Attaining the Standard for Headship and Enhancing the Leader’s Capacity to Impact School Improvement

• In Event: Learning to Lead: Exploring Leadership Development, Effectiveness, and Capacity in U.S. Schools

Abstract

University leadership preparation programmes seek to provide participants with leadership experiences that will enable them to succeed in an environment where they are continually responding to change and fulfilling the demand for continuous school improvement. To minimise the lack of connectivity with the reality of a head teacher’s world and that of the aspiring leader engaged in postgraduate study, the flexible route to attaining the Standard for Headship programme places emphasis on participants’ ability to successfully develop and lead improvement initiatives in their own teaching and learning environments. Through action research, leadership capacity building skills such as problem identification, asking the correct questions, collecting and analysing meaningful data and interpreting implications for improving practice are acquired, tried and tested.

Author

• Elizabeth Anne Halsall, The University of Aberdeen