Professional learning and leadership practice for supporting policy work in schools

This study examines how middle leaders – teachers who support their colleagues’ learning while maintaining instructional responsibilities – facilitate professional learning (PL). Through a qualitative study of two middle leaders facilitating classroom-embedded PL, we investigate how their facilitation practice supports teacher learning within and across PL sessions and what guided their practice. Analysis from two PL cycles revealed that middle leaders’ relational facilitation practices supported their relations with teachers and PL content, and teachers’ relations to the PL content. Our analysis showed that these practices were guided by three principles: (1) using instances of shared representation of instruction may generate robust teacher conversations, (2) specifying mathematics, classroom teaching, and student learning leads to generative dialogue, and (3) probing differentially on teachers’ contributions in light of their expertise supports teachers’ learning trajectories. We found that the facilitation practices, principles, and the PL structure reinforced one another, fostering teachers’ pedagogical reasoning about content, student reasoning, and teaching, as well as generative instructional dialogue about their future teaching. This study confirms existing research findings and contributes to the knowledge base of middle leaders, focusing on the facilitation practices of two middle leaders who learned on the job, rather than through formal facilitation training.

There is a long and rich history of research, scholarship and publication on educational leadership, albeit that most of this has centred on the important work of principals and school senior managers/administrators. More recently there has been growing interest in middle leadership. We have been researching and publishing about educational middle leadership for about 10 years now, and this led us to propose this special issue of School Leadership and Management. To initiate the development of this special issue, we, the guest editors, put out a call for expressions of interest (EOI), and 25 were received from across 12 different countries, and this is indicative of the broad interest in this topic. From these EOIs, about half were invited to prepare full papers that were then subjected to all the usual reviewing and revision procedures. The result is this special issue, which brings together a collection of articles from international researchers that consider what drives change in education – specifically the important work and practices of middle leaders. Importantly, it continues the developing dialogue about, and theorisation of, middle leadership in ways that understand it as complementary to, but not the same as, principal leadership or senior school management.

This study explores the professional development learning needs of preschool teachers in the context of inclusive education in Latvia. Despite the global and national emphasis on inclusive education over the past two decades, its implementation remains uneven and highly dependent on the professional competence of educators. Recognizing that teachers’ professional learning needs are central to effective inclusive education, this research aims to identify the specific learning needs of preschool teachers and examine how these needs vary based on teachers’ length of service, level of education, preschool affiliation, and preschool type (municipal or private). The study employs a quantitative research design using a structured questionnaire administered to 99 preschool teachers across nine institutions in three Latvian municipalities. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and one-way ANOVA. The findings indicate that the most critical learning needs include implementing differentiated teaching and learning processes, acquiring diverse teaching methods, understanding inclusive education, and managing behavioral difficulties. Significant differences were observed in learning needs based on institutional type and individual teacher characteristics, highlighting the necessity of a tailored, context-sensitive approach to professional development. The study underscores the importance of individualized and school-tailored strategies in teacher training for inclusive education. It also reveals gaps in teacher readiness to include certain groups of children – such as gifted children or those with sensory and physical impairments – pointing to areas requiring greater policy and training focus. These results contribute to the development of more effective, evidence-based professional development models that align with the realities of inclusive preschool education in Latvia.

This paper examines how middle leaders (MLs) in Irish primary schools lead and facilitate professional learning (PL) within the cultural, material, and social conditions of their schools. Drawing on a multisite case study and framed by the theory of practice architectures and scholarship on transformative PL, this paper highlights how middle leader capacity to shape collaboration is contingent, negotiated, and often fragile. Across the cases, discursive norms drawn from national policies provided authority but also narrowed PL into cycles of compliance. Material conditions, especially time, were precarious, leaving MLs reliant on goodwill or episodic opportunities to convene colleagues. Social – political relations of trust determined whether MLs were positioned as task managers reporting upwards or as facilitators of collective dialogic practice for meaningful PL. The findings suggest that while MLs are well placed to foster inquiry and create communicative spaces, the dialogic depth needed for transformative PL was rarely sustained. We argue that middle leaders’ influence lies less in formal designation and more in their ability to broker dialogue under shifting conditions. Strengthening ML requires legitimising inquiry, structurally protecting time, and recognising relational authority as central to leading professional learning.

