Effective School Management

Maintaining and developing resources
The tangible resources of an organization can be classified as
(1) human (the people employed by the organization);
(2) material (buildings and equipment); and
(3) financial (the funds available to the organization).
If these resources are not maintained we simply do not have an organization
to integrate or to change.
Alongside these are a number of intangible resources, of which ‘image’ or
‘reputation’ are the most generally recognized. Without the right image, the
survival of any commercial enterprise, including an independent school, is

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certainly in doubt and, even within the state system, image matters wherever
choice comes into play, e.g. recruitment of staff, placement of pupils in jobs
and parental/student choice of school or college. Reflect on what other
intangible resources are possessed by a school and their relative importance:
ethical standards? disciplinary standards? external relationships and
support?
It is not enough to maintain resources. The process of change demands that
managers focus a great deal of attention on developing resources to meet new
challenges and needs. If the educational system is to progress and be relevant
to society, it must be ‘need driven’ and not ‘resource driven’ – that is to say,
resources must be adapted to meet needs and not vice versa. These needs will
be derived from the interplay of the school’s values, the trends within the
environment and educational legislation.
Managerial activities particularly concerned with the maintenance and
development of resources are
(1) human  – selection, job design, performance management, career
planning, training, project work, coaching;
(2) material – purchasing, stock control, asset management; and
(3) financial – budgeting, cost control, fund-raising, cost/benefit analysis.
While barriers to curriculum development are most often said to be financial,
the real problems are often human. Do staff have the skills and knowledge
needed to introduce new subjects and methods? Do they want to make the
changes? The relationship between skill and knowledge on the one hand and
desire to innovate on the other is a ‘chicken and egg’ situation. To support a
new subject we need to understand it; to wish to learn about a subject, we
may need to be convinced of its relevance.
A school manager needs to be able to plan, organize and control all his or
her resources, but the most crucial skill is undoubtedly the development of
human resources.
ETHICS AND THE MANAGER
As teachers we already play an important and influential role in the lives of
our pupils. As managers we become, additionally, one of the most important
influences on the working lives of the staff who report directly or indirectly to
us. As heads we fashion the value system of the school.
On our actions and attitudes will depend to a large extent
(1) whether the staff are happy or unhappy in their work;
(2) their work priorities; and
(3) the standard which they observe and reflect.
As ‘leader’ of a group of staff, we have a potential ‘power-base’ which can be
used to influence decisions. Unscrupulous managers can make life hell for
those of their departments who do not support them in staff meetings, whether

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or not the issue under discussion has previously been discussed within their
departmental groups. Words like ‘loyalty’ can be corrupted to mean slavish
adherence to the party line.
As we shall see, good ‘meeting management’ can become ‘manipulation’;
objectivity, honesty and justice can be lost in the emotion of conflict; all sorts
of games can be played.
Every manager should constantly reflect on the ethics of his or her
conduct. Other people, especially more senior managers, are more perceptive
of unethical manoeuvrings than ever the perpetrator imagines. People who
fondly imagine themselves to be seen as brilliant young managers, or as
shrewd and sympathetic handlers of people, may, in fact, be regarded as
unprincipled rogues by their colleagues.
Standards of competence, for use in NVQs, are now required to capture
occupational demands arising from ethics and values, and the practical
consequences for performance of subscribing to a value base have to be
incorporated into descriptions of outcomes (NCVQ, 1995). The new
standards for management and leadership include a unit ‘Ensure com-
pliance with values, ethical and legal frameworks‘ (www.management-
standards.org).
THE SCHOOL’S  ROLE AND MISSION: ARE EDUCATION AND
MANAGEMENT INCOMPATIBLE?
Most authors on this subject readily reconcile education and management.
However, there are still those who passionately believe that the manager’s
role and mission, as we have described them, are incompatible with those of
a school. It is argued that schools, with their deep-rooted educational values
and academic professionalism, are not the kind of organizations that ought to
be managed by a ‘linchpin head’ or even a senior management or leadership
group – they ought to be self-managing communities with access to power
dispersed equally among the staff. This case has been argued in a London
Institute of Education Paper, Education plc? (Maw et al., 1984), which reflects
the views of a number of educational sociologists and other theorists in
institutions of higher education and of teachers who have been trained to
embrace their thinking. The main arguments adduced in support of this stance
are given below. We set them out early in this book because, unless they are
confronted, much of what follows may be rejected by readers who espouse
similar views:
(1) ‘Managerialism’ is in conflict with the values and purposes of schools.
(2) Stress on means as against ends devalues professional competence.
(3) Hierarchically organized schools deprive teachers of involvement in
fundamental educational thinking.
(4) Vertical accountability is debilitating; it leads to suspicion, resentment,
divisiveness, problems of legitimacy and (in the case of appraisal)
attendant psychological detriment to isolated individuals.

