Effective School Management

Figure 17.1
Stages in the process of change

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(2) Determining the future: what do we want to happen? What will happen if
we do nothing?
(3) Characterizing the present: what are we here for? What are the demands
on us? What is stopping us? What is working for us?
(4) Identifying the gaps between present and future to determine the work to
be done to close them: who is resistant? Who can help the change? Who
should manage it?
(5) Managing the transition from present to future: who does what by when?
How do we gain commitment?
(6) Evaluating  and monitoring the change: was success achieved? Will the
change endure? What has been learned?
A word of warning about using this approach is needed. It must not become
a shackled approach. It needs to be used flexibly and with careful thought. A
golfer may complete a successful round without using all his or her clubs. So
do not worry if some of the elements in the approach do not speak to your
situation. Do not labour any of the stages if common sense and intuition
provide you with a short-cut, especially if the scale of the change is relatively
modest. But do be wary of skipping an essential step in the logic. Equally, if
you have tried other approaches successfully, or have read authors like
Schmuck  et al. (1977), Bolam et al. (1979), Stewart (1983), Plant (1987) and
Caldwell and Spinks (1998), by all means adopt whatever approach works
for you; the similarities outweigh the differences.
 It is interesting how successful change programmes such as BCLP (p. 229)
match this approach, although sometimes the emphasis is different. For
example, BCLP makes a special point of celebrating achievement and
success, which can inflame further progress. This can take the form of articles
in the local press, ceremonies to reward achievement and the accreditation of
new skills and competences through qualifications and certificates.
 BCLP also comment on the importance of language in describing a change
process; the word ‘gap’ implies a deficit model and suggests that people are
failing to be fully professional. How true! One of us (Everard), fresh from
industry, recalls how he innocently used the word ‘improve’ to describe the
purpose of school management training. To a teacher, however, ‘improve’
carries a nuance: ‘Johnny is showing signs of improvement’ is a euphemism.
The moral is to describe ‘closing the gap’ as ‘moving from good to excellent’
or ‘improving still further on the current best’. Wisely, instead of using the
DfES term ‘Education Action Zone’, the Barrow project was called a
‘Community Learning Partnership’, which emphasizes these three words as
key drivers of worthwhile change.
ASSESSING THE SOUNDNESS OF A PROPOSED CHANGE
It should not be assumed that changes proposed from within or without the
organization should be adopted without question: they may be unsound on

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educational grounds or on grounds of practicality, as judged by those who
will have to bear the brunt of the change. After all, an unsuccessful change,
however progressive the idea seemed, does not necessarily benefit the pupils;
and it may harm them. A succession of unsuccessful attempts at change can
have a devastating effect on school morale and evoke a sense of disillusionment
and impotence that acts as an obstacle to future change, even that agreed to
be desirable and practicable.
In other words, shrewd heads will be circumspect in their response to a
proposal for change (including one to which they are personally attached, or
even one enshrined in legislation). A proposal may seem eminently well
intentioned, so that to reject it seems churlish and scarcely defensible; its
adoption may seem inevitable in the long run; it may emanate with great
conviction from a respected source; it may appear to carry the force of law:
but it may still be wrong or untimely to adopt it, for the system may not be in
a state of readiness to take in on board. The impulse of rejection must be
allowed to play itself out; indeed, in the nineteenth century Thomas Carlyle
said that we should always reject a proposition before accepting it. We shall
return to this point later; meanwhile, let it not be construed as support for
King Canute!
As managers we can, and should, attempt a dispassionate assessment of
the quality or soundness of a proposed change regardless of whether we are
in tune with it ourselves.
How do we assess the soundness of a proposed change? First, who is
initiating it, and what is their motivation? Sadly, some people with strong
career aspirations, be they in the political or the professional world, see
advancement as conditional upon having made their mark, or having
established a track-record of getting things done. Organizations and societies
usually award ‘Brownie points’ to people who push through some reform or
other; and everyone likes to receive esteem. So we need to beware of change
initiated by someone (especially an outsider) mainly for career purposes,
rather than because it has intrinsic merit. As Lavelle (1984) has pointed out,
innovation is more likely to be successful when perceived as necessary by
those in the school, rather than by outsiders. He sees the key to effective
innovation as lying within the microdynamics of the school and the
classroom, within areas in which heads and their staff wish strongly to
exercise their personal autonomy.
We must be circumspect about changes that have some popular or topical
appeal, but whose implications have not been thought through. No one can
expect all the consequences of change to be worked out in advance, but it ill
becomes an initiator of change to will the end without providing the means.
Even if the goal of the change has been carefully and clearly defined (and not
even this is commonly done, to the point where criteria are specified by
which we can judge whether the goal has been attained: see Chapter 10), the
means of implementation may be vague in the extreme. Or again, the
magnitude of change may not be appreciated, so that the whole system

