This week we have launched the final report from the Sustainable School Leadership research project at the end of our 3 year mixed methods study across England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Go to to our publications page to read or download the full report.
We looked at two sides of sustainability:
i. The sustainability of leadership (i.e. supply and succession planning)
ii. Leadership for sustainability (i.e. meeting present needs without compromising future needs)
In our interviews and survey we heard how pupil needs have expanded, particularly since the pandemic, meaning that inclusion, well-being, behaviour, attendance and safeguarding issues now dominate leaders’ time and drain their emotional batteries. These issues commonly stretch beyond the school gates, to encompass areas – such as food banks – that go way beyond what most observers would think of as ‘education’.
For these reasons we argue that school leadership today is not only about instructional improvement – it must be reconceptualised to encompass an ethic of education and care. We have published the report in the same week that the DfE in England have also published a major white paper. We’ll outline some headlines about Northern Ireland and Scotland in some further posts, here we reflect on our findings from England and the White Paper.
Our findings suggest that the core thrust of England’s White Paper – seeking to strengthen inclusion and belonging and to encourage greater breadth in learning – will be seen as long overdue by most school leaders there. But our findings also present some real challenges, which the sheer scale of the reforms in the White Paper could further compound.
We show that school leadership today – particularly headship – is widely seen to be unsustainable. In our survey, one in five (22%) heads in England said they were ‘sinking’. We interviewed many potential leaders who said they don’t want the top job – seeing it as just too demanding, with too little support and too few rewards. Many serving heads told us they can’t keep going – they will leave as soon as they can, before their health and well-being gives in.
The White Paper acknowledges the importance of high-quality school leadership and includes some limited investments – badged under Labour’s Excellence in Leadership manifesto pledge – to increase coaching for new heads, develop mentoring and networks, and incentivise deployments to challenging schools.
We fear this will not be enough and that without greater attention to sustainable school leadership the White Paper vision might never be fully realised. Our recommendations in England include a call for DfE to lead a national strategy for sustainable school leadership and for Teaching School Hubs to convene local partnerships to develop leadership succession plans, with a focus on enhancing diversity.
We have also published our National Technical Report for England, it is also on our publications page here.
Sustainable School Leadership 