3.1 Reflecting upon all this

Think back to your own experiences of school leadership; this might be as a practitioner, child, parent or as an external professional or in a leadership role. As you think back make notes about the challenges which school leaders face in leading students, staff, parents and the wider community.

Here are some quotes about school leaders and leadership to help you with your reflection. These come from three papers exploring experiences in Ghana and Spain and of Irish teachers working in England.

• Where I am now, the headmaster is very passionate about the policy, but there is nothing he can do to support us. Schools don’t have money or the means to generate finances. It’s a public school, which is free, so they don’t charge any fees, and the government has not been giving them money to run the schools. The headmaster here at times uses his own money to buy books for the children. (Opoku, 2022, p14)
• Different attitudes were observed among the teachers. The maths teacher was receptive and showed his willingness and considerable involvement with the project. In contrast, resistance was perceived from some of the language teachers. (Traver-Marti et al, 2023, p568)
• All the schools care about here is how good they look on paper to the outside world, and pretty much it is just run like a business. In my opinion, they are more concerned about getting as much money in to that school as they can, and showing grades in the best possible way than it is about actual students in school. (Skerritt, 2019, p584)
• Personally, I have not had any training in inclusive education since I started teaching. I went to training college, so I was taught special education, where I was taught how to embrace diversity and support such students. At the departmental level, it has not come up in our discussions. (Opoku, 2022, p16)
• Participation was understood as family involvement and collaboration. Students’ participation has not been considered. It is assumed that the students are already in school and they don’t need to be involved further. This idea of participating as being present, accessing and being taken into account in certain specific activities prevails over the idea of taking decisions. (Traver-Marti et al, 2023, p566)
• You have to put some values on the backburner to appease what the school wants you to do. It’s as simple as that. (Skerritt, 2019, p585)
• Another mother said she thought decisions about homework should be left to the teachers, that families don’t have sufficient knowledge or criteria to form an opinion. (Traver-Marti et al, 2023, p567)
• Look at this classroom, for instance (points to a building). They couldn’t climb to the third or second floor and had to rely on the mercy of other students to carry them or help them reach the classrooms. Sometimes, if they feel like urinating or going to the toilet, it is a problem since in our schools, toilets are separate from the main buildings. Sometimes, too, when they are doing group work, where to sit and actively participate becomes a problem. (Opoku, 2022, p10-11)
• You feel like you’re more of a manager. You’re managing these little people to get through and get the results rather than being a teacher. It’s more admin than anything else. Most of my job is just admin. (Skerritt, 2019, p584)
• Just like he does every Monday, A [the head teacher] slipped into [the meeting]. This time it was something to do with a bottle of cologne. Maybe A systematically drops in on the committee on purpose . . . It’s become a feature of every Monday meeting. He makes no noise, but he makes his presence felt and it’s a reminder that we are in ‘his’ school. (Traver-Marti et al, 2023, p567-8)