Strengthening the Connections Between Leadership and Learning: Challenges to Policy, School and Classroom Practice

Examining a decade of research and practice, this book makes the case for a radical reappraisal of leadership, learning, and their interrelationship in educational policy. Discussing whether policy direction is progressively constraining the professionalism and initiative of teachers and school leaders, it challenges conventional understanding and argues the case for thinking differently about the way to lead learning.

Based on the Leadership for Learning (LfL) Project, the book clarifies, extends, and refines LfL principles and practices, and their contribution to ameliorating some of the difficult conditions encountered in the contemporary educational policy environment. It starts by discussing the direction and influence of current education policy and its subsequent consequences; chapters then move on to explore the framing values informing the LfL Projects, particularly focusing on what they imply for commitments to social justice, children’s rights and breadth in student learning, and considering how to create favourable conditions for learning.

Identifying a disconnect between seminal principles and the nature of day-to-day practice, Strengthening the Connections between Leadership and Learning challenges school policy and practice at national and local levels. It is an essential read for postgraduate students, especially those studying leadership in education, as well as for teachers and policymakers in schools.

John MacBeath is Emeritus Professor at the University of Cambridge, UK, co-founder of Leadership for Learning: the Cambridge Network, and Fellow of Hughes Hall.

Neil Dempster is Emeritus Professor at Griffith University and former Dean of the Griffith University Faculty of Education, Australia.

David Frost was a member of the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK, for 20 years. He was one of the co-founders of Leadership for Learning: the Cambridge Network and the founder of the HertsCam Network.

Greer Johnson is Director of the Griffith Institute for Educational Research at Griffith University, Australia, and was previously a member of the Australian team on the Leadership for Learning Project.

Sue Swaffield teaches and researches in educational leadership and school improvement at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK. Sue is a co-founder of Leadership for Learning: the Cambridge Network.