Developing system leaders : A research engagement approach

For those in ‘system leader’ roles in English schools, whether formally designated or informally appropriated, there has not been much systematic or long-term thinking about professional development to date. To contribute to such thinking, this paper presents a common framework for system leader development, based on consultancy research. The framework is broad in scope and critical in approach and can be adapted to role and function. Working within the assumption that all system leaders are consultants, it shows how a research engagement process can combine consultancy practice with consultancy research to generate professional development activities. During this process, system leaders work with higher education institution (HEI) researchers, to progressively interrogate their practice against consultancy research around four themes: ‘relationships’; ‘skills’; ‘outcomes’; and ‘the wider context’. At the same time, the researchers variously move through the roles of providers of research summaries, to co-creators of professional development activities, to co-facilitators of Action Learning Sets. It is argued that this research engagement process has much to offer HEIs and groups of schools wishing to collaborate on system leader development in the interest of generating principled, long-term helping relationships in a self- improving system

The use of consultancy research in the development of Specialist Leaders of Education

‘System leadership’, the offering of school to school support, now has a 10 year history of research and practice in English schools. System Leaders of Education who offer such support are essentially consultants. Yet so far, consultancy research has not been used to help System leaders inform and reflect on their practice. (Could this have something to do with consultancy’s bad press in the critical business literature?) So, we want to find out how such research might be used to inform practice and the design of professional development activity for the most recent tranche of ‘system leaders’, Specialist Leaders of Education, in the context of a Teaching Schools Alliance

Leadership, Preparation and Development (LPD) RIG annual report, May 2019

This Research Interest Group (RIG) grew out of rounds of British Educational Leadership, Management & Administration Society (BELMAS)-funded small-scale research projects, a number of which were reported in BELMAS journals. Members of the group are interested in what the implications are for Leadership, Preparation and Development (LPD) of the structural changes to system leadership (in particular), how these can be researched and what research tells us about the implications. Specific areas of interest include: * an analysis of leadership preparation and development from the micro-, meso-, macro- and international levels; * School-to-School Support (S2SS), Systems Leadership more generally, and the roles of Specialist and National Leaders of Education (SLEs and NLEs; Local Leaders – LLEs – are no longer to be designated from 2018 onwards); * types of leaders and leadership that emerge, and the motivations that drive these, and types of support preparation that they require through system change, such as National Professional Qualification for Executive Leaders (NPQEL); * monitoring the ongoing changes in NPQs; the rise of the Chartered College LPD qualifications such as the CTeach qualification; * the demise of NCTL, and the creation of TNLF and its research arm; * the changes to school improvement funding rounds, conditions and scale, and where appropriate, the ongoing Opportunity Area (OA) funding developments. The RIG meets twice a year. The most common format is an invited speaker and/or presentations by RIG members on their own research. Meetings in previous years have taken place focusing on leadership development changes and role of SLE deployment, S2SS and so on, and the history of all our meetings to date is on the LPD RIG page: http://www.belmas.org.uk/Rig-LD/Latest. The two meetings for 2018–2019 academic year are: * 8 November 2018: Systems Leadership: where are we up to with structural change development impacting on system leadership capacity, held at the University of Derby. This was a set of five divergent presentations from current system leaders and a talk from Rob Higham on the Greany & Higham August 2018 Report. * 27 June 2019: UK/US textbook Book Launch at Sheffield Hallam University, with contributions from five of the authors of the book that has come out of some of the RIG contributions and wider BELMAS contributions by Val Storey, Pauline Stonehouse, Phil Mason and others. The immediate focus of the group’s work is on the June event, and then we will turn our thoughts to what next for the RIG. Over the next year, it is hoped that this RIG will continue to explore further issues at the UK level that came out in the recent textbook, in line with our macro and international research dimensions, as well as our ongoing S2SS support work at the micro- and meso levels. We are aware of our overlap with other RIGs and the influence of their work on ours, especially the Structural Reform Group, Governing and Governance and Critical Education and Policy Studies (CEPaLs), and continue to be very happy to work with them as appropriate

Gender, race, faith and economics: factors impacting on aspirant school leaders

This paper explores factors inhibiting or encouraging women and men from Black and Minority ethnic (BME) and also white backgrounds to pursue leadership positions in English schools. Data are drawn from a commissioned evaluation of three National College of Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) funded courses which investigated the extent to which the 33 participants felt their course successfully prepared them to take on a leadership role. Findings showed that while the all white primary aspirant head teachers and most of the all white women into secondary headship gained confidence and felt more competent as their courses progressed their desire to become leaders, in some cases, reduced. The opposite was the case for the all BME middle leaders participants most of whom cited, along with increased confidence and perceived competence, an increased desire to become middle leaders, despite some accounts of prejudicial treatment. Factors cited by participants as impacting negatively on their desire to become leaders included work-life balance, accountability, faith, economic factors (size of school, travel costs) and issues concerning gender, particularly women participants, who saw themselves as leaders both at work and in the home. Findings provide an insight into the continuing structural inequalities experienced by a small sample of aspirant school leaders which have implications for future leadership preparation provision

What are system leaders in England learning about school-to-school support in a ‘self-improving’ system’?

