This is both a study of leadership and a research methods text. It offers an analytical description of a primary headteacher at work over the course of one school year. Using a mix of participant-observation and interviews, the book provides a portrait of this head's approach to his work - his background, beliefs, the school as a context, what he did, how he dealt with change and development, power and the personal dimension of headship. The portrait is matched to the contemporary literature and an hypothesis is formulated about primary headship and is then used to critique existing ideas about school leadership. The book also suggests ways of developing heads and school teachers.

Offers an analytical description of a primary headteacher at work over the course of one school year using a mix of participant-observation and interviews.

Since the year 2000, there has been a statistically high proportion of head teachers leaving the profession. While there have been studies conducted to predict when this exodus would conclude, the actual reasons for why senior people are leaving their positions have not been explored so far. Schools have found replacing head teachers increasingly difficult and the inevitable leadership crisis has been well documented by both scholars and the media. The leadership crisis has been most noticeable within the Catholic Primary School sector, where statistics have consistently shown an issue with recruiting people to headship positions. This book considers the reasons for the crisis and looks at potential solutions. It identifies what the leadership crisis encompasses from the negativity of the education system (including headship accountability, the work-life balance, and salary), whilst also offsetting this with possible supporting solutions, such as the value of acting headship, succession planning and talent spotting from the beginning of a teacher’s career.

This text calls for a broader approach to comparative educational administration: one which uses culture as the principle means of analysis. The articles collected by Allan Walker and Clive Dimmock detail the educational practices and outcomes of other systems while taking into account the mediating influence of culture. In this way, these essays stress the specific aspects of the cultures studied, and map out common ground for the study of administrators' values, beliefs, and actions.

Effective leadership and team working makes a crucial difference to the management of schools and colleges. This book takes readers through the different dimensions of leadership, and its relationship to good team work. Personal and organizational skills are dealt with alongside the more theoretical aspects of the subject. Throughout, the editors stress that leadership and team working are the core activities in managing people. This volume forms part of the Leadership and Management in Education series. This four book series provides a carefully chosen selection of high quality readings on key contemporary themes in educational management: professional development, reflection on practice, leadership, team working, effectiveness and improvement, quality, strategy and resources. The series will be an important resource for classroom teachers and lecturers as well as those holding designated management posts in schools and colleges and will provide a valuable basis for professional development programmes.

This collection explores historical and present-day issues in education management, the training and development of leaders, and their roles in leading people and managing resources, and provides a focus on the major management issues which are current throughout the education world.The articles reprinted here include the management of applied individual psychology; organizational psychology; individual, interpersonal and group interaction; personality theory; leadership theory and organization theory.

By using evidence from interviews with primary headteachers, this book highlights the most serious problems experienced by primary heads. The management of school finance and premises and relationships with a range of other people involved in the life and work of the school are shown to be recurring historical issues in primary headship.