Management in Education

In this article we discuss the experiences of academics who occupy middle-level leadership roles in higher education. We use the term middle management to describe personnel occupying positions below the level of dean and often referred to as associate deans or heads of school. Practitioners rarely turn their attention to their own organizations, and in this study we focus on Australian universities, including our own, and international university experiences. Our study was designed to gather qualitative data via semi-structured interviews, after which our data were crafted into narrative accounts. In answering our research questions, we found that these middle managers perceive their role as overwhelming, with a sense of huge responsibility and little power. They describe their role as reactive, they feel isolated and they enjoy making a difference in others’ lives. Participants acknowledge the importance of developing support structures by building relationships with colleagues.

The article aims to find predictors of study success from a teacher’s perspective that relate to the built environment. The research is based on a national online survey among 1752 teachers at 18 Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences. Multivariate data analyses were used to test the hypothesis that the quality of spatial and functional aspects at educational institutions is positively related to study success. The results show there is a statistically significant positive relationship between the perceived quality of cleanliness, classrooms, classroom conditions, front office and ICT with study success. Closed environments like offices and meeting rooms, but foremost the size of the education institution, relate negatively to study success. Based on the research findings it is clear that a prime consideration in educational built environment design is to facilitate social interaction, and to create meaningful, clean, self-contained and small-scale physical settings for users within large institutions.

This article emerges from work undertaken with leaders from a local authority who took part in a programme entitled ‘Advanced Leadership in Integrated Children’s Services Environment’ or ALICSE programme. The aim of this course was to engage leaders and managers in thinking differently about their roles and to consider how they could make changes to their leadership practices to cope with the fast pace of change now enforced on the educational landscape. Through co-construction of work-based knowledge and the application of integrated leadership theory with a local Higher Education Institution (HEI) during 2012, this research offers some insight into how a group of Local Authority (LA) teams have provided a de-centralised service for vulnerable families whilst maintaining and improving educational standards across the City’s primary schools. A range of leadership, improvement and process strategies are currently being piloted with inner city schools and presented in this paper as a series of vignettes which exemplify these strategies. By taking a more holistic, integrated approach to working with key personnel at both local authority and school level it has been possible to demonstrate a greater alignment between the different LA teams in respect of the support they are offering to the schools. These outcomes have arisen as a result of professional teams working on the development of a more autonomous approach to leadership based on a ‘can do’ attitude firmly embedded within a morally focused culture.

This article reviews the process and achievements of leadership of an improvement and development programme for children’s centres in the context of public value and Ofsted inspection. It analyses how the capacity has been developed of children’s centre managers to work more strategically and collectively. Distributed leadership theory is applied to this context, which has received limited attention from this perspective. It has helped to clarify how leadership is distributed in such complex multi-professional public sector contexts and placed emphasis on the dialogue and facilitation of the leadership practice. A model of an improvement cycle is constructed, and leading this programme is likened to turning a heavy flywheel. Although there has been a shift in thinking within the leadership team of the centres and more evidence of a collective professional will, regular input by the programme leader has been necessary to maintain the momentum of improvements. Ofsted grades have improved, and these centres are now in a stronger position to demonstrate their impact, which is important for maintaining funding at a time of austerity.

In many countries, expectations of schools are very high and rising, with increasingly serious consequences for schools if those expectations are not met. It is as if only ‘perfect schools’ will suffice – only then will all those with an interest in schools be satisfied. In this article, we argue that schools cannot be perfect and that indeed perfection is undesirable, for important educational/developmental reasons. We use the ‘good enough mother’ concept to explain and develop an alternative notion, the ‘good enough school’. We draw on a round-table discussion at the 2013 BELMAS Annual Conference in Edinburgh where we explained the concept and discussed vignettes of events in schools in relation to the ‘good enough school’ idea.

This case study explores the way that school art in England remains a marginalised subject at secondary level, despite the expansion of art-based career opportunities. A recent government document evaluating art, craft and design education highlights the potential role of head teachers in raising an art department’s profile. The current study found that school management having low expectations of the art department, together with the unimportance attached to art by parents, contribute to the continued undermining of the subject. It is proposed that leadership has a part to play in expecting the art curriculum to include effective differentiation in order to improve subject esteem and attainment without alienating less engaged students. In particular, individualised learning can ensure that academic drawing skills are taught where appropriate, enabling access to vocational degree courses.