Strategic leadership

Strategic leadership is based on long-term planning. It involves establishing and maintaining systems, allocating resources, and communicating vision. Principals need to maintain the focus clearly on the central vision for their school.

New Zealand articles and resources

Rethinking school-wide self-review: a New Zealand model and application

Cashmere Primary School in Christchurch was already well set up in terms of school development and review processes. Principal Jacqui Duncan used her sabbatical time to think about ways to advance their practices of critical school-wide self-review. This article examines the process that she used.

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New Zealand school stories

Kaipaki School

Sue Quinnell is leading school curriculum development at Kaipaki School, a family-oriented, country school near Hamilton. Her story focuses on literacy and on the literacy-rich environment of the school.

Other resources

Reframing Reform

by Terrence Deal

In this article, Deal looks at how reformers (rather than practitioners) need to shift their thinking, or world view, about what it means to reform.

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Systems Thinkers in Action: Moving Beyond the Standards Plateau

by Michael Fullan

In this article, Michael Fullan’s argument is simple and profound: If a system is striving for both “high equity and excellence”, then policy and practice have to focus on system improvement. This means that school leaders have to be almost as concerned about the success of other schools as they are about their own school. Sustained improvement of schools is not possible unless the whole system is moving forward.

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Breaking the Leadership Rules: The Five New Rules of Leadership

by Pamela Macklin

This article summarises what makes an effective school leader, and includes leadership examples from political and business sectors. The author emphasises the need for school leaders to be skilled as managers, particularly in knowing how to manage complex school environments and how to get the most value out of the system.

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Breaking the Leadership Rules: What is the Educational ‘Bottom Line’?

by Paul Power

This paper from the Australian Curriculum Corporation Conference, Breaking the Leadership Rules, held in Hobart in 2004, is a quick read. The writer, Paul Power, pulls together the features of leadership that are successful both in education and in the business world.

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Building leadership capacity: helping leaders learn

by John West-Burnham

This National College for School Leadership (NCSL) thinkpiece from John West-Burnham presents an argument supporting the notion of distributed leadership in schools. A key idea in the argument is that organisations that are focused on the learning of children should have structures that reflect learning relationships.

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Do Schools Work?

by Pat Thomson

This article invites school communities to pay attention to what children really enjoy and will benefit from in terms of developing genuine expertise from their experience of school.

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Enchanted Headteachers: Sustainability in Primary School Headship

by Ronnie Woods

This report looks at the notion of 'enchanted headteachers'. These are principals who have successfully led their schools with commitment and enthusiasm. The author conducted a series of interviews with long-standing principals and examined the characteristics that have made them successful.

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Mission Impossible? A Strategic View of Efforts to Lead the Transformation of Schools

by Brian Caldwell

This article considers the challenges and possibilities for school leaders as they seek to transform schools, and provides examples of schools trying different models of leadership.

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