<p>Middle and senior leaders in primary schools have an important role with significant accountability and responsibility. They are teaching practitioners who have a large influence on the quality of learning that takes place within a school. Middle and senior leaders carry out the majority of the significant conversations about teaching and learning within a school with the teachers they lead. In 2012 the New Zealand Ministry of Education produced a publication reiterating the importance of middle and senior leaders within schools. As part of that publication they identified the need for ongoing professional development and learning for middle and senior leaders to strengthen their effectiveness as leaders. However no suggestions were made in this document as to what this may look like. The purposes of this multiple case study were to explore what professional development and learning were provided to senior and middle leaders primary schools within the greater Wellington area, how effective the principals and senior middle leaders considered the professional development and learning to be, and to identify which factors enabled effective professional development and learning within a school. To answer the research questions data was collected through an online survey, focus groups and individual interviews. The findings indicated that there were two categories of organisation of professional development and learning provided within different schools; unsystematic and systematic. The more effective systematic system involved the identification of the learning needs of the middle and senior leaders through discussion or co-construction of their job descriptions, leading to a mixture of professional development and learning structures that combined sharing, collaboration and reflection to enhance leadership capabilities. In addition regular mentoring allowed for more effective leadership learning. An important factor determining the success of the professional development and learning was the deliberate actions that were carried out by the principal.</p>

This paper explores the experiences of middle leaders in publicly managed post-primary schools in the Republic of Ireland involved in regional Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) focused on the enactment of the ETBI Patrons' Framework on Ethos. This policy aims to support and guide publicly managed schools in embedding and sustaining a shared, inclusive, and values-based ethos grounded in the core values of the Education and Training Board (ETB) sector. Middle leaders (ethos leads) play a key role in implementing the Patrons’ Framework by leading its enactment in their schools and participating in regional PLCs with peers. For the purposes of this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 purposively selected ethos leads. Analysis of the data revealed two interrelated themes: middle leaders’ professional learning within PLCs, and the role of collaborative leadership and structures in supporting their work. These findings highlight the value of PLCs, and collaborative leadership in enhancing middle leaders’ professional growth, suggesting that structured, peer-supported environments are key to empowering their role in policy enactment, particularly in the area of values.

ABSTRACTAlthough teachers’ commitment to continuous professional learning is crucial for high quality education, research shows that this learning cannot be taken for granted. To better understand how teachers’ learning at work can be supported, this study investigates how effects of job demands (i.e. work pressure and emotional pressure) and job resources (i.e. task autonomy, transformational leadership, and collegial support) on teachers’ learning commitment (i.e. learning frequency and engagement) can be explained by basic psychological need satisfaction and autonomous motivation, as posited by self-determination theory. At two occasions, approximately one year apart, data was collected in a sample of 678 (T1) and 536 (T2) Dutch secondary school teachers. Structural equation models showed the consecutive positive longitudinal relationships between teachers’ experience of job resources, basic psychological need satisfaction, autonomous motivation, and commitment to professional learning. Job demands were not related to basic need satisfaction over and above the effects of job resources. Implications for how self-determination theory and the job demands resources model can mutually inform each other are discussed. In addition, implications for stimulating teachers’ professional learning in practice are provided.

