ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 commences by defining concepts associated with school leadership and change. Importantly the difference between the concepts of school change, school renewal and school reform are outlined, differentiated and then discussed. It is argued at this point that a sustainable re-culturing of a school requires the school’s leadership to employ a renewal paradigm for the proposed changes.
The renewal approach is seen to create schools that are intrinsically self-renewing in contract to being simply reformed, and as such it becomes an ongoing cyclic change process. The distinctions between the language of educational renewal and that of reform are examined in depth in this chapter.
The chapter then presents an overview of significant aspects of school leadership behaviours associated with school renewal, in particular dispositions that relate to a leader’s risk willingness and change adeptness.
The chapter concludes with the authors maintaining that re-culturing of a school using a renewal paradigm will by necessity impact upon the beliefs, values and attitudes of its staff and the community, particularly in respect to the pedagogies employed by staff and subsequently on the teaching and learning culture itself.
