Positive education is being increasingly applied to improve students' wellbeing in schools. The main positive education strategies adopted by schools consist of teaching wellbeing skills directly to students to increase their resilience, positive emotion, engagement, and meaning. These wellbeing skills can be either added to or integrated into the existing curricula of schools. While school leaders and teachers have a key role to play as change agents in institutionalizing positive education and developing 'happy' schools, little research exists in the literature on leadership practices in happy schools. The current article attempts to fill this knowledge gap by reporting a qualitative case study of leadership practices for improving students' wellbeing. The case study was set in a junior secondary school in Guangzhou, China, where the wellbeing of secondary school students is generally low as a result of academic pressure. Research methods included interviews with school leaders and teachers, observation of lessons, and document analysis. The said school implemented an alternative approach underpinned by positive expectation of student development; that is, it embraced a student-centered approach in curriculum adaptation, pedagogical design, staff development and resource management. This approach aimed to relieve the academic pressure on students and to better support their learning and development. Findings show that, after the school had adopted wellbeing-oriented education for 3 years, student learning and wellbeing were greatly improved. This study expands the idea of positive education practices beyond the direct teaching of wellbeing skills and enriches our understanding of positive education in China.
Purpose
– Multi-cycle Learning Study and multi-cycle Lesson Study are the main collaborative action research approaches for teacher professional development in Hong Kong. The sustaining of these Lesson Study innovations may be inhibited by many challenges. The purpose of this paper is to identify the strategies school leaders utilized to overcome challenges and sustain Lesson Study innovations successfully in a Hong Kong primary school.
Design/methodology/approach
– In-depth case study was adopted as the methodological approach to explore how Lesson Study was implemented to improve teaching and learning in the school and what leadership practices were enacted to sustain Lesson Study in the case school.
Findings
– It was found that the leadership team under study had adopted positive peer leadership to successfully implement Lesson Study activities. The strategies of positive peer leadership will be discussed in detail.
Research limitations/implications
– The paper concludes with implications for sustaining school development and professional development with Lesson Study and a checklist of positive peer leadership practices for school leaders, teacher leaders and teacher trainers.
Originality/value
– This paper will enrich the understanding of successful leadership practices for sustaining Lesson Study innovations in schools, on which few empirical studies have been conducted.
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