School leadership in disadvantaged communities

By Steve Jones, Sheffield Hallam University, U.K.

Conference paper presented at the B.E.R.A. conference, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 11th September 2003

Introduction

This paper reports on emerging outcomes from a research project being conducted in South Yorkshire, U.K. It is jointly sponsored by the four local education authorities and Sheffield Hallam University and is concerned with exploring perceptions of successful leadership in highly disadvantaged communities, leading to the development of theory and policy outcomes. The South Yorkshire area contains communities that are amongst the most deprived in the country and which are in receipt of most major support programmes provided by the government and the European Union.

In the initial phase of the project, semi-structured interviews took place with a cross-section of practitioners and key stakeholders in the sub-region. This process gathered a range of broad views about the actual situation facing schools, what is perceived to be successful educationally and differences of view concerning the best way of tackling these issues. These outcomes formed the basis of further discussions with colleagues in two of the local education authorities, leading to the identification of two similar yet contrasting communities where a case study has subsequently been conducted.

This paper explores the emerging major themes and issues from the case study and outlines some possible policy implications for schools and their leaders in similar disadvantaged communities. These themes and issues arising from the data are of an interim nature at this stage.

The nature of disadvantaged communities and the need for “transformation”

Janet Ouston (1999:2) recognised the potential centrality of education to achieving wider necessary societal change when she included in her five underpinning purposes of education “to facilitate social mobility”, “as a means of combating inequality” and “as an economic investment for the future of individuals in society”. Similarly, Barber and Dann (1995) regard school improvement as the starting-point for the achievement of societal change and the tackling of poverty, as does the present U.K. government. In many ways, the government’s insistence that “poverty is no excuse for educational failure” (Stephen Byers in 1997 when education minister) and that all pupils regardless of social background should be able to perform academically, given the right kinds of intervention, is laudable as it expresses a view that all young people should be given the chance to succeed. The U.K. Government’s “Excellence in Cities” Green Paper expressed the view that inner cities are often characterised by expectations of pupils that are too low, by parental and pupil anxiety, by a culture of under-achievement and by a perception that failure is endemic. They believe that while these factors may go some way towards explaining why standards in inner cities are low, they do not justify or excuse them and they certainly do not exempt all involved with inner city education from striving to do better.

However, Ball (1990, 2000) and others are critical of this approach and an over-reliance on a school improvement agenda to make major changes. They see the deep-seated nature of class and societal differences in the inner city and believe that a broader agenda of radical societal change needs to sit alongside any school-centred initiatives to raise educational outcomes. As Schoon (2001:174) points out “Even if they made great advances, schools serving poor areas would still generally lag behind those with more affluent intakes” as “deprivation makes a rotten foundation on which to build a learning society”.

The U.K. government would no doubt argue that a programme to tackle wider inner-city problems is starting to take shape. An array of initiatives across the board is targeting extra resources at the poorest areas, including: the Street Crime Initiative, Neighbourhood Renewal Funding, Single Regeneration Budget, Health Action Zones, Education Action Zones (E.A.Zs), Surestart, New Deal for Communities, Housing Pathfinder Schemes, public sector housing investment programmes, E.U. structure funds and various Department of Trade and Industry programmes delivered through regional agencies. Together with increased funding going into the health service, schools and other public services over the next period of time it is arguably possible to see that some improvements are taking place in the inner city and are due to gather momentum. However, the question is whether these initiatives are likely to be enough to make substantial and necessary changes to transform the fabric of the inner cities and to improve people’s life chances. Leaving on one side the issue of the best way to reduce inequalities in society as a whole, arguably what is required to change people’s perception and experience of their local community is change above and beyond these government programmes to create a critical mass of transformation in an area that is capable of genuinely transforming its future prospects.

Dilemmas of leadership

Hampden-Turner (1990:14) argues that “while all of us need to reconcile value dilemmas as part of everyday living, those who lead groups or organisations are beset by many dilemmas, stemming from opposing demands and claims made upon them”. It is likely that dilemmas in high-pressure situations such as delivery of school education in disadvantaged communities are likely to be all the starker.

