ABSTRACT
The principle of encouraging the development of collaboration within schools and colleges in a planned or systematic way is part of the increasing focus upon the perceived need for leadership management and training at all levels. Perversely this is occurring against the backdrop of the legacy of autonomy and competition between different institutions, which was previously encouraged as a key component of the raising standards debate. The fact that schools and colleges will face similar challenges and will have to respond to common initiatives was seemingly disregarded in the belief that encouraging competitiveness with achievements measured by league table performance was the means by which standards would be raised. The debate has moved on from an absolute focus upon the key role of the headteacher in engendering school improvement, and has broadened to encompass the contribution of others. Over time the inescapable realisation that the performance of the organisation comprises the contributions of the individuals within it takes us some way towards realising why the rhetoric has moved beyond training school and college leaders in isolation, to the broader needs of all those within the organisation. While the training needs of the senior teams, and in particular the headteachers and principals, are still to the fore, the debate has moved towards the principles of ‘distributed leadership’ (see Gronn, 2000) and its potential to impact upon, and more particularly to sustain, change. Recent research within the school context has confirmed that equipping classroom teachers to lead innovation and development can sustain improvement and capacity-building (Harris and Chapman, 2002).
