Effective School Management

Figure 1
Integrated management and leadership
Lives
Values
Celebrate
Success
Talk
Vision
Create
Values
Taking
Risks
Promote
Challenge
Innovative
Thinking
Forward
Thinking
Decide
During
Crisis
Market
Thinking
Systems
Thinking
Critical
Reflective
Thinking
Strategic
Thinking
Delegate
Work
Inspire
Shared
Vision
Selection
&
Succession
Develop
Trust &
Respect
Develop
People &
Teams
Manage
Self
Manage
& Lead
People
Lead
Direction
& Culture
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Excellence in
Management &
Leadership
Maintain
Activities
Manage
Activities
Improve
Activites
Change
Activites
Improve
Perform-
ance
Review
Operations
Manage
Activities
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Secure
Finances
Energy
Efficiency
Effective
Targeting
Use of
Physical
Resources
Use of
Financial
Resources
Determine
Effective
Use
Manage
Resources
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Contribute
to Plans
Contribute
to
Closure
Plan
Projects
Complete
Projects
Co-
ordinate
Run
Projects
Manage
Projects
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Manage
Information
Facilitate
Meetings
Act on
Information
Provide
Information
Interpret
Information
Take
Decisions
Establish
Systems
Manage
Quality
Monitor
Compliance
Promote
Benefits
Audit
Quality
Implement
Systems
Con-
tinuously
Improve
Advise &
Support
Thinking
Abilities
People
Abilities
Task
Abilities

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CONTENTS
xiii
We believe that much of what we say also applies to the management of
colleges and universities and we hope that this will be borne in mind by
readers in such institutions. However, in this stratum of education, it is more
to the teachers of education management on long or short courses that we
offer guidance – on what, in our experience, teachers as managers really want
to learn. Although the book is based on studies of effective management and
successful organizations, and is pitched at a practical level, it is underpinned
with theory. If it fails to do justice to important schools of thought, this is
because we have quite deliberately selected approaches that we ourselves
have used, and found relevant.
We have included short tasks which the reader can relate to his or her own
school situation. Some of these exercises could be used for group discussion –
group learning is a useful method which can be set up in any school or for a
peer group from different schools in a locality. Other issues for discussion
have been added to the  fourth edition. Wherever we can, we have included
examples from schools.
Such conscious linking of the book to the reader’s own situation helps the
process of learning. We espouse the experiential learning model described by
Kolb (1984, p. 33), which is based on earlier work by Lewin and Dewey. It
postulates a cycle of improving competence by observing and reflecting on
concrete experiences, then forming abstract concepts or generalizations, then
testing the implications of these concepts in new situations. Thus learning
combines the processes of experience, perception, cognition and behaviour; it
is not simply the imparting and assimilation of knowledge. This book cannot
supply the concrete experience, so it will not be as helpful to readers whose
roles are not managerial; but we hope it will help perception, reflection and
conceptualization, and we suggest ways of putting the results of these
mental processes into practice.
We see the book being used for personal study at home or work; as part of
the reading for a short or a long course; for informal group discussion; and as
a reference handbook for the practising manager. We don’t think that this
multiplicity of aims is ambitious because that is how we have used similar
books on management. Our main concern is that so many of those who could
benefit from it simply can’t find the time for reading; their priorities leave no
space for self-improvement. It is worth reflecting whether such an ordering is
in the best interests of the school, for it is impossible to change a school for the
better without changing oneself.
The report of the School Management Task Force (1990), Developing School
Management – The Way Forward, called for a ‘new approach to school manage-
ment development which focuses attention on the support which should be
available in and near to the school and places less emphasis on off-site
training’. It sees management development as a crucial process in helping
organizations achieve their purposes, and quotes Everard’s definition of it as
‘an approach that supports, promotes and is harmoniously related to the
development of the organization’. This philosophy pervades our book,
PREFACE

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xiv
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
which emphasizes almost every characteristic of effective schools which the
report lists, and shows how each can be developed by schools themselves.
We share the task force’s view that schools should be moving towards an
integrated corporate approach to the development of the workforce, led by
the head, so that achievement of corporate goals and meeting the indi-
vidual’s needs become matters of mutual benefit rather than of competing
demands. The report advises schools to draw on industrial expertise; our
book packages this in an interactive form which schools can use by them-
selves, selecting whichever topics, techniques and exercises meet their needs.
In 1995 the Teacher Training Agency (TTA)  became responsible for
guiding nationally the professional development of teachers, including those
in management roles, and launched the HEADLAMP programme for
training newly appointed heads, now renamed the Headteacher Induction
Programme (HIP), in which many have now participated. Two other
programmes have since been added, and the work has now been taken over
by the National College for School Leadership.
We admit to being, in the writing of this book, creative plagiarists, a
condition rife among management trainers. In the distant past we have
picked up from lectures, handouts, articles, internal reports, books and
discussions with professional colleagues a whole host of interlocking ideas
which we have built into our personal repertoires, as birds build a nest. Often
the source of the original idea gets lost as it is embellished and refashioned to
new use. We are conscious of our debt to many ‘gurus’. As well as a general
acknowledgement to all those whose ideas we have used, we have tried to
give credit where we know the source. But there are some to whom we owe a
special debt.
Bertie Everard had the privilege of working over several years with
Professor Dick Beckhard of MIT, when he consulted with ICI, and with other
ICI colleagues such as Arthur Johnston and Derek Sheane. Part III owes
much to the insights developed during this experience. Professor Bill Reddin,
the late Ralph Coverdale and his disciples, and Meredith Belbin have also
helped to shape his ideas. Later there were colleagues in the University of
London Institute of Education and in the BEMAS Education Management
Development Committee, especially Janet Ouston.
Geoffrey Morris would like to express his thanks to his colleagues in
EMAS (European Management Advisory Services) who have contributed to
the development of ideas used in this book, and to Tom Lea, late of Brighton
Polytechnic, with whom he worked on frequent courses over a period of
twenty years; to Malcolm Mander of Brunel University and to Carmen
Newsome, Head of Tockwith Primary School, Yorkshire, who provided an
insight into Ofsted inspections and the changing primary school. He would
also like to acknowledge the, usually positive, criticism of his wife (a former
teacher), his daughter (a teacher) and his son (a manager), and to thank them
for giving him temporary leave of mental absence from the family.
Ian Wilson would like to acknowledge the many useful discussions he has

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CONTENTS
xv
had with senior leadership teams at Rydens School and Woodcote High
School. He has also been influenced by colleagues on the international
research project on school leadership in which he participated. He is grateful
for the support and encouragement of fellow heads, including Sandy Davies,
Roy Blatchford and Keith Sharp and colleagues in Surrey, especially Judy
Nettleton for information on special schools. His family have been, as usual,
tolerant of his hours spent with a PC rather than with them.
All of us have been rightly chivvied by our editor, Marianne Lagrange,
and by Berteke Ibbett and Irene Greenstreet, Morris’s secretaries, who word-
processed the script. To these and others unnamed, we express our thanks.
Bertie Everard
Geoffrey Morris
Ian Wilson
PERSONAL APPLICATION
Study the management and leadership functional map in Figure 1. How well does
your own job map on to it (you may want to rephrase a few functions? How do the
functions of a headteacher differ from those of managers and leaders in general? If
you conclude that they are much the same, are you willing to accept the generic
nature of such roles and therefore the relevance to your job of insights from non-
educational settings?
PREFACE

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xvi
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL MANAGEMENT

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CONTENTS
xvii