Gurushala

Classroom Learning

School Leadership Learning

Among various training models across countries, England’s National College for School Leadership (NCSL), more recently renamed the National College for the Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services (NC), has been ‘hailed as an outstanding example of innovation’ (Bush, 2006: 508). However, the work of the College has already been the subject of many publications, including some by the authors of this paper, too numerous to enumerate here. In contrast, this paper will examine how school leaders make sense of their own development as leaders in the day-to-day world of the school. By exploring their learning experience as perceived within varied contexts, light can be thrown on the debates about how best to understand the location of the continuing professional development (CPD) of school leaders and about who is best placed to grow future leaders. The term ‘school leaders’, for the purpose of the current discussion, includes headteachers, deputy head teachers, assistant headteachers, and subject leaders in primary schools/heads of departments in secondary schools.

What are school leaders’ perceptions of the impact of experiential learning on themselves and their schools?
What role do headteachers play in facilitating leadership learning?

Educational leadership is the process of enlisting and guiding the talents and energies of teachers, pupils, and parents toward achieving common educational aims. This term is often used synonymously with School leadership in the United States and has supplanted educational management in the United Kingdom.

There is also a large and growing literature on school leadership mentoring and coaching. Bush is typical of those who review the potential for mentoring school leaders in a positive manner. For example, Bush & Glover (2005) posit that mentoring is often highly successful in promoting the development of practicing and aspiring leaders. In education in England, the term mentoring has been applied as a core element in the induction of new headteachers (Bush & Middlewood, 2005). Another model of mentoring is that of apprenticeship (Bush & Jackson, 2002). Effective apprenticeships provide an opportunity to encourage broad experiences that promote new ideas, creativity, and risk-taking (Crow, 2005). In England until comparatively recently, people became headteachers by means of on-the-job training through an apprenticeship model (Weindling & Dimmock, 2006), and Bush (2008b: 54–5) has noted that ‘heads serve a long apprenticeship (on average 20 years) as teachers and deputies, before becoming head teachers’. This system witnesses an informal learning process in the growth of headteachers through their professional lives as qualified teachers, senior teachers, curriculum leaders, deputy heads, and eventually as headteachers.

About the author

Usha Rani is an educator in India. Any views expressed are personal.

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