This paper deals with the extensively documented crisis regarding present transnational education and curriculum policy and leadership practices from a curriculum theory point of view. This crisis, which the Finnish education policy analyst Pasi Sahlberg has characterized with the acronym GERM (Global Education Reform Model), “the virus that is killing education”, is considered through the lenses of two major curriculum theory paradigms, Anglo-American Curriculum and Northern European Bildung/Didaktik traditions. Bluntly stated, the Anglo-American curricular perspective reflects an (obsolete) image of natural science through behaviorist and cognitivist theories, which has led to administrative and political transformations based on the principles of accountability, standardization and privatization. In contrast, the Bildung tradition conceives of education and educational science as explicitly political rather than camouflaging politics by positioning science as neutral. This tradition of thought, however, has been experiencing an intellectual extinction in even its home ground of Germany. Astonishingly similar education policy outcomes to those that followed the Sputnik shock in the USA have also occurred following the German PISA shock of 2001. Since then, the Northern European Bildung camp has adopted accountability, standardization, and privatization as key drivers of their respective education reforms, with Finland, thus far, the solitary exception. The powerful reductionism of the current political tenet “economic thought is coterminous with rationality,” adopted by neoliberal education and curriculum policy makers, may be corroding our images of democratic society and education as a vehicle of and for democracy. This paper presents examples and implies a further need for critical reactivation of the symbolic legacy of Bildung as an educational springboard for a democratic project that would identify broader social visions and moral and political considerations beyond the instrumentality of “raising test scores” and would recognize these as essential elements of sound education policy making. Dr. Tero Henrik Autio has served as Professor of Curriculum Studies and Teacher Education at the University of Tampere, Finland and as invited International Professor of Curriculum Theory at Tallinn University, Estonia. Most recently, he has worked with the European Union to enhance PhD studies in education in post-Soviet Baltic countries. Autio has previously worked as classroom teacher in Finland specializing in math education, as a special education teacher in a child and youth psychiatric ward in Tampere University Hospital, and as a teacher educator in a vocational teacher education college in Jyväskylä, Finland. He is Vice President of the European Association for Curriculum Studies and co-chaired the Second IAACS Conference in Tampere in 2006. During his years as a student, he worked as a certified car mechanic and long distance truck driver. He loves architecture, theater, classical, pop and crossover music, interesting discussions, and curriculum theory.

The Practices of Middle School Leadership presents a strong theoretical work weaving theory and practice together creating new ground to explore the practices of middle school leaders. This text investigates the work of middle leaders not as a hierarchical step toward being a principal but rather as a key position in the school, leading learning from classrooms and providing a link between the demands of the system and the learning needs of students and staff. Little research has been conducted on the work of middle leaders and this text explores the leading practices and processes of middle leaders rather than focusing on abstract personal qualities or characteristics of leaders. This text draws on The Theory of Practice Architectures as a paradigm to investigate the practices of middle leaders enacted in learning spaces. The diverse demands placed on middle leaders are explored through five research studies conducted across Australia and New Zealand.

The purpose of this article is to bring together findings developed from the Schools and Continuing Professional Development in England – State of the Nation Study. This large-scale national study, commissioned by the Training and Development Agency for Schools, investigated the range and kinds of continuing professional development (CPD) activities in which teachers at primary and secondary schools in England participate and the kinds of support provided by schools. Teachers’ professional learning practices and perspectives were researched in relation to three main themes: the benefits, status and effectiveness of CPD; the planning and organization of CPD; and access to CPD. The research was based on a review of the UK literature related to teachers’ CPD for the period 2004–2007, qualitative research (school snapshots) at nine primary and three secondary schools, and a survey of a national representative sample of teachers. Our analysis concludes that teachers’ professional learning in England is generally ineffective and lacks school-level systems and supports. As such, the potential of teachers’ professional learning for enhancing the quality of classroom teaching and learning in schools remains largely untapped.

In this paper we show how practices of professional learning and practices of leading can be understood as related in ecologies of practices. We will present findings from an international empirical research project that directs us to the connectivity between professional learning and leading practices that emerged as ‘adventitious’, ‘opportune’ and ‘unexpected’ outcomes of long-term professional learning. We will show how practices (like professional learning) that exist in real situations shape other practices (like teaching and leading) when each creates enabling and constraining conditions for the others; they are mutually sustaining when together they form an ecology of practices existing in a dynamic ecological balance. Results build on established literature describing professional learning which customarily describes the characteristics, conditions and outcomes of effective professional development programmes. Specifically, our findings add a new dimension to the descriptions of the influences and accomplishments of professional learning – the development of teacher leading capacities.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsTimothy C. CaboniTimothy C. Caboni is Lecturer in Public Policy and Higher Education and director of the academic program in institutional advancement in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy program at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. John M. Braxton is Professor of Education in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Program at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Molly Black Duesterhaus is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Meaghan E. Mundy is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Shederick A. McClendon is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.John M. BraxtonTimothy C. Caboni is Lecturer in Public Policy and Higher Education and director of the academic program in institutional advancement in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy program at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. John M. Braxton is Professor of Education in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Program at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Molly Black Duesterhaus is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Meaghan E. Mundy is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Shederick A. McClendon is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Molly Black DeusterhausTimothy C. Caboni is Lecturer in Public Policy and Higher Education and director of the academic program in institutional advancement in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy program at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. John M. Braxton is Professor of Education in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Program at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Molly Black Duesterhaus is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Meaghan E. Mundy is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Shederick A. McClendon is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Meaghan E. MundyTimothy C. Caboni is Lecturer in Public Policy and Higher Education and director of the academic program in institutional advancement in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy program at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. John M. Braxton is Professor of Education in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Program at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Molly Black Duesterhaus is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Meaghan E. Mundy is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Shederick A. McClendon is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Shederick A. McClendonTimothy C. Caboni is Lecturer in Public Policy and Higher Education and director of the academic program in institutional advancement in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy program at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. John M. Braxton is Professor of Education in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Program at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Molly Black Duesterhaus is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Meaghan E. Mundy is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Shederick A. McClendon is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Stephanie D. LeeTimothy C. Caboni is Lecturer in Public Policy and Higher Education and director of the academic program in institutional advancement in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy program at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. John M. Braxton is Professor of Education in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Program at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Molly Black Duesterhaus is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Meaghan E. Mundy is a doctoral candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies specializing in Higher Education Leadership and Policy at Vanderbilt. Shederick A. McClendon is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

