EUROPEAN SCHOOL HEADS ASSOCIATION

HEADLINE

A shared vision and ambitions are at the heart of developing schools as learning organisations. This is what the latest editions of HEADstart are about. You can download these guidelines for school leaders from our website.

HEADstart #12 offers suggestions on how school leaders can develop their schools into a learning organisation. HEADstart #13 is about how to develop and maintain a shared vision and ambitions.

Download your printable copies of HEADstart right now.

Concluding the first year of the Leadership for Diversity Erasmus+ project, we are glad to announce that the Professional Development Programme (PDP) will be launched at the end of the month. The PDP will be published on the L4D website.

If Diversity and Inclusion are high on your agenda, this is a page to keep your eye on. In the upcoming months, more and more training materials, good practices, and tools will be uploaded, all aiming to support those in leadership roles in education to create a learning environment that welcomes Diversity.

Follow Leadership for Diversity

In February and March hundreds of school leaders attended the first 2 webinars of the ESHA–Apple leadership series. They are interactive, well received and truly supportive for school leaders. Each session is different and is focused on a specific topic and can be booked independently. About 3000 school heads registered. You can still join for this semester.

On Friday 19th of April, the Final Conference of Dive in Dialogue will be held in Ljubljana. Dive in Dialogue is an interesting and impactful project aimed at promoting the Dialogic Gatherings in Europe and beyond.

A Dialogic Gathering is an educative and cultural activity where people get together to create knowledge and meaning about the best universal cultural and scientific knowledge. With school head representatives of over 20 countries, we will discuss the outcomes and pathways for exploiting the outcomes of this project, co-financed by Erasmus+. 

With a focus on inclusion, many schools can benefit from the outcomes of the Dive-In-Dialogue project such as: involving (disadvantaged) students in Dialogic Gatherings, improving their key competences, and fostering their inclusion in school and in society, professionalisation and empowerment of teachers to use and disseminate this evidence-based practice, working transnationally and reaching disadvantaged students, their families and communities and freely available didactic resources.

Please, let us know if you are interested to know more or to join the Final Conference: contact Petra van Haren.

The Educational Leadership Network Europe (ELNE) aims to stimulate collaboration and dialogue between all Educational Stakeholders. The main representatives in the network, employers, school heads, teachers, students, and parents, work with a selected pool of researchers on improving policy and practices from a perspective of ‘collaborative leadership’.

Concluding the first year of the ELNE and reflecting on the European Educational Leadership (Webinar) Week, the Network will come together in April for the First Annual ELNE Conference. The conference combines insights from research, policy, and practice, as well as perspectives from students, parents, teachers, school leaders, and education employers.

We like to hear from you

Representing European School Heads in this network, ESHA would like to hear from you as well. What would be an addition to this Network for you? And how could this Network contribute to your development? How would you like to contribute to the Network? Let us know how ESHA can represent you by sending an e-mail to Myrthe Stienstra or reaching out via LinkedIn.

Watch the ELNE webinars

The event will take place in Brussels in the afternoon of 21 May also setting the stage for a major event on the future of vocational education in Europe taking place on the following 3 days.

Microcredentials – quality assured certificates reflecting the learning outcomes of short courses, be them online of offline – are surely part of the future of vocational education and adult education in general, including the professional development of people with university degrees (e.g. teacher training). It is becoming more and more relevant in inclusive formal education.

Alliance membership

The European Alliance for Microcredentials was initiated by the MicroVET consortium and was launched during the European Vocational Skills Week in 2023. The first members, the partners of the project were quickly joined by the organisations of the vocational providers at European level. Currently, the Alliance membership has been widened to include different provider organisations as well as actors in the recognition of microcredentials. You can find a regularly updated list here: microvet.eu/members. Apart from working together as an advocacy group, the Alliance also offers a quality-assured platform for (mostly) online courses leading to micro-credentials provided by its members in various languages.

The event in Brussels will take stock of the work done so far and will also make crucial decisions on the future and sustainable operations of this collaboration. This invitation is also an open call to review the options that were drawn up at the establishment of the Alliance or to come up with other options. What we have foreseen are a loose network with a coordinator, a project-based approach to future collaboration or a legal entity.

