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Novice head teachers in Scotland:competing expectationsMegan Crawford aa Faculty of Education , University of Cambridge , Cambridge , UKPublished online: 10 Apr 2012.
To cite this article: Megan Crawford (2012) Novice head teachers in Scotland: competingexpectations, School Leadership & Management: Formerly School Organisation, 32:3, 279-290, DOI:10.1080/13632434.2012.669365
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Novice head teachers in Scotland: competing expectations
Megan Crawford*
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
This article examines how novice principals reflect on the adequacy or otherwiseof their preparation. It looks at data drawn from the International Study ofPrincipal Preparation (ISPP), and in particular a questionnaire of principals up tothree years in post, in Scotland. The principals find much about their preparationhas helped them gain confidence as a novice principal, but were unprepared forthe isolation of being a principal. The article also draws on previous research toask whether aspects of preparation can never really prepare principals for thereality of school life.
Keywords: leadership; management; school improvement
Introduction
The role of school principal/head teacher is a demanding one, and in many countries
around the world the expectations of the principal are increasing all the time. The
nature of the role has changed substantially over the past 10 years in countries such
as England, Scotland, Canada and the United States, and has given rise to a set of
expectations and working conditions that many capable people may find unattrac-
tive. The role demands time, energy and expertise, and indeed it seems that fewer and
fewer people are interested in becoming a school principal, especially of the younger
age groups (Anderson et al. 2011, 15; Howson and Sprigade 2011; MacBeath 2011).
Certainly, many school systems are finding increasing difficulty in recruiting
appropriately skilled school principals (Gronn 2003). It has been suggested (Cowie
and Crawford 2008; MacBeath 2011) that some of the reasons for this included
multiple (and often conflicting) accountabilities, and increased demands
and heightened expectations by governments of the role. As Anderson et al.
reported, many teachers see principals as having to be able to balance competing
accountabilities, manage changing government policies and priorities, and plan
strategically in a turbulent educational environment. At the same time they must
process paper work, satisfy parental demands and improve educational standards
with diminishing resources and little genuine autonomy. To help deal with this, many
countries have also increased the types of principal preparation that is available, and
in many incidences, made it mandatory. Excellent preparation could be one way of
giving prospective principals confidence that they can do the job despite these
challenges. One initiative designed to look at this issue is The International Study of
Principal Preparation (ISPP), a research project which is studying a range of
issues and concerns surrounding principal preparation, with a view to developing a
*Email: [email protected]
School Leadership & Management
Vol. 32, No. 3, July 2012, 279�290
ISSN 1363-2434 print/ISSN 1364-2626 online
# 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2012.669365
http://www.tandfonline.com
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cross-cultural understanding of how the capabilities of aspiring school principals
might be developed. The project has led to a number of publications (e.g. Cowie and
Crawford 2008; Onguko, Abdalla, and Webber 2008; Webber and Scott 2010).
Background � the ISPP project
The ISPP was conceived in April 2005, at the annual meeting of the American
Educational Research Association in San Diego, and has spanned a wide range of
countries: Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Jamaica, Mexico, New Zealand,
Scotland, South Africa, Tanzania, Turkey, the United States and China. The focus of
the ISPP is on the research question: How useful are principal preparation
programmes to novice principals? The ISPP design was intentionally international
in scope because the team realised that leadership studies have been criticised for
their focus on westernised responses to educational choices (Dimmock and Walker
2004). The team were interested in gaining new perspectives that would expand and
challenge our assumptions about educational leadership, contexts, professional
relationships and behaviours of all members of the school community.
The project has had four hypotheses from the start:
� that good leadership and management can be taught and nurtured;
� the primary purpose of headship is to facilitate effective teaching and learning;
� principals’ learning needs vary as they progress through their career;
� Cross-cultural perspectives can inform theory and practice.