Providing leadership strength and clarity but also giving staff ownership

In situations where schools in disadvantaged communities have been designated as “failing” the challenge for leaders is enormous. Extremely testing situations arise day-to-day in schools where major challenges to the health, well-being or integrity of the organisation can occur. In these kinds of situations strength of leadership is likely to be extremely important. Nevertheless, amongst the different leadership styles currently being advocated, the transformational model appears to have particularly strong support among the different levels of school leadership. This style of leadership emphasises connecting with a team and the sharing of leadership throughout an organisation. According to Bennis and Nanus (1997:3) it “commits people to action, converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into agents of change”. Silins and Mulford (2001) characterise the transformational model as “empowering, sensitive to local and community aspirations, supportive of followers, capable of building collaborative school cultures and emphasising shared vision”. As Senge (1990:62) emphasises “a shared vision is a vision that many people are truly committed to because it reflects their own personal values”.

However, it appears that even in situations in the case study schools where leaders are committed to co-operative working, shared leadership and the creation of a shared agenda for action that encompasses not only staff but also the wider community, situations constantly arise where considerable burdens are placed on the shoulders of the head teacher. This is particularly true where either shared vision is difficult to achieve or where limited leadership capacity exists within the senior management team. As one head teacher’s observations show from the account of an informal chat: “he feels he initiates a lot of development in the school and is sometimes in a position of having to cajole staff into action. He admits this can be somewhat “top-down”. Therefore he believes that developing middle managers is a key thing for him to do in the school”. So keeping the balance right in terms of providing clear leadership and engendering co-operation is a major dilemma in these tough school situations.

Even where there is success, it is nevertheless fragile

Even where schools have travelled a long way from being in “special measures” by substantially raising attainment levels, dramatically improving teaching and learning, re-engineering the curriculum to make it more accessible and successfully engaging the surrounding community in support of the school, disadvantaged communities provide great challenges that can threaten to undermine all the gains in a short period of time. Where numbers of teachers are on long-term sickness absence or where an aspect of practice is found to be of an unacceptable standard the nature of leadership or the quality of the school’s provision can be called into question and put at risk. For example, of particular concern is violent behaviour by pupils recently arrived at one of the primary schools. As the head teacher observes “It’s the extreme violent behaviour for a significant minority and it’s just pulled the rug … we’ve got four infant and seven others who are damaging the building and causing danger to other children … we’ve never come across children like these before”. Another head teacher refers to leadership in his school as being like “spinning plates and some plates are coming to a stop”. The schools in the study are regarded generally as extremely successful with very effective leadership, nevertheless fragility is extremely difficult to eradicate because of the nature of the communities they serve.

In the midst of hope there looms despair

The two families of schools in the study have some extremely energetic and able staff working in them, exhibiting massive commitment, and high-level teaching skills. As a result substantial progress educationally is being made across the board. Experiencing success and progress in situations of stress and challenge such as these clearly energises many teachers. However, this can come at a cost to them personally as their professional commitment can create an unacceptable work-life balance and the sheer weight of issues can weigh down on them from time to time. For instance, although one respondent confessed that she “loved to come to work” and that “her staff were particularly up for it and that they had taken risks to come to work at the school”, another colleague confessed that although “teachers in the main cope” this inevitably “takes it out of them” and “at around half term teachers start to make mistakes”. The efforts required to produce high quality education provision in these circumstances are clearly immense, particularly with major financial pressures impacting on schools, with high pressure expectations on staff to deliver ever-higher test results and with the burden of increased numbers of children exhibiting a wide and daunting range of behavioural, emotional and home-related difficulties. The margin between optimism and despair in these circumstances can therefore often be a small one.

School dilemmas

Keeping behaviour and disaffection subordinate to teaching and learning

There is no doubt that behaviour and disaffection are high-profile issues in both case study communities, although more explicitly so in one of them. Only one of the E.A.Z.s (Community 1) has identified behaviour as one of its key priorities whilst also having a Behaviour Improvement Programme (B.I.P.). The other E.A.Z. (Community 2) is due to start on this initiative in the coming school year. Certainly a conscious effort has been made not to concentrate on the behaviour issue in Community 2. One of its head teachers believes that “the foundation of positive behaviour must be built on good relationships and talking, listening and monitoring children”. Work across the E.A.Z. takes place to share good practice and to deploy educational psychologist expertise on behaviour management issues but the emphasis across the zone is to look at curriculum change to engage disaffected or challenging young people.