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stands to be overwhelmed. Successful change depends on having realistic
aims.
Another point to consider before adopting change is the extent to which it
is supported within the power system. Has it been initiated from the DfES?
Does the local education authority support it? It is especially important to
check the degree of political backing if additional resources will need to be
negotiated at the implementation stage. Support may be needed from several
levels in the hierarchy.
The teachers’ unions’ attitudes, the governors’ support, the parents’
attitudes and of course those of the teachers themselves, all need to be taken
into account in judging the extent of demand or support for the change.
Government grants in support of a change may give the change a fair
wind, and indeed may be vital for success, but the ingenuity with which
people can gain access to funds yet divert them to other purposes is well
known in all walks of life. As many teachers know, TVEI was a case in point.
Government legislation may also indicate support and even appear to
mandate adoption of a change, but again the propensity of a complex system
for outwitting the intentions of the legislators (as in parts of the Butler
Education Act 1944) is well documented. Accordingly, we should be careful
not to read too much into grants, circulars and even legislation. Beware also
of short-term funding for long-term programmes.
These are some of the factors that wise heads will take into consideration
in deciding what stance they will take to a change instigated by another part
of the education system. It is neither necessary nor practicable for all con-
ditions to be ideal before a proposed change is adopted; but some judgement
has to be made about the probable success of a decision to adopt, and if the
head is convinced that the change, however well intentioned, is doomed to
failure, then it may well be that he or she is right to resist that particular
change at least for the time being. The school may not be ready for it. This is
not to suggest that all changes should be resisted, nor that resistance
invariably succeeds in fending off the attempt to change, nor that some token
response may not be prudent.
PERSONAL APPLICATION
Think of some educational changes you have experienced in your career which have
produced the least successful outcomes. Were any basically unsound? Why? How
could they have been resisted?
THE RECONNAISSANCE
Having decided that a proposed change is sound, we have to conduct a
reconnaissance. Much educational change is technically simple but socially
complex, and the complexity arises not so much from dogged, mindless
opposition of narrow-minded staff as from the difficulty of planning and

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organizing a multidimensional process involving many people, all with
different perceptions and outlooks. The factors affecting implementation
cannot be dealt with in isolation from each other, because they form a set of
interacting variables which has to be seen as an entity. What are the factors?
First, there are the characteristics of the change itself: is it needed? Is it
relevant to the particular school at this time? Has the relevance to be
established? Is it complex? Is it feasible? Can it be presented as practical in the
short run, not too costly and potentially helpful to the teachers?
The question of need is not an absolute one. We have to ask if it is needed
more than other changes, the implementation of which will use the same
(usually scarce) resources. It is quite possible to overload any system or
organization with change, so the issue of priorities and sequencing changes is
a vital strategic decision for any manager. When some LEAs saddled their
schools with four major simultaneous changes – for example multicultural
education, mixed-ability teaching, helping the underachiever and avoidance
of gender discrimination – at a time when there were already unavoidable
changes brought about by contraction, reorganization, etc., they could not
expect all these changes to be enthusiastically or successfully handled. The
changes required by the Education Reform Act 1988 also overloaded the
system. So the effect of all the changes already taking place on the school’s
capacity to cope with yet another change will have important implications for
the rate at which plans for implementation can be put into effect.
Lack of clarity about the goals and means of effecting change is a common
problem which we addressed in preceding chapters. All who are affected by
the change need a clear picture of what it will mean for them: what will they
be doing differently, after the change has been implemented? They want to
know specifically what it means in practice for them. Nor will they be content
to be fobbed off with false clarity, in which the commanding heights of the
future scenario are sketched starkly and boldly, but the terrain in their neck of
the woods is left totally vague. Clarity is not something which can be
prepackaged in some sort of blueprint; it is something that grows through
dialogue and questioning. We must judge how long it will take to achieve
clarity, and incorporate this process into the time planning. The legislative
provisions for religious education and worship that is ‘broadly Christian’
exemplify this difficulty.
Complexity is an unwelcome but usually unavoidable factor, because
worthwhile change often requires the bringing together of a set of inter-
locking conditions into a critical mass powerful enough to break through a
log-jam of problems. However, much more care is needed in complex change,
to ensure that there is proper co-ordination of all the activities needed to
implement the change successfully. Leadership is called for, in addition to
tactical skills.
Then there is feasibility. If a new syllabus is to be introduced, are there
opportunities and funds for any necessary in-service training? If physically
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to equip the buildings accordingly, other than at inordinate cost? Is the
timescale of the change realistic? You do not have to have the solution to
every problem at hand before you accept that a change is feasible, but you do
have to assess how imaginable solutions are.
The second set of factors affecting the implementation of change concerns
the particular locality where the change is to take place. History is the first
such factor: has the LEA a track-record of introducing or facilitating change
successfully on previous occasions, or has a succession of bad experiences
built up a negative climate of cynicism, disillusionment and apathy? Are
there people there who can facilitate change, such as well respected advisers
with time available? Are there any local problems that would be helped
incidentally by tackling the larger change?
Thirdly, what is special about the school? Does it have a track-record of
innovation? Are there problems that could be simultaneously helped by
implementing the change? For instance, there may be a deputy head who has
not been really stretched, and for whom the responsibility for carrying out a
complex change programme would offer considerable career advantage.
What is the head’s attitude to change? This is an important question, because
research shows that the head in any organization plays a disproportionate