Through the medium of three in-depth case-studies in primary schools in different urban areas, this thesis undertakes a critical analysis of how the governors in these settings undertook the process of recruiting and selecting a headteacher. Headteachers have a potentially crucial role to play in creating educational success. This is particularly important in schools in challenging urban contexts where there is an urgent need to raise the pupils' levels of educational achievement. Yet responsibility for the appointment of headteachers resides with individual schools' governing bodies. School governors are most frequently lay-people and are volunteers. They may therefore lack the time and expertise to undertake each stage of the headteacher recruitment and selection process effectively The findings from this study show that the enactment of the process is not a simple matter of policy implementation. It is a social activity which is shaped by governors' individual and collective knowledge, experiences and expectations. The findings also show that the wide range of factors that comprise a school's context influence the way in which the process is enacted. From these findings, elements of effective practice are identified. These are used to create a 'Programme of Readiness' which is shown to be an important precursor to the headteacher recruitment and selection process. The identified elements are also used to generate the ingredients of an 'Effective Practice Model' for urban schools. This is not designed to be a prescriptive model. Rather, its purpose is to guide governors' thinking towards creating a model to suit their own unique context from elements of practice that were shown to be effective and in compliance with the relevant legislation. To conclude, implications for policy and for future research are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:572910 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Barrowman, Margaret Beryl |
| Publisher | University College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10020682/ |
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