The governing bodies of publicly funded schools in England are currently facing a number of substantive challenges of various kinds. Many of the challenges are long-standing, while others relate to the current context for governing wrought by recent education policy developments initiated by central government. A number of the challenges are immediate and intense, and may well develop over time. The challenges result from both policy imperatives and the challenge of governing effectively – procedural imperatives. The intention of this article is to analyse the challenges facing governing bodies in England. We argue that the challenges interact and synergize and could develop into ‘a perfect storm’, which could have significant implications for the security and stability of the education system and for society generally. Our thinking is shaped by the notion of interactive governance (Kooiman, 2003), which posits that the workings of the school governance network, of which school governing is a part, is best understood in terms of interactions. Following this introduction, we provide some background information for those not familiar with the school governing system in England. We then very briefly describe the three research projects in which we have been involved that form the empirical base for the article (Balarin et al., 2008; James et al., 2010, 2012, 2013). The challenges facing governing bodies are considered under the headings: school governing’s low profile; the institution and the environment; accountability; and the role and the responsibility of school governing bodies. The way these different challenges interconnect and add together is discussed in the penultimate section. In the final section, we make some concluding comments.
This article reports on research into headteacher performance management in England. The English school system couples organisational autonomy with close scrutiny of educational outcomes. The management of the performance of headteachers is a central aspect of such a system. The research involved a systematic literature review and the collection of data via national surveys, expert interviews and case studies. The findings point to three overarching conditions essential for what we identify as 'performance leadership': relational trust between the headteacher and the governing body; situational awareness by the governing body of the school's circumstances and the headteacher's lived experience of the role; and a systems perspective shared by the headteacher and governing body of performance management as one aspect of a comprehensive, interactive system of internal accountability, not merely an annual rite of passage. The study found that capacity in any two conditions offers a foundation for developing capability in the third. It also revealed the dominant role played by middle-tier structures in defining what constitutes 'effective' performance for any school or group of schools. The article offers insight into the changing landscape of performance expectations, for school leaders as well as for those who oversee their work.
This is an electronic version of an article published in Eddy Spicer, D. H., 2011. Power and knowledge-building in teacher inquiry: negotiating interpersonal and ideational difference. Language and Education, 25 (1), pp. 1-17. Language and Education is available online at: This is an electronic uncorrected preprint version of an article published as:Eddy Spicer, D. H. (2011). Power and knowledge-building in teacher inquiry: negotiating interpersonal and ideational difference. Language and Education, 25(1), 1-17. Language and Education is available online at:http://www.informaworld. AbstractProfessional collaboration in schools features prominently in contemporary approaches to educational change. Advocates highlight the importance of situated knowledge to continuous teacher learning, sustained school reform, and improved student learning. Critics portray collaboration as an invisible and coercive means of official control. The framework presented in this paper aims to treat these perspectives not as ideological positions but as starting points for empirical investigation into the dynamics of power in professional collaboration. The framework draws on social-semiotic theories of language and functional linguistics to portray the ways in which the development of ideas and the development of social relationsideational and interpersonal meaning-move in concert. Excerpts from an in-depth study of interaction among science teachers and teacher-leaders in a secondary school undergoing broad reform illustrate application of this framework. Attention to the dynamics of support and challenge in the most generative of these interactions reveals distinctive patterns of the negotiation of interpersonal and ideational meaning. These patterns of control provide a means of connecting the microprocesses of building knowledge with the broader dynamics of power at play in educational change.[181 words]
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