Since the launch, the Alliance has started negotiations – initiated and supported by the European Commission DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion – with a similar global initiative that will also offer a solution for sustained operations.

Register for the event

Be there, be part of the discussion and the decision about the future of the European Alliance for Microcredentials. Register for the event here:

For any further queries, please contact Eszter Salamon.

This Norwegian project is aimed at studying the relationship between municipal governance and the conditions for school leadership and the role of leaders. The main themes in the report are how and to what extent the governing measures of the school owners are related to the leaders' perception of autonomy, stress factors, support systems in the daily school life, and their well-being and job motivation.

539 principals responded to the questionnaire. Of these, 441 are from primary schools and 98 are from secondary schools. The respondents constitute a representative sample of the relevant target groups.

School leaders' autonomy – Is it adequate?

Autonomy at the middle management level involves giving leaders room for choice and adaptation of means to achieve the goals set by senior management. That is, giving middle managers powers that involve control over or the ability to influence input factors essential for the department/unit to achieve its goals. That middle managers have such opportunities is, in turn, a prerequisite for the leaders to be held accountable for the unit's results in a meaningful way. Without such opportunities, the middle manager becomes no real leader, merely a manager.

In a municipal context, relevant input factors include access to relevant expertise, financial resources, the opportunity to (re)deploy personnel and technology. School leaders have been given extensive (but varying) powers in these areas. However, when asked if the powers are adequate in relation to the goals and tasks facing the schools, a considerable proportion respond that the powers are not sufficient.

Autonomy is perceived as greatest in matters of academic development and narrowest when it comes to financial arrangements. Thus, autonomy is perceived as significantly more limited than the scope of the powers may suggest. 

Organizational climate and interaction – How much stress and support do school leaders experience?

School leaders' autonomy is influenced not only by the extent of powers but also by the interaction in the larger municipal apparatus in which schools are embedded. State directives and requirements also play a significant role. In larger organizations, goal achievement often requires interaction between several departments/units and usually support and coordination from higher levels, e.g., in crisis situations.

Disturbances and unplanned events are almost a constant in a middle manager's daily life. Students and parents have gained greater rights. The media and pressure groups are said to be more assertive. A good organizational climate is characterized by smooth interaction across departments and levels in the organization and manageable stress levels.

The organizational climate in and around schools has been surveyed through two sets of questions to school leaders: How the municipal support systems around the school function, and what burden possible stressors in the school's operations impose on school leaders.

Regarding stress factors, demanding student cases overwhelmingly top the list, followed by 'other laws and regulations difficult to handle in practice' and 'school–home collaboration.' Only on two points do fewer than half of the school leaders state that the issue does not pose a burden in their work: Demand from user groups and inquiries from the media.

Questions about the municipalities' support systems for schools range from 'support in difficult legal issues' to 'satisfactory systems for operation and maintenance of the unit's buildings and outdoor areas'. It is the former topic that school leaders are most satisfied with, the latter ranked lowest. The proportion of answers on the negative side of the scale (score 1 or 2) varies from 21 to 51 percent; thus, there are significant proportions that perceive the support systems as problematic or dysfunctional. 

In the overall assessment of the organizational climate around the schools, the overall balance between stressful and supportive climates is barely positive for all schools combined. The organizational climate is of great importance for perceived autonomy. Both climate dimensions are highly correlated with autonomy – support is positively correlated, and stress is negatively correlated. Well-functioning support systems contribute positively to autonomy while stress factors contribute negatively.

Developmental leadership and leadership environment – Two sides of the same coin?

The demands on modern school leaders go beyond being effective school managers – they are also expected to lead the development and renewal of learning environments, e.g., in continuation of the LK20, which in turn may require expertise in organizational development as well as pedagogical renewal. LK20 is a guideline that gives freedom to both municipalities and schools regarding creating their own educational policies within quite broad frameworks. This guideline is emphasized in the new Education Act. This starting point therefore raises questions not only about what opportunities school leaders actually have to prioritize development issues within the hectic everyday life and the many other tasks that need to be taken care of but also about what opportunities they themselves have to develop as leaders. And, not least, it raises questions about how and to what extent municipalities take care of and develop their (school) leaders, i.e., what leadership environment municipalities constitute. 

