ABSTRACT
The senior management team (SMT) is the executive group who give leadership to the school. They do the main planning, determine the policies and carry out the daily running of the school under the leadership and guidance of the headteacher. The SMT has evolved into its present pre-eminence since about the early 1970s with the development of large comprehensive schools in which the headteacher could no longer undertake personally all the tasks associated with managing the school. 'It is becoming increasingly impractical for any one person to encompass the diversity and work necessary to manage and organize a secondary school' (Torrington and Weightman, 1989b). 'What has emerged markedly is the existence of a policy and management team, comprising deputy headteachers and occasionally other senior teachers, under the chairmanship of the headteacher' (Todd and Denriison, 1978).