In this article, we draw upon notions of occupational professionalism and organizational professionalism to interrogate the complex, and sometimes contradictory, teacher learning practices that characterize educational policy enactment. We apply these understandings to the Growing Success assessment and evaluation policy in Ontario, Canada, and in relation to how five educators in varied positions in a regional school district made sense of this policy through professional learning. Our research considers how the interactions between professionalism and teacher learning can be deployed to better understand policy enactment as part of educators’ work and learning. The research reveals that organizational professionalism, characterized by hierarchical modes of decision-making, standardized work practices, external regulation and accountability processes, limited teachers’ learning. However, at the same time more occupational professionalism cultivated forms of professional learning necessary for productive enactment of educational policy. In relation to teacher learning for policy enactment, more occupational professionalism was characterized by, inter alia, commitment to student learning, the generation of dialogue about teachers’ assessment practices, coherence in relation to the whole reform agenda, a focus upon the immediacy of practice, and accountability to one another. The research indicates that even as more organizational professionalism is clearly evident in policy reform, the occupational cultures fostered by districts and schools can have significant beneficial effects for how teacher learning is expressed as a form of policy enactment.

Professional learning activities in the higher education institution of Ethiopia

This study examined the social media utilization and leadership practices of secondary school heads in the Province of Sorsogon. Anchored on technology acceptance, Social Capital Theory, Educational Leadership Theory, and the Integrated Digital Social Leadership (IDSL) Framework, the study investigated how social media platforms are used in communication, information dissemination, stakeholder engagement, and resource-related functions, and how these relate to educational leadership practices. A descriptive-correlational research design was employed. The respondents were secondary school heads from public small secondary schools in the Schools Division of Sorsogon, selected through total enumeration. Data were gathered through a researcher-made questionnaire validated by experts and pilot-tested prior to administration. Statistical tools used included frequency count, percentage, rank, weighted mean, and Pearson Product–Moment Correlation Coefficient with t-test. Findings showed that Facebook and Messenger were the most commonly used platforms. Social media was often utilized for communication, information dissemination, stakeholder engagement, and resource-related functions, with information dissemination showing the highest level of use. Leadership practices in policy implementation and compliance, accountability, responsiveness, adaptability, and achievement of organizational goals were all rated highly. However, the analysis revealed no significant relationship between social media utilization and leadership practices, indicating that frequent social media use did not directly correspond to stronger leadership performance. The study also found that opportunities for digital leadership were present, particularly in communication and stakeholder engagement, but challenges remained in ICT training, infrastructure, funding, and institutional support. It was concluded that social media serves as a useful support tool in school leadership, but its effectiveness depends on purposeful, ethical, and well-supported implementation. The study recommends continued strategic use of social media, stronger participatory digital practices, and improved institutional support for digital leadership. The study is aligned with SDG 4, SDG 9, and SDG 16 through its focus on quality education, digital infrastructure, and accountable school governance. Its sustainability impact lies in strengthening institutional, educational, technological, and community-based leadership practices in public secondary schools.