Research context: * System leaders in this context are four Specialist Leaders of Education, a Broker, two Gateway Heads * SLEs are deployed through the Teaching School Alliance * Local intelligences inform need for school-to-school/SLE support * A county-wide and local associations of System Leaders share intelligenc

Transcriptome analysis of mammary epithelial subpopulations identifies novel determinants of lineage commitment and cell fate

Background: Understanding the molecular control of cell lineages and fate determination in complex tissues is key to not only understanding the developmental biology and cellular homeostasis of such tissues but also for our understanding and interpretation of the molecular pathology of diseases such as cancer. The prerequisite for such an understanding is detailed knowledge of the cell types that make up such tissues, including their comprehensive molecular characterisation. In the mammary epithelium, the bulk of the tissue is composed of three cell lineages, namely the basal/myoepithelial, luminal epithelial estrogen receptor positive and luminal epithelial estrogen receptor negative cells. However, a detailed molecular characterisation of the transcriptomic differences between these three populations has not been carried out. Results: A whole transcriptome analysis of basal/myoepithelial cells, luminal estrogen receptor negative cells and luminal estrogen receptor positive cells isolated from the virgin mouse mammary epithelium identified 861, 326 and 488 genes as highly differentially expressed in the three cell types, respectively. Network analysis of the transcriptomic data identified a subpopulation of luminal estrogen receptor negative cells with a novel potential role as non-professional immune cells. Analysis of the data for potential paracrine interacting factors showed that the basal/myoepithelial cells, remarkably, expressed over twice as many ligands and cell surface receptors as the other two populations combined. A number of transcriptional regulators were also identified that were differentially expressed between the cell lineages. One of these, Sox6, was specifically expressed in luminal estrogen receptor negative cells and functional assays confirmed that it maintained mammary epithelial cells in a differentiated luminal cell lineage. Conclusion: The mouse mammary epithelium is composed of three main cell types with distinct gene expression patterns. These suggest the existence of a novel functional cell type within the gland, that the basal/myoepithelial cells are key regulators of paracrine signalling and that there is a complex network of differentially expressed transcription factors controlling mammary epithelial cell fate. These data will form the basis for understanding not only cell fate determination and cellular homeostasis in the normal mammary epithelium but also the contribution of different mammary epithelial cell types to the etiology and molecular pathology of breast disease

Reversible DNA i-motif to hairpin switching induced by copper(II) cations

i-Motif DNA structures have previously been utilised for many different nanotechnological applications, but all have used changes in pH to fold the DNA. Herein we describe how copper(ii) cations can alter the conformation of i-motif DNA into an alternative hairpin structure which is reversible by chelation with EDTA

Long Term Thermal Stability In Air Of Ionic Liquid Based Alternative Heat Transfer Fluids For Clean Energy Production

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of long-term aging on the thermal stability and chemical structure of seven different ILs so as to explore their suitability for use as a heat transfer fluid. This was accomplished by heating the ILs for 15 weeks at 200�C in an oxidizing environment and performing subsequent analyses on the aged chemicals

Developing specialist leaders of education: a research engagement approach

There has been little research to date on the continuing professional development needs of the several thousand Specialist Leaders of Education (SLE) now designated by the National College for Teaching and Leadership in England to work across schools as consultants on school-to-school support. This case study reports on the second and third stages of a four-stage research process designed to address these needs. The fi rst stage reported on the creation of a professional devel- opment framework for SLE ’ s using consultancy research. These middle stages test out this framework with a stakeholder group of SLEs, head- teachers and broker in a Teaching Schools Alliance. The fourth stage will track the implementation of professional development activities arising from these fi ndings. Apart from the speci fi c needs of SLE, this study will have wider relevance for all practitioners and researchers working in and with schools on leadership development using Research Engagement strategies and Joint Practice Development approaches in a so-called ‘ self- improving ’ school system