Paul Irvine
Freelance
Paul spent 36 years teaching in in schools, and came to academia late in his career when he undertook a part-time Masters in Advanced Educational Practice (Coaching and Mentoring) at Liverpool John Moores University. Having got the research bug, he then enrolled for a PhD, again part-time, under the supervision of Professor Mark Brundrett. Paul has a particular interest in middle leadership, having been a head of department for much of his teaching career and, as a practitioner researcher, is keen to develop research informed practice that is of practical use to middle leaders in schools. Post-Doctorate, Paul is continuing to research and write, alongside working within schools on a consultancy basis, thus continuing to combine academic study with day-to-day leadership practice.
School leadership at all levels is different to teaching, and thus middle leaders need a different, albeit overlapping, set of capabilities to those required of classroom teachers if they are to be successful in their role. In... [ view full abstract ]
School leadership at all levels is different to teaching, and thus middle leaders need a different, albeit overlapping, set of capabilities to those required of classroom teachers if they are to be successful in their role. In the same way that teachers are prepared, developed and supported as they begin their careers, so too should leaders, and in my PhD thesis into the needs of middle leaders in the secondary sector, I identified specific challenges that middle leaders face in the early stages of their appointment, alongside enabling factors that they mobilize in order to overcome those challenges. As part of the study, I also researched models of leadership preparation and development delivery and found that, across the globe, there is much collective expertise and, from 1:1 mentoring through small-scale group work to networking across communities, models with similar components tend to be employed. As a practitioner researcher who currently supports middle leadership preparation and development in secondary schools in England, I am looking to move beyond generic models and take the findings of my research concerning the specific needs of middle leaders, particularly those in the early stage of appointment, and link them to well- tried models of leadership development from both within the sphere of education and beyond, in order to develop a tool or framework that can be used diagnostically, enabling the most appropriate form of leadership preparation/development to be used for the specific issues faced by the participant. To make this framework relevant and workable for practitioners, and to enhance the model, I am also working towards employing appropriate methods for best isolating the specific issues faced by the individual middle leader, along with suitable evaluation tools that will give an indication of the efficacy of a subsequent middle leadership preparation/development programme.
In this round-table workshop, I will be inviting interested colleagues to contribute to a discussion on the robustness of the diagnostic framework presented; asking for views on the degree to which their research and/or experience supports the contention that a framework which identifies challenges faced by middle leaders, and matches appropriate development techniques is applicable in schools; welcoming contributions to the discussion which will more finely grain the model, and identifying potential areas for further research.
