Leading Schools Successfully: Stories from the field

Leading Schools Successfully: Stories from the field considers international research focussing on leadership in schools. Based on the ISSPP (International Successful School Principalship Project) which has conducted over one hundred multiple perspective case studies of successful school principals from more than a dozen countries, the book captures the exhilaration of being a principal who grows and sustains success from those practitioners who are acknowledged as exhibiting outstanding leadership.

Whilst much is known about successful school leaders, the book reinforces the argument that it is neither possible, nor appropriate, to generalise specific strategies that should be adopted to ensure success for all schools at all times in all settings. Instead, success calls for a high level of judgement, wisdom, artistry and sheer hard work on the part of principals, adapting for their particular context the knowledge about leading schools successfully. Reflection sections in each chapter ask the reader to consider further issues which each chapter raises.

Topics considered include:

- the importance of school principals to school success

- turning around under-performing schools

- values-led leadership

-sustaining successful leadership

- leading in multi-cultural settings

- issues and implications for the future.

With international contributions from experts in the field, the book offers a new perspective on leadership in schools and will be of interest to school principals and researchers.

Christopher Day is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK, and leads the Teachers' Work and Lives and School Leadership Research groups in the Centre for Research in Schools and Communities.

David Gurr is Senior Lecturer in Educational Leadership at the University of Melbourne, Australia.