A good time for the new research-informed Educational Leadership Capabilities

This week at the NZ Association for Educational Researchers (NZARE) annual conference I spoke about the Educational Leadership Capability Framework that provides a backbone for the Leadership Strategy launched last year by the then Education, now Teaching Council. [See the presentation to download below]

It’s an opportune time for Leadership: the government’s recent announcement to reform the schooling system give more prominence to school leadership, and more support for it. Tomorrow's Schools Review Government response 

I’m glad that the recommendations we made in the Tomorrow’s Schools Independent Taskforce final report have life. Tomorrow's Schools Independent Taskforce final report 

What I shared with my colleagues at NZARE this week included two key things:

• the role that NZ and international research played in the development of the nine capabilities that are to be used for ongoing development for leadership, getting away from tickbox appraisal.  I showed how we had been able to build on previous and current work done to support schools’ evaluation of their own practices, most recently the Teaching, School, and Leadership Practices surveys (https://www.tspsurveys.org.nz/).  The capabilities are described as a dimension of effective contribution across different roles in schools and early childhood education services, not just the principal or service director role. They can be used to shape and critically reflect on PLD programmes as well as school practices and individual and team practices.
• the importance of working collaboratively and iteratively, bringing together research, practice, and policy, so that what comes out has credibility, and is needed. The capabilities could not have been developed or appreciated without this. We need more productive intersections in all policy and support work.

I was delighted to hear from colleagues working with school leaders that they were finding the Educational Leadership Capabilities refreshing and useful. But I also heard that there were school leaders who had not heard of the Educational Leadership Capability Framework,  or the full description which includes links to the evidence Sheridan McKinley and I used to develop and describe the Educational Leadership Capabilities. 

This includes accessible research and descriptions that show the educational leadership capabilities in action.

There’s more work to be done to connect our hard-working, time-pressed educational leaders with knowledge they can use to enrich and enliven what they do.

Download Cathy's presentation on the Educational Leadership Capabilities Framework below.