Symposium Programme
The 3p Network is proposing one symposium session, which ideally, would take place on January 5th
as it is planned to integrate this with the two network breakfast meetings on January 4th and 6th.
The symposium will aim to support the aspirations of the ICSEI 2014 organizing committee to:
• strengthen national and international educational networks to promote powerful research about
school effectiveness, school improvement and innovation and to engage researchers, policy makers
and practitioners in ongoing conversations about the interpretation and the application of research
in practice
• critically examine the strengths and weaknesses of different theoretical paradigms of learning and
to explore how different conceptions frame and influence educational change efforts, especially in a
global, knowledge-based, technologically wired context.
It will seek to address the ICSEI 2014 theme of “examples of field-based projects to improve the
quality of education linked to existing research on and/or trends in school effectiveness and
improvement theory and practice” through individual presentations which will be thematically
linked in order to provide maximum opportunities for ICSEI participants to engage with key issues for
system reform. These are aimed at bringing together policy makers, politicians and practitioners in
order to consider how they, in their respective roles, can make an effective contribution to
improving outcomes for children and young people. Through individual case studies and an
interactive presentation style it is hoped to engage participants in discussion and comparative
dialogue in order for them to consider the implications of the developments outlined during the
symposium for their own organisational and professional practice.
“Your capacity to innovate will depend on who is part of your alliance. Creating new products relies
on creative teams. Changing entire systems, however, requires alliances of partners who will be co–
innovators working alongside you and distributors who will take the product to market. Successful
systems innovators create constellations of other actors aligned around them.”
Charles Leadbeater. (2013)
This interactive symposium will consider specific examples of leadership development initiatives,
which aim to create the optimum conditions for improving the educational and wellbeing outcomes
for children and young people. The facilitators will provide examples of thematic practice from a
number of distinctly different national systems, which aim to develop the leadership qualities of
those in senior leadership positions in public services for children, young people and families, using
these as a stimulus for discussion and reflection. The brief case studies are:
New collaborative practice
Recent initiatives by the Dutch government encourage schools in the Netherlands to create alliances
with other schools and institutions that deliver children services in order in order to build more
effective, efficient and cooperative ways of offering effective support for students who are mentally
and/or physically disabled. Although this may have lead to a tremendous rise in numbers of regional
networks where school boards meet in order to negotiate the terms of such a cooperation, there is
also evidence that these networks do not produce what is expected: i.e. better aligned interventions
that benefit the students. This case study will present an overview of a pilot project with ten
secondary school organizations, which provides a practice example of how schools find it difficult to
explore and overcome the political and institutional challenges presented by this national policy.
Strategic changes for transformation
This presentation will outline the development of a strategy for transformational dialogue aimed at
supporting creative alliances between organisations and agencies. It will also consider integrating
the theory U model of Otto Scharmer regarding the different levels of dealing with complexity and
the presenting mode of transformation.
Leadership for Change: Creating the optimum conditions for cross-service collaborative practice
Within the UK, those in leadership positions in the public sector generally and services for children
young people and families in particular, are increasingly working in a context of ever growing
complexity and ambiguity where purpose is no longer self evident, permission to act has to be
earned, and the resources to deliver are tempered by a shrinking state.
These complex times call for a more sophisticated approach which recognises that the public is less
tolerant and more demanding than ever before and that, increasingly, there are multiple sources of
authority for the delivery of public services. These are challenges, which require a new and
fundamentally different style of leadership based on collaborative practice where individual power is
ceded to the collective good.
This presentation will provide a brief overview of an international research commission on Systems
Leadership and outline how this construct is underpinning a national programme, which aims to
bring together politicians, policy makers, local authority chief executive officers, directors of children
and adult services, directors of public health and senior leaders in the national health service to
create a common taxonomy of leadership across these public services.
The Central5: The Central European Competency Framework for School Leaders
“What makes a school leader successful in the 21st century?” was the fundamental question which a
Central European expert team investigated. This presentation gives an insight into their work, the
focus of which was school leader competencies and the development (preparation and training) of
school leaders in the region. Building on the results of a 3-year long co-operation, partners from
Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia sought to develop the first cross-border
competency framework for school leaders; a framework based on the expectations of key
stakeholders such as school leaders, teachers, trainers of leaders, educational experts and policymakers.
The Central5– defines the knowledge, skills and attitudes a school leader is expected to possess in
order to be successful in a turbulent and fast-changing world. As such it encompasses the art and
science of leading a school capturing the complexity of their role in the following five domains
• leading and managing learning and teaching
• leading and managing change
• leading and managing self
• leading and managing others
• leading and managing the institution.
Examples of local collaborative initiatives in The Netherlands
Schools are encouraged to reach out for cooperation with other agencies involved with childcare. In
the town of Medemblik the relative success of these efforts seems not only to depend on the
ambitions of the schools and their Boards but also on the policies of the local Council that created a
framework in which cooperation seems to be the new norm.
Presenter: Naomi Mertens
The 3P Network members will also present a taxonomy of good practice based on their experiences
in bringing together practitioners from education and other institutions involved with services for
children. This brochure, which will draw upon examples from across the full network membership,
will be made available for those who will attend the symposium.
As the respondent, Karen Seashore she will aim to engage the participants in an in-depth discussion
focused on the presented case studies, which seeks to explore the critical factors, which create the
optimum conditions for the development of effective leadership for changing times.
Participants will be encouraged to participate in open discussion, sharing practice and drawing
conclusions regarding the implications in the presented models for the development of school and
“local authority” leadership in their own settings.