School strategies for the professional development and support of early career teachers

This paper focuses on school strategies for professional development and support (PDS) in the first three years of teaching, and early career teachers’ responses to those strategies. Survey and case study data from the longitudinal NQTQIS research programme is used to map the changing types of PDS provided to teachers over their first three years of teaching; and to discuss the ways in which school context influences early career teacher learning

School leadership in Pakistan: Exploring the headteacher’s role

There is a good deal of consensus in the literature about the key role of leadership – especially that of the headteacher – in facilitating school improvement. Yet much of the research in this area has taken place in Western industrialised countries. This article explores the issue of headship in the context of schools in a specific developing country context, that of Pakistan. Drawing on 2 studies of the experience of headteachers in Karachi, the article identifies and explores the key variables that may contribute to a sense of personal efficacy for these heads, namely the expectations generated by the national or community culture, the powers and accountabilities generated by the school system in which they work, and their own individual personalities and histories

Understanding the headteachers’ role in Pakistan: Emerging role demands, constraints and choices

Little effort is made to study the role of headteachers in the eastern context, including Pakistan. This paper is based on the study conducted in the government and non-government schools in Pakistan in order to understand headteachers \u27 role in terms of the emerging demands, constraints and choices. The study suggests that the government school headteachers seem to be less proactive and more interested in maintaining status quo because of the influence of the \u27topdown management model\u27. The study also suggests that the government headteachers have limited choices and many constraints because of the influence of the bureaucratic system. Their counterparts in non-government schools seem to be more proactive in making the best use of available choices and in maintaining equilibrium between the role demands, choices and constraints. The research findings further reveal that the non-government headteachers tend to have a broader vision of managing schools effectively than their counterparts in the government schools

Level models of continuing professional development evaluation: a grounded review and critique

Continuing professional development (CPD) evaluation in education has been heavily influenced by ‘level models’, deriving from the work of Kirkpatrick and Guskey in particular, which attempt to trace the processes through which CPD interventions achieve outcomes. This paper considers the strengths and limitations of such models, and in particular the degree to which they are able to do justice to the complexity of CPD and its effects. After placing level models within the broader context of debates about CPD evaluation, the paper reports our experience of developing such models heuristically for our own evaluation practice. It then draws on positivist, realist and constructivist traditions to consider some more fundamental ontological and epistemological questions to which they give rise. The paper concludes that level models can be used in a number of ways and with differing emphases, and that choices made about their use will need to reflect both theoretical choices and practical considerations

The positions of primary and secondary schools in the English school field: a case of durable inequality

In interviews as part of a research study of structural reform in England, some tension between primary head teachers and their secondary peers was evident. This was symptomatic of a long-standing difference in status between the two phases. At a time when relations between stakeholders in local systems are subject to change, we seek to understand anew why that might be the case and how the tension we found was evidence of a current difference of power within interactions between representatives of the phases. We analyse differences of size, resources, workforce, pedagogy and history, and how they have resulted in different, and differently valued, practices and professional identities. We explore how attributes of the two phases have been counterposed and how, in complex interaction with wider discourses of politics, gender and age, this process has invested the differences with meanings and values that tend to relegate attributes associated with primary school. By focusing on the activation of cumulative inequality in interactions, we contribute a complementary perspective to studies of perceived relative status and highlight the implications for understanding school positioning in local arenas as the role of local authorities is reduced