When asked how far they manage to prioritize development issues, the majority say that this is a topic that practically comes quite far down on the agenda. Of the three development issues asked about, it is academic development and personal development that leaders most manage to carry out. But even here, it is only well over 40 percent who say they find time for this.

The other side of the coin is the municipality's care of the school leaders and their development as leaders, which highlights the leadership environment in the municipality. Who can the leaders turn to in difficult leadership issues? A clear majority of school leaders state that they as leaders in such situations receive support from superiors in the municipality, but even more important is support and advice from colleagues at other schools or in their own management group. Many appreciate the internal leadership networks that some municipalities organize for their leaders, but many (32 percent) also say they lack sparring partners regarding leadership issues. They would also like more feedback on their performances as leaders.

Both the municipality's leader support for school leaders and support from colleagues are significant for school leaders' scope for development work. In addition, autonomy and organizational climate play a role. But most importantly, workload and job satisfaction are significant. Almost 70 percent of school leaders experience the workload as very high or 'bordering on the unreasonable'. However, the majority still enjoy the position as school leaders. On a scale from 1 to 6 (with 6 as the top point for satisfaction), almost 60 percent choose the categories 5 or 6. Satisfaction and experience of workload are relatively closely related and constitute a common marker of the quality of the leadership environment. Those who experience the workload towards 'appropriate' manage to a greater extent than other leaders to prioritize development work. The same applies to satisfaction.

Effects of municipal governance on school leadership – Summary

In the summary analysis, school leaders' perceived autonomy appears as a central mediating factor between municipal governance and support processes on the one hand and middle managers' ability to act on the other hand. Autonomy is influenced by the extent of management powers as well as by support systems and stress factors – positively by support systems and powers and negatively by stress factors. Autonomy, in turn, has consequences for leaders' scope for development leadership and for work mastery and well-being, which in turn are related to result delivery.

The research report has been prepared by the following researchers of the Center for Applied Municipal Research at the University of Agder (UiA): Professor Harald Baldesheimm, Professor Morten Øgård, Scientist Linda Hye.

Stig Johannessen

The full report can be downloaded as a PDF file (Norwegian).

You and your school leader colleagues are invited! Join your colleagues from Europe an hour a month, to speak informally about topics that concern you in your profession and what we do in our leadership role.

If you want to receive the invitations with the links to the cafés, please register by using the button below. Only by accepting the invitation, can you register to join the particular café. The upcoming cafés will be on Wednesdays: 24 April, 29 May, and 26 June each time from 14.30–15.30 hours (CET).

The Erasmus+ SYNAPSES project works on setting up the Erasmus+ School heads and Teachers Training Academy on teaching for Sustainability Citizenship: supporting teachers and school leaders in creating a learning environment where students can grow up to live sustainably and be agents, taking action towards a more sustainable use of the Earth’s resources.

The Academy focuses on multiple forms of training and professional development and will be implemented in 8+ countries.

• SYNAPSES Summer School

• Professional Development Activities on the Local Level

• Professional Development Activities on the National Level

During the past 3 months, the consortium defined the project’s conceptual and methodological framework and mapped the partners’ national contexts concerning ESD and citizenship curricula. Based on the findings and scientific literature, the initial contents and activities of the Academy will be assembled and assessed.

Simultaneously, the SYNAPSES Community Support Environment will be launched at the end of June. This is an online platform containing all training materials as well as inspiring practices and other supporting materials. Additionally, it will serve as a forum for exchange, allowing for the discussion of materials and possible adaptations.

Summer School in Greece

The platform and activities will form part of the SYNAPSES Academy’s Summer School that will take place in Marathon, Greece, in July 2024. ESHA will bring 9 school leaders who will take part in a 5-day course on developing strategies of building Sustainability Citizenship in their schools and exchanging inspiring practices for sustainability practices school-wide. Working with a Whole School Approach, the international exchange of teachers will help to identify the different needs for support and professional development and develop the skills and tools to pinpoint these needs in their schools.

Why follow Synapses now?

In 2025, ESHA will be able to take another 6 (!) school leaders to the SYNAPSES Summer School, a week that is filled with professional development, exchanges of knowledge and experience, and networking activities, all taking place next to the Aegean Sea. The dates and programme for next year and ways to apply will follow later this year.