Abstract
The notion of school autonomy was one of the main concepts underpinning the Education Reform Act 1988, widely regarded as the most significant piece of educational legislation in the UK since the Education Act 1944. The strengths and limitations of the 1988 Act were debated in a special issue of this journal, edited by Michael Strain and Tim Simkins in 2008. Brian Caldwell was one of the first proponents of self-managing schools and his article in the Special Issue (Caldwell, 2008: 250) concludes that ‘self management of schools is an appropriate strategy given that each school contains a unique mix of needs, interests, aptitudes and aspirations’. Ron Glatter (2012), in the 40th anniversary issue of EMAL, acknowledged Caldwell’s influence (Caldwell and Spinks, 1988 ) in promoting school autonomy. However, Glatter (2012: 564) also discusses the paradox that, ‘despite the persistent and growing emphasis on autonomy, most school practitioners consider themselves significantly constrained by government requirements’. This is because enhanced autonomy has been matched, or exceeded, by tighter accountability frameworks and processes, ‘a high stakes accountability framework’ (Glatter, 2012: 568), including national inspections and performance ‘league tables’. Autonomy and accountability are opposing aspects of school system change; twin dimensions of the reform agenda. School leaders and governing bodies are free to decide how to implement reform but not whether to do so. Defying government prescriptions, or Ofsted requirements, is a high risk strategy.
In the first article of this issue, Rob Higham and Peter Earley assess the coalition government’s view that contemporary reform will increase the autonomy of schools in England. They note the Department of Education’s (2010) claim that ‘the case for the benefits of school autonomy has been established beyond doubt’. One central aspect of this agenda is the rapid expansion of academies, which are independent of local government. The authors conducted a large-scale survey of headteachers, governors, and senior and middle leaders, with almost 2000 responses, 8 school case studies, 20 telephone interviews and 3 focus group discussions. Significantly, more than half the heads did not believe that academy status would increase their autonomy in practice. The authors conclude that school leaders ‘anticipated greater power over aspects of school management but not over the aims and purposes of schooling’.
The second article, by Andrew Peterson, discusses school leaders’ perceptions of the impact of extended services in England, a key aspect of the previous (Labour) government’s educational policy. The author notes that this provision mirrors similar initiatives in Australia, Scotland and the USA, all designed to provide services to local communities. Drawing on interview data with school leaders in a large local authority, the author concludes that extended services impacted ‘positively and symbiotically’ on the nature and depth of their relationships with families and communities.
The next two articles address aspects of partnerships in England. Jaswinder Dhillon examines senior managers’ perspectives, in colleges, private training organizations and universities, on leading and managing educational partnerships. She conducted nine observations of meetings of a partnership body in the Midlands and carried out 18 interviews with members of this partnership. She notes that partnerships, and related concepts, are ‘prominent features’ of educational policy and practice. She concludes that personal commitment and leadership skills can turn weak, ineffective, partnerships into strong, successful and sustainable collaborations.
Charlotte Woods develops the partnership theme to examine how senior business managers provide leadership across a group of schools. Drawing on a national evaluation of the shared business management demonstration project, she notes partnerships arose from the greater professionalization of school business management in England. The research involved baseline survey data from heads and business managers, analysis of documentary data and semi-structured interviews with 125 project participants. The author concludes that school business managers are ‘modelling new forms of leadership and bringing benefits to their partnerships’ but she adds that serious questions remain about the ‘ongoing re-culturation of schools along business lines’.
Teacher leadership is the focus of the next article, by Daniel Muijs, who asks whether early career teachers can take on such roles. He examines this issue through survey and case study research with teachers taking the Teach First teacher education and leadership programme, and with heads, middle leaders and other teachers. The author links teacher leadership to distributed leadership and notes that the former includes both formal and informal leadership roles. He notes that many newly qualified teachers were keen to exercise leadership and were often able to do so. He concludes that ‘tapping into the leadership potential of beginning teachers’ can contribute to school improvement.
Peter Earley, in his second contribution to this issue, and Sara Bubb’s article focuses on the work of new headteachers. She notes that previous research showed that headship is pressured, highly accountable and stressful. The article reports on the findings of research with six new heads of inner city schools, all of whom were in the first year of their first headship. Drawing on observations and interviews, she shows that their work was fast paced, stressful and relentless. One key finding was the perceived loneliness of these heads. She concludes that heads need time for reflection but also notes the difficulty of creating space for this.
The next article, by Michael Wilson, reports the perspectives of Chinese school leaders on their leadership learning and development. The author’s research involved analysis of key documents, an interview with the education official responsible for local school leadership training, and interviews with ten school leaders. He notes that formal leadership learning tends to be institutionalized, bureaucratic, driven by a curricular agenda and perceived by leaders to be too theoretical. He concludes that participants were frustrated with a training agenda biased towards policy implementation, with their own needs largely marginalized.
In the final article, Damien Page discusses the transition of English construction lecturers from the ‘culture of construction’ to the culture of further education. He conducted interviews with 14 heads of construction departments, all of whom were male. He notes the challenges of recruiting lecturers, partly because they would need to take a pay cut. He also comments on the problems involved in moving from a masculine building site environment to the ‘caring and emotional labour-intensive world of FE’. The author concludes that heads of construction departments find it difficult to induct new staff into the ‘reconstructed community of practice possessing a reconstructed masculinity’.
