Schools are complicated places pulling together swathes of people, old and young, in an ever-changing stasis. Distributed leadership provides a theoretical framework which aspires to channel this change toward school improvement. It is like a riverbed steering water to its destination, seemingly in charge, and yet shaped by every passing drop. In this critical...
Read more »

Harris argues that leadership is indirectly linked to learning by influencing the context in which teachers operate. The argument concedes that, if we accept distributed leadership ‘can positively impact on these organisational conditions’ (p44) then we need to examine the evidence about the direct relationship between distributed leadership and learning outcomes. Harris sees this...
Read more »

Harris is calling for further ‘fine-grained’ research into the positive influence of distributed leadership as a model for sustained school improvement. The author joins many educational theorists in claiming standardisation of practice is an inadequate means to improve performance in response to accountability driven by league tables and fails to produce sustained improvement in...
Read more »

This article aims to analyse the content of Bottery’s attempt to assess the impact of standardisation on the educational system, question the assumptions made by challenging the evidence presented and conclude that there are important lessons to be learnt from his hypothesis of the dilution of professional trust in schools.
Read more »

Critical Review: Hargreaves, D. (1999) ‘The Knowledge-creating school’ This review aims to analyse the article, evaluate and compare its claims and assumptions and critique it’s conclusions by asking who or what exactly is driving school agendas? Is it the technological revolution or the welfare of the child?
Read more »

I qualified as a Business Studies and Economics teacher in 1995 following a conversation on an aeroplane with a former musician turned teacher turned businessman nearing retirement. The PGCE course was disappointing – the first lesson I taught was given 9.5 out of 10 and then it was busy people without the time to...
Read more »