Future of the Principalship
Three key issues
Presentation for School Principals – April 2012
Nicholas Abbey,
President, Victorian Council of School Organisations
nicholas.abbey@optusnet.com.au
Introduction
 Personalisation, autonomy, and
community in education are obviously
interlinked and fundamental
 All three together drive significant
improvements in learning outcomes
and reduce the achievement gaps
 On-going creative work of principals,
teachers and others with all three and,
in turn, how all three will continue to
reinvent the principalship
School stakeholders’ views
 Stakeholders’ support for greater local
decision-making in a context of:
 A strong system of public education
 Local clusters and networks of schools
 Strong support from the Department
 Obvious concerns that autonomy can:
 Increase demands on existing resources
 Exacerbate the tension between the leadership
role and managerial and administrative tasks
 Create a multi-tiered non-‘system’ of schools
Context of school autonomy
 School autonomy is, of course, double-edged
 How autonomy reshapes the principalship
reveals both the opportunities and challenges
 There is always the risk that the principalship
is overloaded with a cross-cutting cacophony
of expectations that serve to hinder deep
action (Fullan, ‘What’s Worth Fighting for in
the Principalship?’)
 Coupled with the job requirements that
obviously can far exceed the reasonable
capacities of any one person (Davis et al,
‘School Leadership Study’)
Three key issues
1. Personalised learning – principals, teachers,
parents, students and community partners
strengthening the match between:
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Learning content, resources and learning opportunities located
across schools, families and the community and
Each learner as a whole person with particular needs, interests,
aspirations, strengths and preferences
2. Autonomy – the extent to which a school or
cluster develops its own goals and strategies
consistent with the needs of its own context
3. Community partnerships involving educators,
parents, students and community members
Key issue 1 - Personalisation
 Leadership for students’ personalised learning
is the educational rationale for autonomy
 Personalisation is a powerful means to better
combine parents’ practical wisdom and
educators’ professional pedagogical knowledge
 “Personalised learning will only become reality
when schools become much more networked,
collaborating not only with other schools, but
with families, community groups and other
public agencies” (Charles Leadbeater)
 The very future of public education may pivot
on on-going work with personalisation
Choice and personalisation
 A wider choice than “which school should my
child attend?” is “what kind of education?”
 Students personalising their own learning to
some degree (e.g., a theory-practice mix)
 Parents’ choices as partners in personalised
learning, collectively through governance and
individually through partnering with the school
over their child’s education
 Principals’ and teachers’ choices over the
curriculum (Robin Alexander) and pedagogy
(their freedom to contextualise learning in
contrast to a top-down ‘pressure pedagogy’)
 A principals’ roundtable and working group?
Choice and public education
 Being clear about two types of choice:
 Between-school choices - parents and students
selecting a school other than the one in their area
 Within-school choices - the decision-making
learning journey unique to each individual student
within a school, the factors influencing their
choices and progress along the way, and the
choices made by parents, teachers and principals
 Surprisingly little research has been
conducted on the nature, extent and impact
on learning outcomes of principal, teacher,
parent and student choice within schools
Key issue 2 - Autonomy
 Different types and degrees of autonomy:
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Curriculum and pedagogy – choices about what and how to teach
Leadership and governance - choices to do with school leadership, who
participates in key decisions, and what processes are used
Timetabling - choices about time use within the school day and calendar
Staffing - choices about who to employ and how to allocate staff positions
Finances - choices about resources - and space - choices about facilities
 Important for schools to be free to do what?
 The administratively autonomous school has
been the main approach in many countries
 What matters: autonomy in teaching and
learning (e.g., student motivation research)
 Research shows that education systems (in
which schools have greater control over the
curriculum/pedagogy) achieve better results
How autonomy evolves
 Older ‘silo’ models of autonomy may give way
to models of collaborative autonomy:
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Clusters and networks of schools
Economies of scale and resource-sharing
Better system supports across schools
Collaborative staff arrangements
 Increased autonomy balanced by a strong
policy and support framework of collaboration
 Autonomy minus collaboration equals ‘have’
and ‘have-not’ schools and educational
opportunities for students (John Dunford)
Opportunities via autonomy
1. More steps toward a ‘motivational curriculum’
(Stewart Ranson) and what Robin Alexander
refers to as a ‘community curriculum’ taking
up to 30 per cent of time, as can be planned
by a school or a cluster of schools
2. Parents, teachers and students as strategic
partners contributing to personalisation
3. Strengthening mutual professional support
through clusters of schools, and building
broader professional communities, given that
individual students’ needs do not fit within
the narrow specialisms of any one profession
School councils/boards
 Do governing boards really matter?
 Three models of school governance:
1. Business model – can schools be governed
on the basis of volunteers just ‘helping out’?
2. Stakeholder model – providing a voice for
teachers, parents, students and others
3. A community governance model (that may
draw upon the best elements of 1 & 2)
 Organising a governance roundtable
discussion among stakeholders and
reviewing ‘what works’ in governance
School councils’ good practices
 A school’s strategic plan with at least one
shared school-family-community goal
 Council meeting agendas with a sharp focus
on key issues in the strategic plan
 More use of occasional forums in which
teachers, parents and students explore key
questions about school improvement
 But need more facilitators who are skilful at
creating safe, respectful places for school
community dialogues about the challenges,
opportunities and options for action
 Governance will obviously be pivotal in
developing P-12 clusters of schools
More good practices
 Creating teams to share ideas and to
champion the P-12 clusters agenda
 More use may be made of tools such as a
council matrix to list the skills, diversity
and experience of members, comprising
categories of expertise and diversity such
as SES, race/ethnicity, gender and age
 The best school council membership
obviously reflects the behaviours a school
expects + brings particular skills into the
council + reflects diversity and networks
 Improved professional development for
council presidents will become crucial
And … some more
 Schools that have a technology policy and
plan, created by a team involving teachers,
parents and students and detailing:
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A shared vision, goal and objectives for ICT
Learning, curriculum and ICT links
Family and community partnerships
On-line protocols and turn-around times
Professional learning for all stakeholders
 Victoria’s potential to be a world leader in
culturally inclusive teaching and learning
including via the better use of technology
 The work of the Ministerial Advisory Council
for a Multilingual and Multicultural Victoria
Key issue 3 - Community
 Collaborative autonomy equals community
 Student autonomy – students developing
their own personal learning networks (PLN)
specific to their needs, goals and interests
 Learning communities on the larger level:
 Clusters and networks of schools in partnership
with community organisations and businesses
 The work of schools to infuse the preschool,
primary, secondary and post-compulsory levels of
education with greater coherence
 Becoming critical are the level of support for
community partnership brokers and the
work of partners such as local government
Community governance
 The policy agenda is clear: the shared
responsibility of schools, families and
communities for the personalised learning
and development of the whole child,
supported by much stronger partnership
building and collaborative working
 The emerging model of governance reflects
this continuing shift from locating learning
mainly or merely within an institution to
one in which schools and the wider
community are collectively responsible
 Profile current good practices and work out
the principles of community governance
Information and assistance
 Victorian Council of School Organisations
 Website: www.viccso.org.au
 Telephone: (03) 9429-5900
 E-mail: info@viccso.org.au and
nicholas.abbey@optusnet.com.au
 School council membership brochure at
www.viccso.org.au/docs/membershipbrochure.pdf
 School council training can be arranged,
including assistance with the Department's
‘Improving School Governance’ materials