. It strengthens participants’ understanding and interrogation of the political foundations of education and social policy, and how policy mandates can support or undermine social justice and equity, in education leadership and in society. This paper illustrates, through three participant perspectives (a district lead, a school principal, and a school curriculum lead) the impact of the EPA programme on inclusive education leadership practice and critical literacy in students. It reports on how the expansion of participants’ critical consciousness has led to deeper understanding of complex glocal and global challenges to education, including the intersections between poverty, inclusion, race and all protected characteristics. EPA has also increased confidence in nurturing critically conscious school communities that will challenge discrimination in all its forms. The paper concludes with a proposition to the ICSEI community around the importance of supporting professional learning and leadership that will enhance students’ and school communities’ capacity to recognise, understand and critique policy and social injustices, to prepare our students for courageous and ethical living, learning and leading in politically and socially volatile times.

Collaboration has long featured as a policy mechanism, an organisational structure, a tool to support professional practice, and a dominant discursive concept in the field of education (Campbell, 2021). Alongside this has been an emphasis on the role of collaborative processes in the leadership of change in educational organisations (Kaufman, et al, 2020). With this comes significant expectations and anticipated outcomes when it comes to how collaboration is understood and mobilised. With much emphasis across the domains of practice, policy, and research highlighting the forms collaboration takes and a values driven orientation to its use, this paper offers a critical examination as to the positioning and possibilities of varied form of leadership to enable collaboration that achieves the intentions behind its use. Drawing upon critical policy analysis and empirical work with primary school headteachers in Scotland, the questions driving this study are:

• How is collaboration understood across the domains of research, policy and practice?

• What is the role of leadership, in all its forms, in processes of educational change?

Deriving from an interpretivist paradigm and articulated within the frame of pragmatic social constructivism, a novel theoretical framework was created, emphasising the contextual influences centred around leadership that enable collaboration to happen. This was utilised in order to analyse how collaboration is understood in the literature in relation to leadership and educational change, and subsequent analysis of data collected. A critical policy analysis focusing on key policy texts, using Scotland as a context of study, drew upon both the novel theoretical framework and an original analytical framework emphasising policy drivers, mechanisms, and consequences. Through these frameworks, this study offers critical insight into dimensions of the leadership of collaboration that are rarely examined. This includes insight into and analysis of the lived reality of the varied forms leadership of collaboration can take through semi-structured interviews with primary school headteachers from two Scottish local authorities, and an exploration of the commonalities and contradictions, with the insights derived through critical policy analysis.

What this study has begun to demonstrate is the limited advancement of thinking in recent years on the meaning and conceptualisation of collaboration, and the role of leadership. To achieve its intended impact, collaboration requires a complex consideration of the varied political and organisational influences on and drivers of collaboration in a range of forms. Through the articulation of an alternative framework for understanding collaboration within the domains of practice, policy, and research, the results of this study offers a new frame through which the complex forms, drivers, and influences of collaboration can be understood, and the implications for those exercising leadership of it from a variety of positions and standpoints within a system. In doing so, the study demonstrates the need for further critical examination of where power is situated within systems in order to enable more responsive approaches to collaboration to emerge from within the communities they are intended to impact, and in doing so, more successfully strive towards broader systemic goals.