The Principal and School Improvement

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introducing a ‘United’ Agenda for Principals

   • Amanda Heffernan

   Pages 1-23

3. School Improvement Discourses: Autonomy, ‘Instructional’ Leadership, and Accountability

   • Amanda Heffernan

   Pages 25-50

4. The Queensland Context: A Site of Rapid and Urgent Reform

   • Amanda Heffernan

   Pages 51-74

5. Max, Judy, and Scott

   • Amanda Heffernan

   Pages 75-82

6. The Evolving Nature of the Principalship: Pressures Created by Rapid School Improvement Reforms

   • Amanda Heffernan

   Pages 83-116

7. ‘Stick to the Knitting’: Principals Identifying and Maintaining a Focus for Their School

   • Amanda Heffernan

   Pages 117-141

8. School Performance Data Profiles, School-Generated Data, and Principals’ Work

   • Amanda Heffernan

   Pages 143-166

9. Implications for Leadership

   • Amanda Heffernan

   Pages 167-176

10. Back Matter

    Pages 177-179

    PDF

This book investigates the localised effects of reform by exploring the impact of a school improvement policy agenda on the work of three experienced principals. It presents three longitudinal case studies within a shared specific leadership context in Queensland, Australia. The case studies enable an exploration of the way the principalship in this context has evolved over time, providing deep insights into the practices and beliefs of three experienced school leaders working in a period of rapid and urgent systemic reform. The nature of global reform policy borrowing means that the research and the findings within this monograph are relevant for international audiences.

The book describes a new way to understand and theorise the effects of reform policies and associated pressures on school leaders. Using post-structural theory, it provides a better understanding of the specific effects of reform policy ensembles, particularly when combined with an analysis of the ways policyand discourse work together at a wider level to create an environment that disciplines the principalship. Further, it sheds lights on the means of complying with or contesting policy influences and how the work of leaders has changed over time.

• primary school leadership
• elementary school leadership
• educational leadership
• Michael Foucault
• J.F. Lyotard
• school policy enactment
• school reform policies
• school improvement
• school principals
• lenses and notions of performativity
• leaders and autonomy and accountability
• Independent Public Schools
• NAPLAN
• experienced school leaders

• Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

  Amanda Heffernan

Dr Amanda Heffernan is a lecturer in Leadership at the Faculty of Education at Monash University. She is a former school principal and previously worked as a principal coach and mentor in Australian public schools. Her research interests include the changing nature of principals’ work, and the experiences of principals working with vulnerable populations of students and communities. 


In 2018, Amanda was named the International Journal of Leadership in Education’s Emerging Scholar, and her doctoral thesis was awarded an Honourable Mention by the American Educational Research Association’s Division A (Administration, Organization, & Leadership).  Amanda was named a ‘New Voice Scholar’ in the area of Educational Leadership Research by the Australian Council of Educational Leaders in 2016, and was one of the 2015 recipients of the Australian Association for Research in Education’s Postgraduate Student Researcher Award for her paper exploring the way principals’ practices have changed since the 2008 introduction of NAPLAN testing. This paper was later nominated as a finalist for Springer’s Best Paper award for the Australian Educational Researcher journal. 


Amanda works with aspiring principals, supervises doctoral students in the areas of leadership and policy, is an active member of the Australian Association for Research in Education, and serves on editorial boards for distinguished education and leadership journals. 

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