The project team hold a shared belief that schools are important places and need to
be led and managed by individuals equipped with the values, knowledge, under-
standing and personal abilities that schools and the children in them need and
deserve. We viewed principal preparation as part of school development and
personal and professional development, which suggests that any programme for
individuals needs to be designed to help bring about positive outcomes for schools
too. The team’s own expertise in this area (designing, developing and delivering
preparation programmes) was helpful as we began to look at the extent to which the
capacities developed through our preparation programmes were linked to capacities
in practice once programme participants became school principals.
Research process
A three-stage research process was agreed. Stage one looked at local preparation
programmes in participant countries, and mapped their design, delivery, clients,
content, pedagogy, structure and deliverers. Then, in stage two we researched the
experiences of principals in their first year of appointment in different systems to
identify the challenges they had faced and therefore how their preparation might
have been improved. Case studies were conducted in each country to describe the
early career experience and perceptions of small groups of primary or elementary
school principals. Finally, the findings from both stages led to the development of a
common survey instrument, which was administered internationally as part of an
integrated cross-cultural study of leadership preparation for principals. In particular
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we were looking at the extent to which preparation relates to what is expected of head
teachers and how they behave once they take up post (Walker and Qiam 2006).
This article gives an overview of all these stages in one country, Scotland, as part
of the overall project. In Scotland, as in many other western countries, resources havebeen spent on designing, developing and delivering the Scottish Qualification for
Headship (SQH) programme, and we have been investigating the way that working
on the SQH programme helps shape the professional lives of programme graduates
who become head teachers. Previous articles have looked at the deployment of the
capacities from the SQH in the practice of participants following appointment
(Cowie and Crawford 2008, 2009).
Background � the Scottish context
Scotland has a national Standard for Headship (SfH) which became mandatory for
new head teachers in August 2005. As in its sister country, England, with the
National Qualification for Headship (NPQH) (Crawford and Earley 2011), theintroduction of a standard for new heads had a massive influence on principal
preparation. In Scotland the professional award, the SQH, was aligned with the
academic award of a postgraduate diploma as one route to the qualification. The
SQH is a benchmark qualification, which takes just over two years to complete, and
regional consortia, partnerships of local authorities and universities, are licensed to
deliver the programme by the General Teaching Council for Scotland. The
programme is predominantly workplace based. The candidates have to manage
and lead whole-school projects and provide portfolios of evidence containing a claimfor competence against the Standard. This is supported by a reflective commentary.
Developing as a principal
The ISPP is particularly interested in how novice principals view their training after
they have been in post for a while. Research shows that new head teachers’ needs
change over their first years in the posts (Crow 2007; Rhodes, Brundrett, and Nevill
2009) as they are socialised into the role, and move from novice to experienced
principal. This has been conceived as a two-phase process (Earley and Weindling
2004). Although the new heads may have viewed their preparation, whilst they were
completing it, as effective, socialisation involves complex changes in role conceptua-
lisation and identity (Crow 2007), and it is after preparation that the completion ofthis new identity happens. New principals begin to clearly conceptualise their own set
of values, beliefs and role expectations in preparation, which they take into the new
school context, and begin to fully form them over time. It is also a time for new skills
and networks to form and develop. Before appointment, professional socialisation
begins through programmes of preparation, first-hand experience, and observation
and modelling other head teachers. The second phase, organisational socialisation,
occurs after appointment. Earley and Weindling (2004) suggest that it is in stage two
that personal and professional values, abilities and interpersonal skills seem to becritically important. To look at how this developed with some new head teachers in
Scotland, an initial round of interviews was held after graduates from the programme
had been in post for a year (Cowie and Crawford 2007). Following the first round of
interviews, the five heads in Scotland completed monthly logs over a period of six
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months (Cowie and Crawford 2008). The next phase consisted of a second round of
interviews almost two years later (Cowie and Crawford 2009). Finally a ques-
tionnaire was developed from all the findings thus far, with the hope of bringing
together a larger sample for analysis.
Overall, the approach taken was a narrative one using the idea of storied lives.
The idea of storied lives draws from social psychology by suggesting that self-
narrative is an important part of an individual’s identity formation, and sense of self.