In Community 1 similar views are encountered about the need to look at curriculum change, teaching and learning and relationships to tackle behaviour. However, a pragmatic approach is taken to the extent that, according to one L.E.A. adviser, “behaviour needs to stand shoulder with other initiatives”. There is certainly a widely-held belief in Community 1 that disaffection is starting earlier and that behaviour problems are extremely challenging in the mainstream situation, far more than in the past. As a result renewed efforts are being made to tackle the relationships difficulties that some young people experience, to improve literacy, numeracy and support available for pupils requiring it and to increasingly use expressive arts to help children with their self-confidence and feelings of alienation, particularly boys. As one member of staff put it, some Year 9/13-14 year olds expressive arts work had recently helped some lads to “really connect”, adding that “those who struggle with literacy and self-control have been able to do something positive and there have been lots of opportunities to give positive feedback”.

So the widely-held belief that teaching and learning must be the focus for tackling behaviour and disaffection across both school families is constantly being tested and challenged by the staffs’ day-to-day experience of the actual situation. There is therefore a major struggle to keep behaviour and alienation issues subordinate. This presents a constant challenge to schools’ beliefs about the nature of the educational process and a constant dilemma for individuals and schools that never goes away.

Needing to focus on the children when the tendency is to focus on the staff

Bailey (p.22) points out that a league table culture in schools creates conflicting pressures on teachers: to achieve results and at the same time to meet the needs of the disaffected. She goes on to say that the key to resolving this dilemma is to concentrate on relationships so that “mutual respect is key: pupil for teacher and teacher for pupil” (p.23). Certainly, the needs of individual challenging youngsters balanced against the integrity of the school and the ability of staff to cope is a constant dilemma. One L.E.A. adviser complains that too many head teachers only wished the more challenging youngsters to be taken off their hands “for a substantial amount of time”. Rather, she believes “they need to be in school as they are part of the community and sending them to a unit somewhere else is not the answer”.

In Community 2 there is a constant tension in the planning meetings for the new Pathway project for pupils in danger of exclusion from school. The aim is “to negotiate with kids on their terms” to enable them to negotiate a curriculum that they feel is useful and relevant to them. However, the tendency is for staff planning the programme to raise issues about “the relative expense to the school”, “wear and tear on the staff themselves” and “staff availability”.

These constant pressures in a staff body not to be child-centred in everyday thinking and planning represent a constant battle and a dilemma for school leaders and other colleagues. These pressures require constant challenge by those anxious to push the boundaries of what is possible in curriculum and in relationships terms as far as children are concerned.

The inclusion issue can go against the immediate interests of the school

Bailey (p.23) believes that inclusive policies need to be underpinned by “open forms of communication between parents, schools and local agencies”, improved “quality and level of professional training and development” together with an encouragement for “all concerned to take responsibility”. Certainly, the renewed policy of recent years for schools to reduce the numbers of exclusions and at the same time to adopt more inclusive policies is putting massive pressures on schools, particularly in disadvantaged communities. Particularly challenging are “sharp-edged kids” who generally require specialist help, often one-to-one, and for whom inadequate resources are available for this to happen.

Views are divided in schools about what teachers should do about it. Many professionals believe passionately that teachers need to increase their skill level across the board to be able to cope with these young people whilst other staff argue for more targeted resources to provide the necessary tailored educational input. In one school, the vision is firmly inclusive and substantial resources are deployed to help individuals and groups of children: “professional counsellors for four days per week (provided by the E.A.Z.), paired reading (Year 10s/14-15 year olds helping younger children), peer mentoring and peer mediation” and “a quarter of the staff are support staff”. The head teacher explains that “nobody wants the really disaffected kids” but nevertheless he was “extremely keen to keep the difficult kids in school if possible”. Nevertheless, another member of staff expresses disquiet that “the school exports a lot of their disaffected young people to other agencies (about sixty out of two hundred and forty in a year group at Year 11/15-16 year olds)”. He feels that “teachers find it hard to learn the necessary lessons about how to work with these young people effectively in the school situation” as a result. By contrast, another local head teacher believes that “an isolated unit would … be a useful provision: self-contained with one-to-one supervision and guidance”. She feels “these children shouldn’t be in school because nothing’s relevant for them and they can’t be rescued in that situation”.

This dilemma is particularly keen with a philosophical issue at its heart about what inclusion should mean in practice. This in turn is linked to profound issues of under-funding and an urgent need for all teachers to renew their practice.