I am most grateful to the hundreds of referees who review papers for EMAL. Peer review depends heavily on this voluntary activity. The list below shows all the referees who reviewed papers in the past 12 months.
Ian Abbott
Nick Adnett
Airini
Anca Alba
Fatemah Alhazmi
Tracey Allen
Munazza Ambreen
Lynn Ang
Panayiotis Angelides
Khalid Arar
Paul Armstrong
Linet Arthur
Anastasia Athanasoula-Reppa
Carol Auubrey
James Avis
Riffatt Awan
Bruce Barnett
Kerry Barnett
Julian Beckton
Les Bell
Ulrika Bergmark
Michael Bezzina
Stephen Bigger
Tom Bisschoff
Sonia Blandford
Albert Boerema
Ronit Bogler
Mark Boylan
Joanna Bragg
Christopher Branson
Ann Briggs
Mary Briggs
Mark Brundrett
Miles Bryant
Tristan Bunnell
Ryan Burkett
Hugh Busher
Brian Caldwell
Jim Cambridge
David Cameron
Verity Campbell-Barr
Carol Cardno
Yusuf Cerit
Christopher Chapman
Judith Chapman
Shuangye Chen
Pam Christie
Joanne Cliffe
Maxwell Coates
Andrew Coleman
Marianne Coleman
Chris Comber
Lindsey Conner
Michael Connolly
Paula Cordeiro
Michael Cowie
David Cracknell
Megan Crawford
Carolyn Crippen
Gary Crow
Brent Davies
Peter Davies
Chris Day
Barbara de la Harpe
Elsabe De Villiers
Neil Dempster
Mary Dereshiwsky
Geert Devos
Jaswinder Dhillon
Nolutho Diko
Clive Dimmock
Stephen Dinham
Pauline Dixon
Stunky Duku
Scott Eacott
Peter Earley
Nadine Engels
Sigrun Ertesvåg
Linda Evans
Nima Fallah
Catherine Farrell
Iman Fattoum
Caroline Faulkner
Hope-Arlene Fennell
Tanya Fitzgerald
Alan Floyd
Annette Foley
Kay Fuller
Mary Gardiner
Norma Ghamrawi
Paul Gibbs
Alaster Gibson
Ron Glatter
Derek Glover
David Godfrey
Jonathan Goh
Janet Goodall
Callie Grant
Didi Griffioen
Bennie Grobler
Bernie Grummell
Sedat Gumus
Helen Gunter
David Gurr
Dave Hall
Philip Hallinger
Linda Hammersley-Fletcher
Michael Hammond
Carol Harris
Matthew Harris
David Hartley
Janet Harvey
Richard Hatcher
Johanna Heikka
Jan Heystek
Rob Higham
Amy Hii
Max Hope
Warren Hope
Sabine Hotho
Tiedan Huang
Stephen Huber
Jason Huff
Jeroen Huisman
Julia Ibbotson
Dan Imaniriho
Chris James
Adrian Jarvis
Sandra Jones
Adisorn Juntrasook
Maria Kaparou
Edith Kiggundu
Megan Kimber
Glynn Kirkham
Edith Lai
Gabriele Lakomski
Steinunn Helga Lárusdóttir
Edmond Law
Angeliki Lazaridou
Lee Hean Lim
Tony Lingham
Jiafang Lu
Jacky Lumby
Natasha MacNab
Trevor Male
Felix Maringe
Barbara Martin
Zakhele Mbokazi
Gerry McNamara
Ian McRoy
Lauren Menard
Justine Mercer
Raj Mestry
David Middlewood
Cheri Minckler
Omar Mizel
Kholeka Moloi
Carmen Montecinos
Pontso Moorosi
Marlene Morrison
Vuyisile Msila
David Ng
Claudien Ntahomvukiye
Pat O'Connor
John O'Neill
Dermot O'Reilly
Chris Oates
George Oduro
Dolapo Ogunbawo
Chye Ong
Izhar Oplatka
Eli Ottesen
Nicholas Pang
Petros Pashiardis
Helen Peterson
Ana-Cristina Popescu
James Pounder
Martin Prew
Haiyan Qian
Dawn Quist
Stephen Rayner
Kala Retna
Chris Rhodes
Peter Ribbins
Susan Robinson
Ali Sabanci
Anna Saiti
Michael Salmonowicz
David Sassoon
David Scott
Tamar Shapira
Jonathan Sharples
Tim Simkins
Catherine Simon
Robert Smith
Geoff Southworth
Karen Starr
Howard Stevenson
Michael Strain
Jason Tan
Alison Taysum
Penny Tenuto
Angela Thody
Annette Thomas-Gregory
Leon Tikly
Andrew Townsend
Dorit Tubin
Chris Turner
Jef Verhoeven
Allan Walker
Keith Walker
Teresa Wasonga
Caryn Wells
John West-Burnham
Jane Wilkinson
Michael Wilson
Valerie Wilson
Christine Wise
Ping-man Wong
Elizabeth Wood
Philip Woods
Julie Yamamoto
Malini Yanumula