Head teachers are constantly updating their narratives to produce ‘coherent
narratives of self ’ (Kearney 2003, 55). The focus overall was on relationships, and
the interplay between the individual and their contexts (Roberts 2002, 15). Although
the first sample was small (5), we emphasised the ‘lived experience’ of individuals,
and the existence of context-bound, constructed social realities (Muller 1999, 223).
The story that emerged was that the formal preparation programme was not the start
of the story towards headship. All five had been ‘talent spotted’ and encouraged to
accept responsibilities outside the classroom. This helped develop both confidence
and self-belief. All of them had opportunities to ‘learn on the job’ through
secondment, promotion to senior teacher or even acting headship. Day et al.
(2006) note that self-belief influences personal efficacy in teaching, and this may also
be true in terms of readiness for promotion. Situated and social processes helped the
new heads to construct their identity as head teachers as they reflected on values and
purposes. Finally, stage one suggested that the supportive groups established during
the preparation programmes were significant, as they continued beyond the term of
the preparation programme. These groups were also able to deploy the common
language of the SQH to share practice, which was positive for them. There was a
developing confidence in their ability to do the job, as socialisation theory would
suggest. The second phase asked the heads over a six-month period to summarise
their professional activities monthly. They were asked to note down any meetings
and events they participated in or attended and the challenges and successes they
experienced. As well, each new head was asked to identify and describe a significant
incident, issue or theme from each month’s work, and add any other comments that
they felt useful. When the logs were analysed it was found that they seemed to cope
comfortably with competing and multi-faceted demands. As might be expected,
much of their time involved meetings, both in school and in the community more
generally. Managing time was an issue but so was the deployment of excellent
interpersonal skills (Crawford 2009). These novice principals had begun to learn to
cope with competing demands, whilst at the same time keeping a keen eye on other
core issues such as strategic priorities for the future. This was achieved by trying to
ring-fence time for longer-term strategic views.
Finally, a second round of interviews with the initial group was completed in their
third (and in one case fourth) year in post. These are again based on the head
teachers’ interpretations of their experience, and how they reflected upon and
represented this experience (Josselson and Lieblich 1995). The views expressed by our
sample, and those from the other countries, were then used to construct an online
questionnaire. It was hoped that this questionnaire would take the small sample
responses, given over time, and deepen the analysis by a larger group of respondents.
A questionnaire was sent to 140 principals in primary schools in Scotland who had
been in post for between 1 and 3 years.
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Despite extensive follow-up, the result of the survey was disappointing, with a
small sample of 29 responding. Perhaps this reflects the nature of the job, or the fact
that respondents may have been daunted by a questionnaire that appeared long (25
pages). In fact, most of the responses, apart from three open-ended questions, onlyrequired a short tick response. This posed a conundrum � how useful would this be?
Given that there had already been the in-depth earlier work, the responses were used
to re-analyse the initial work, and to see whether there were consistent patterns over
time, as they were now established as principals in their schools. They were asked to
reflect back on the usefulness of their preparation, and what they would have liked
to have seen within that preparation that they felt was missing. The majority (41%)
who replied had been in post for 2�3 years. Twenty-nine responded: 2 men and 27
women. All but one was 35 or older. The schools they led ranged in terms of pupilnumbers from under 100 (24%) to 400�499 (10%), with the majority in the middle. The
settings of the 29 schools were mainly rural (48%), which is not surprising considering
the nature of the topography of Scotland. The analysis may only be a ‘representation
of a representation’ (Krauss 2005, 3) but the new voices do echo the initial findings.
