Leading Under Pressure: Leadership for Social Inclusion
by Daniel Muijs, Mel Ainscow, Alan Dyson, Carlo Raffo, Sue Goldrick, Kristin Kerr, Clare Lennie, and Susie Miles
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Overview
As principals seek to implement the New Zealand Curriculum, they will find this report very useful. The focus is on ways to improve educational attainment for all students through the removal of barriers to engagement and achievement. It looks at the types of school leadership that might assist in improving social inclusion for young people and their families. There is a useful discussion about what is meant by social inclusion.
The full report includes case studies of six primary and secondary schools with quite different features and profiles. In each case, the studies had three main concerns:
- improving achievement and qualifications for all social and ethnic groups
- overcoming barriers to learning that exist within particular groups
- enhancing other capacities and skills of children from disadvantaged groups.
The findings from the schools suggest that recent developments in New Zealand provide a positive context for improving social inclusion and the attainment of all young people. A strong alignment of vision with implementation is important, as is the opportunity to adapt the curriculum to meet the specific needs of the schools’ populations. School leadership needs to have an explicit focus on inclusion and to lead with purpose in order to motivate staff to maintain a consistent set of messages.
This is challenging material which will give school leaders some very interesting issues to reflect on.
Reflective questions
These reflective questions might guide you in your reading of this article:
- The report suggests that leadership for social inclusion will have “combinations of imposition, staff changes, negotiation and discussion”. In implementing change in your school, how would you need to balance these four approaches?
- To what extent will your school be able to use the voices and participation of students in developing and implementing a social inclusion agenda? Will they be consulted on issues of teaching and learning, for example? Will they be represented in decision making about changes to how the school will run?
- In terms of the three main concerns of a social inclusion agenda for your school – improving achievement, overcoming barriers to achievement, and enhancing other capacities – which will be your priority, and why? How does it relate to your school’s vision?
Reference
Muijs, D., Ainscow, M., Dyson, A., Raffo, C., Goldrick, S., Kerr, K. et al. (2007). Leading under pressure: Leadership for social inclusion. Nottingham, UK: National College for School Leadership.
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