A survey of 985 principals at primary, secondary and special needs schools, undertaken in late 2016, found that just one-third were confident there was “probably” a clear path for them in preparing for the kind of school they headed.
According to the results, less than half (44%) of principals surveyed considered ‘structured professional development opportunities’ to be adequately addressed, suggesting that they are lacking the time to fulfil this all-important task.
And numerous reports have found large administrative workloads – namely compliancy duties – are largely to blame for holding principals back when it comes to focusing on improving best practice.
A Royal Society lecture recently heard that pressure on school’s to produce quick results may be impacting on principals’ ability to do this.
The lecture – which focused on the role that behavioural science plays in improving education – panelists were asked why more schools don’t leverage the wide body of educational research about best practice.
Responding to the question, Chris Brown, principal of the Bridge Academy in East London, said that the risks associated with doing this outweighed the benefits for some principals.
“Accountability on schools is very, very harsh. The level of risk that a head might feel they are taking if they are going to change the way that they do things – they may perceive that risk as being really quite high,” TES quoted Brown as saying.
“If you have something that has been fundamentally working OK, well enough, for quite a while they are unlikely, I would say, to want to take that risk.”
Brown pointed out that pressure to significantly improve student outcomes means that principals are unable to properly engage with evidence.
Sir Kevan Collins, chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), a government-backed research fund, told TES that principals can often find themselves “slave of the accountability framework”.
“I do take the argument that the accountability framework can encourage you to look at short-termism based on the progress of, say, two cohorts, in primary school years 5 and 6, rather than looking all the way down the track and asking yourself over the long-term, ‘what do we need to do to change the learning experience of this group?’” Collins said.
“You can become a slave to the accountability framework.”