Discussion
The questionnaire sought to discover how the novice head teachers appraised theirtraining when they looked back upon it. Their conception of themselves as leaders was
a part of this reflection, as they tried to unpack the many layers of life as a primary
leader. There is much discussion in the literature of different kinds of leadership, from
solo and transformational to distributed, with both concepts often seeming not to
reflect the reality of small school practice (Crawford, in press). Gronn (2003, 383)
argues that distributed leadership does not adequately explain the different forms of
leadership that may be at work at any one time in a school, from concentrated solo
leaders to much more dispersed forms of networks or collaborations. He argues that adifferent term, that of hybrid leadership, gives a clearer picture of situational practice
because the term allows for a variety of types within it and doesn’t give the discussion
yet another adjectival ‘type’. Also, his work suggests that we should question how
these relationships of interdependence might be categorised. This leaves space for solo
agency and refocuses thinking on the creative, adaptive side of organisations more
generally. The head teachers in this study were not asked to reflect specifically on their
own leadership, but rather on whether their preparation programmes were useful over
time. However, perhaps because the majority of the schools in the sample were smalland rural, solo leadership, and the relentless nature of it for the individual head
teacher, is the most common picture. Only two heads specifically mentioned teams or
devolved leadership. As one wrote on the questionnaire: ‘Having to deal with, and be
responsible for every little thing that happens in school despite a great deal of time
spent on devolving leadership to staff (they don’t want it!!and who could blame them)
being available for everyone all the time’.
The findings from the second round of interviews, and the online questionnaire,
suggest that for our group, most were still enjoying their job, and found much thatwas helpful in their preparation. There were several aspects of the role of principal
which the respondents felt they were well equipped to tackle. These included the
culture of the community where the school was located, and developing relationships
within that community. They felt that both their preparation and experience had
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given them credibility as a head teacher, and that their preparation had also given
them confidence as the school’s leader. Most felt they had been well prepared for
their role in balancing local authority and government priority with local needs. In
terms of the school itself, they also felt well prepared (41%) for initiating and
sustaining school improvement, building positive relationships with staff and
acquiring appropriate resources for the school. Overall, the heads felt they had
not adequately realised the sheer complexity of time management, and the many
layered aspects of the post. They felt, as small school head teachers, that the reactive
nature of headship needed to be experienced to be understood, and that isolation was
a factor that they did not feel adequately prepared to experience. Some areas from
their preparation, or lack of it, stood out:
� The quality and usefulness of preparation;
� Tension between learning on the job and prior preparation.
I will look at each in turn.
Usefulness of preparation
As well as the boost given by on-the-job training, the first stages of the project had
suggested that people need to believe and almost be inspired that this is the right step
to take. The preparation they got both on their work toward the standard and on
local leadership courses seemed to be the way that this inspiration was made into
reality for most of them.
Many of the comments focused on the quality of the experience whilst studying:
A high quality learning experience that made me sure that I wanted to pursue headship.
I would not have been able to do the job without this kind of preparation.
I attended leadership courses that inspired me, and I loved the SQH even although Iwasn’t able to finish the second year due to work commitments.
The last comment highlights one of the key difficulties associated with any
qualification that requires a significant amount of time to complete. However, being
inspired to take on the role does seem to be a very important factor for the mainly
female sample.
Tensions between learning on the job and prior preparation
The heads identified a tension between learning on the job and the learning they had
done beforehand. For them, the utility of the preparation seemed to rest on an effective
mixture of on-the-job work, and inspiration from others. In contrast to the earlier
results, most now wanted extra content information on such items as budgets, bidding
and staff performance issues. This chimes with both Earley and Weindling’s two-stage
process, and later work they carried out (Earley, Evans, and Weindling 2007) which
summarised two studies of exemplary leadership development programmes across the
USA. They noted that one of the common factors was ‘school-based internships
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(ideally of one year) doing meaningful leadership work’ (56). It was certainly
invaluable to this sample to have had practice in the workplace before taking up their
own headship, reflecting our early results in stage one, and this is reflected in the
responses:
Working alongside Head teachers as Depute helped me in working with staff andparents.
I did a long stint as acting head � that was very useful.
Acting Headship gave me the opportunity to feel the weight of the school.
