ABSTRACT
Coordination of team members’ work through regular meetings was a feature of the case study SMTs. Their operation as a team rested substantially on communication between all members, rather than solely on a hierarchical management structure where main lines of communication would run between heads and colleagues according to their individual management responsibility. Not only were meetings central to carrying out the shared role of the SMT, but they were also the core ritual through which the culture of teamwork was fostered and sustained. Much SMT business was done through interaction between members in this private arena where, in their different ways, SMT members tackled the team tasks of policy making and strategic planning for their school. This chapter draws on observations of SMT meetings and interviews with team members to examine in more detail how they worked together, concentrating on the major contrast between the relatively egalitarian operation at Winton and the more hierarchical approach in the other schools.