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(5) The conception of authority relationships within an educational system
is contrary to democratic principles and has a miseducative effect on
pupils.
(6) Pupils should not be politically educated through belonging to an
institution that is run by a ‘linchpin head’.
(7) The contexts of educational and commercial organizations differ
fundamentally; the latter ignore important moral considerations,
whereas to an educational undertaking, morality is central.
(8) Recommended management practice (‘contingency theory’) is
tantamount to expediency and manipulation; the abrogation of such
words as ‘participation’ is especially insidious.
(9) Management theory is a pseudo-theory, tricked out as a form of
‘behavioural science’, but without scientific basis; it lends a spurious
legitimacy to the manipulative practices of managers.
(10) A commercially inspired management imperative may betray rather
than enhance the specifically educational nature of schools, because its
values, focus and style of operation are destructive and alien to
progressive educational thinking.
(11) Managers surreptitiously enjoy the exercise of power, kick away much
conventional morality and subjugate employees to the demands of the
organization. Therefore heads should be regarded not as ‘managers’
but as professionally first among equals.
We believe that these arguments rest on false premisses and on a lack of
understanding of what well-managed commercial organizations are really
like (for example, those with the Investors in People accolade).  Some postulate
a classical model of an industrial organization which has long been superseded;
some do not correspond with life in such organizations as we have experienced
it as managers and managed. The fact is that there is great diversity in industry
and commerce, and within this are to be found exemplary organizations and
departments with whose managers most teachers would find some rapport.
Only part of industry is concerned with the routine tasks of mass production:
research, accounts and training departments resemble schools in being staffed
mainly by skilled and articulate professionals, and are managed accordingly.
If we thought that the approaches we advocate in the rest of this book
would have the effects that critics of ‘managerialism’ fear, then we should not
have written it. We are more than ready to defend on moral and ethical
grounds everything we have written. No less than the critics do we respect
professional competence, individuality and the centrality of values in the
(often hidden) curriculum of schools. One of us was a founder member of the
National Association for Values in Education and Training (NAVET) and has
contributed a chapter on ‘Values as central to competent professional
practice’ to a book on Managing Teachers as Professionals in Schools (Everard,
1995b). For us management does not and should not imply the naked
exercise of power, nor the subservience of the managed, nor insensitivity to

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individuals’ needs, nor the renunciation of human values. It does, however,
call for the knitting together of social and economic values, as warp and weft.
We readily acknowledge the cultural differences between schools and
other organizations, with their different raisons d’être, and we are deeply
aware, through bitter experience, of the pitfalls of using concepts and
terminology that mean different things to people on different sides of the
cultural divide. It may be that such pitfalls partly explain why we are able to
accept the five conclusions about school management training with which
Fielding ends his critique in Education plc? (Maw et al., 1984), while rejecting
most of the arguments on which he bases them; and why we wholeheartedly
subscribe to Mitchell’s view of the headteacher’s role, in the same booklet,
quarrelling only with his stereotype of industrial managers.
However, this is not a book about educational and managerial philosophy
and ethics: it is about effective practice. Hence all we need do at this point is
to outline how we perceive the school as an organization, and what its
mission is:
(1) The raison d’être of a school is to promote its pupils’ learning, within a
curriculum acceptable to its stakeholders, or as prescribed by the law.
(2) A school organization should meet these ends efficiently and cost-
effectively.
(3) In such an organization tensions will arise between social and economic
values, professional autonomy and managerial control, individuality
and hierarchy, structural authority and participative decision-making,
the head’s dual roles of ‘leading professional’ and ‘chief executive’, the
educational good of the many and the self-interest of the few, high
principle and pragmatic expediency – and many other dilemmas that
sometimes require a decision as to the lesser of two ‘evils’, e.g. being
cruel in order to be kind.
(4) Striking the correct balance in these dilemmas entails difficult
judgements, which have to be referred to a set of values outside of and
greater than those of the individuals in the organization.
(5) At the highest level of abstraction, such values apply to, and often drive,
all successful organizations, be they educational or commercial, and they
act as bridges between the two.
In the remainder of this book we shall often revert to these fundamental issues
in exploring how managers can best fulfil their personal roles and at the same
time contribute to that of the educational institutions where they are set in
authority.
FURTHER READING
Bush, T. and Bell, L.A. (2002)  The Principles and Practice of Educational Management,
Sage, London.

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PERSONAL APPLICATION
Does your personal value system get in the way of your becoming a more effective
manager? What are the main sticking points? Can you find a mentor to help you to
reconcile your innermost beliefs with the inexorable demands that your job places
on you? Do any of your staff need mentoring for a similar reason?

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