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to act up as Head in my previous school.This lasted 2 and a half years. It was a school where I had previously been Depute for 6years and during my acting HT role I was greatly supported by my substantive head andmy line manager. This was a very good preparation for headship but I’m aware that it wasjust fortunate that my HT was seconded and I was able to act up.
This crucial opportunity to ‘feel the weight of the school’ had enhanced their
learning as a new head teacher. In contrast, one head who had not had this
opportunity commented:
I was unclear about the overall shape of the year and managing forward planningreporting, Christmas, the QA, timescales � I misjudged the time it would take to collectdata for example.
There were also overarching issues.
Overarching issues
Their reflections highlight the importance of how they handle their daily work lives
and ‘the sheer amount of time reacting to others’ needs’. Novice heads need to be
able to manage quite technical tasks, e.g., budget shortfalls leading to a need to learn
how to bid effectively for different ‘pots’ of money. There was an even split amongst
the respondents on whether they had been adequately prepared for technical issues
such as addressing poorly performing staff, or handling budgets.
A significant group (41%) suggested that they were not well prepared for
handling conflict. One head wrote:
There is a history here of staff underperforming and not being dealt with by authority.Bad habits of many years have been very difficult to break and has led to disaffectionwith my management.
The same split can be seen in terms of organising time. One head put this dilemma
very eloquently:
no time to think and be proactive.
Their work/life balance was a difficult one for many, and managing anxieties, especially
if personal circumstances, was difficult. This is reflected in the literature on emotion
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and leadership (Beatty 2000; Briner 1999; Crawford 2011). Other heads were a key
support � ‘the support of other headteachers has been incredibly powerful’. Adjusting
to the isolation of the position had been problematic, as was achieving a work/life
balance, with 44% strongly agreeing that the balancing act was a problem, but not one
that was, at this stage, causing them undue stress. Interestingly, they felt they had been
prepared for this particular issue to occur, and were therefore less anxious about it.
They did, however, comment on aspects that could make them anxious:
The isolation of being a head with no depute.
Worrying that I was failing some students or staff.
Lack of support from line manager. (Council/director of education)
Being judged in the light of the previous head and having to work to change culture inrelation to this.
Just under half (45%) felt they were not adequately prepared to manage budgets
effectively because of the other issues that were involved in the management of the
budget. These included lack of funds, poor knowledge of issues such as bidding, and
lack of support:
Looking after a budget for a crumbling building.
The budget is the most challenging aspect and it’s the only issue the authority appears tocare about.
Dealing with budget cuts.
I can manage budgets but the variety of sources from where money is coming is confusing.
Making bids for money.
Worrying over the budget � very tight and getting tighter!
Difficult having to account to different budget personnel and time consuming when ateaching head.
It would be wrong to suggest that the heads felt that life was difficult all the time.
Many relished the challenges and enjoyed the rewards of being a head teacher:
Great job, but very stressful at times. Cannot share how stressful with staff.
Being a headteacher is exciting, frustrating, and takes over your life. When you enjoy itas I do most days, this is great. At other times it can be overwhelming.
The conundrum of the joys and difficulties was eloquently summed up by one
respondent:
Some days it is the best of times, and then the next is the worst of times! I love it and amcommitted but it has taken over my life and I have a very poor work/life balance at themoment.
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These novices were now regarding themselves, as one put it, ‘as proper head teacher’.
They were clear where they needed assistance, and most knew the best way to gain
support. The challenges of the job, with its many facets, remained uppermost in their
minds, perhaps because the majority completed the survey at the end of the summer
term. Even then, one positive respondent stood out: ‘It is a wonderful job, and working
with an enthusiastic team can bring about changes to children and parents’ lives’.
