—— current policy landscape —— current models of leadership and challenges —— leadership tasks and use of time —— implications for leadership skills, qualities and support Compared with the national profile of schools, the responding sample reflected a higher proportion of secondary and special schools; and a higher proportion of schools from the lowest quintile of FSM eligibility. (Academies, as noted above, were slightly over-represented for the number at the time.) To address this and ensure the robustness of the findings, weights were calculated using both school type and quintiles of FSM eligibility. Owing to the differences between the schools that were represented among the three respondent groups (headteachers, chairs of governors and middle/senior leaders), different weights were created for each of the three surveys. Further, large schools were over-represented in the sample of primary and secondary schools who responded to the middle/senior leaders surveys. Thus, in addition to school type and quintile of FSM eligibility, school size was also used to balance this sample. A breakdown of respondent group by type of school can be seen in Table 1.2. Table 1.2: Number of respondents by school type Type of school
Number responding to headteacher survey
Number responding to chair of governor survey
Number responding to middle/senior leader survey
Primary
402
166
250
Secondary
221
109
173
Academies
67
28
52
Nursery
32
8
11
Pupil referral unit
19
2
14
Special school
92
34
71
Total schools
833
347
571
Source: NFER and IOE leadership survey for the National College, 2012 Note: Type of school is based on the information on the Register of Schools in January/February 2012 (the timing of the survey), not at the time of sampling.
Throughout the report, the key findings from all three surveys (headteachers, chair of governors and middle/ senior leaders) are presented. Responses to common questions are compared across the three groups. Further analyses, including comparison of responses across types of schools, school context (FSM eligibility), Ofsted gradings and school phase are also included, especially on the headteacher data. These have only been reported where statistically significant (for those responding) and where cell sizes were considered sufficiently large to enable robust and valid analyses. Significance testing has been carried out at a value of p<0.05 (which means the probability of this difference arising by chance is less than 5 per cent). Further, latent class analysis, a statistical method that searches for underlying types of individuals (known as latent classes) so that the key patterns across responses can be revealed, was undertaken to examine common patterns in headteacher responses to questions on school autonomy, impact of government policy on their leadership, and school improvement more widely (see especially chapter 4).
Phase 4: In-depth case studies and collection of qualitative data via interviews and focus groups The survey results were used to help devise instruments for the qualitative phase of the research. This phase was made up of 8 case studies, 3 focus groups and telephone interviews with 20 headteachers. a) Case studies: The case studies involved day visits to the schools and academies and were selected from
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