CHAPTER 1. SCHOOL LEADERSHIP MATTERS – 25
Even if not all school choice settings actually put pressure on schools and school leaders to compete, in some environments school leaders are more and more expected to market their schools efficiently, know what competing schools offer, develop niches for their schools and maintain good customer relations with students and parents (Leithwood, 2001). Therefore they are required to lead strategically and discern a wide range of local, national and international developments, threats and opportunities that may affect their schools (Barnett, undated).
A renewed focus on teaching and learning The policy directions reviewed above have been part of a broader trend to strengthen education systems and improve student performance. For most countries, this has meant some or all of the following: raising levels of overall student performance, closing the gap in achievement between student populations, providing inclusive education services for such populations as students with special needs and immigrant children, reducing dropout rates and achieving greater efficiency. The combination of mandates and programmes developed to reach these goals has one common denominator: to increase the focus of schools on teaching and learning. Schools in several countries are in particular being asked to increase individualisation and personalisation of learning and instruction and to provide more inclusive and multicultural instruction. As the key intermediary between central policy and classroom practice and as the primary agent setting the conditions in school for effective teaching and learning, the school leader bears much of the responsibility for translating policy into improved teaching and learning. Scholars (Elmore, 2008; Mulford, 2003) are now suggesting that an essential function of school leadership is to foster “organisational learning”, that is to build the capacity of the school for high performance and continuous improvement through the development of staff, creating the climate and conditions for collective learning and thoughtful use of data to improve curriculum and instruction.
Catering to the needs of increasingly diverse student populations Schools in almost all countries are serving a more heterogeneous population and are under pressure to provide more inclusive and multiculturally sensitive programmes. Countries as diverse as Austria, Chile and Finland report facing challenges of increasingly heterogeneous populations for whom teachers may need to adopt more sensitive teaching methods and to invest extra effort in overcoming skills and language obstacles. Many countries are setting policy goals to address these issues. In Austria for example, every school must develop a programme to ensure that each student who failed to reach the objectives of the curriculum receives a suitably individualised education. Similarly, municipal primary and lower secondary schools in Denmark must develop a study plan for each student. Schools in several countries such as England, Ireland and Spain face the challenge of ensuring effective education for considerable numbers of traveller and migrant students. Personalisation strategies in countries like Sweden and England are driving schools to embed assessment, data analysis and the design of learning experiences into the routine of teaching, to adopt a broader range of teaching techniques, to offer a more responsive curriculum, to adapt the organisation of the school and to establish links with service providers beyond the school.
IMPROVING SCHOOL LEADERSHIP, VOLUME 1: POLICY AND PRACTICE – ISBN 978-92-64-04467-8 – © OECD 2008