Conclusion
Being a school principal requires fairly complex, practical and interactive processes
and higher order skills, as well as a deep understanding of school contexts and
cultures. In addition to this, the policy context in many countries means that
principals operate in an ever-changing environment where they need to adapt both
themselves and the organisation in order to meet new benchmarks for success or to
take advantage of new funding sources as they arise. Wildy and Clarke (2008) suggest
that leadership development is incident or absent in many countries around the
world, but even where such development is a central part of government education
policy as in Scotland and England, chances for aspiring and potential school
principals to acquire the majority of the knowledge, understanding and skills that
they require may never be fully possible, no matter how good the preparation. This is
because the process of becoming a principal needs further socialisation in situ. This
means that any qualification needs to be considered in terms of longer-term
continuous development for school leaders. We also know that where leadership
development does exist, it is often in the form of an apprenticeship model that
reinforces traditional conceptualisations of leadership and the status quo (Cowie
2011), and it could be argued that the reported experiences here do this too. Glatter
(2009) makes a key point, I think, when he notes that being able to live with
uncertainty, learn from mistakes, and be agile and adaptive to circumstances are the
skills that will become even more important for future leaders. Certainly, the data in
this questionnaire reflect this.
In these principals/head teachers the effectiveness of preparation is tempered by
the reality of daily life in a small primary school. The learning experiences reported
were a mixture of formal and informal and most of them were defined as intentional
learning experiences, often self-initiated and voluntary. The heads were proactive in
seeking out local support, and their general learning was not always specifically
linked to their headship preparation either by them, or by any mentoring
arrangements that were in place. Throughout the ISPP project it has been suggested
that in principal preparation two very important issues overlap. The first is a systemic
one that deals with the needs of the system to consider succession planning and
ensure the quality and development of schools over time. As was noted at the start,
from this perspective, there seems to be a supply problem in many countries, with
large numbers of vacancies anticipated over the next few years. This research
highlights the other key factor � the need to address the needs of individuals in a
particular context, and allow them to develop greater confidence in their leadership
and management capabilities and acquire appropriate knowledge, understanding and
skills over a period of time. One head neatly summed this dilemma up:
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All preparation is useful but limited to the types of schools you have worked in and theexperiences gained through the posts held in those schools. One of those jobs that aredifficult to prepare for and needs to be experienced to be believed!
Several of the heads also picked up an area of ongoing concern for them �that of ongoing professional development in a time of austerity and budget
constraints:
There is no money for development for staff and though I shouldn’t feel guilty at takingtime and money out of the budget for me, the money is yelling out to be spent in otherways.
If the preparation is, as one head noted, ‘effective in supporting reflection on my
abilities and guiding future development’, then it could be argued that there needs to
be an ongoing framework in place for future development (Earley and Bubb 2007).
The difficulty with this is whether it is nationally framed, by government or not.
While preparation is needed, one model of preparation will not fit all heads in all
circumstances, and therein lies the dilemma for those who make policy.
The research suggests that we do not need to revive the myth of the ‘superhead’
(Crawford 2002), or indeed try to prepare new head teachers to take on such a role.
There will always be some leaders who are exceptional. The new head teachers in
this study gave a frank and open view of what it felt like to take on the post of
head teacher, and the rapid amount of learning they had during the first few years
in post. I noted earlier that Earley and Weindling (2004) point out that it is in situ, in
school, that personal and professional values, abilities and interpersonal skills seem
to be critically important for the development of the new head teacher. One head
teacher called the process of preparation simply ‘awareness raising of the bigger
picture’, and when they were in post, ‘The most difficult job I have ever experienced,
so many layers, so many roles and responsibilities within one post’. The primary
heads in the research felt well prepared for their leadership role, but each school had
its own unique context and challenges for the novice head teacher. Effective
preparation allows head teachers to develop the knowledge and understanding that
they need, against frames of reference to guide their behaviour and decision-making
(Bush 2009; Bush and Glover 2003). Such qualities, attributes and skills can be
learned and developed over time, and the head teachers in this research gave clear
account of how this happened and what they needed to develop even further.
Notes on contributor
Megan Crawford is Reader at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Herresearch interests include leadership preparation and emotion and leadership, all issues whereresearch and practice meet.
References
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Beatty, B. 2000. The emotions of educational leadership: Breaking the silence. InternationalJournal of Leadership in Education 3, no. 4: 331�7.
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