Abstract:

The development of school leadership capacity that ensures teachers have the opportunity to maximise the potential of their professional learning networks is a highly relevant feature of the professional development of teachers. In achieving shared goals in an ever-changing environment school leaders need to be able to engage and influence all staff to impact on pupil learning. Increasingly this process is enhanced through involvement in learning networks. According to the OECD networks promote the dissemination of good practice, enhance the professional development of teachers, support capacity building in schools, mediate between centralised and decentralised structures, and assist in the process of re-structuring and re-culturing educational organisations and systems (2003:154). This paper is premised on the idea that the educational context is constantly evolving, and this requires teachers to adapt aspects of their professional practice. Sachs (2001) indicated that collaboration and collegiality are cornerstones of democratic discourses. If school leaders do not facilitate engagement of teachers through networking then teachers may meet their individual needs through a range of dialogic opportunities but the influence of their learning on pupil learning will be limited to what they alone can achieve. School leaders that recognise the ability of teachers to face new situations through working together to reduce the difficulties they face together will become the architects of these opportunities. The Leading Learning Networks (LeLeNet) project addressed in this paper recognises that school leaders play an essential role in the building of sustainable networks within their schools and across their wider communities. The research element of the European project gathered the views of 25 school leaders and 250 teachers across six national education systems. The evidence was supportive of the view that the role of the school leader as network architect is a precondition for successful networking in schools. The creation of effective teacher networks relies on the development of a variety of professional knowledge and skills from both teachers and school leaders and the development of a collaborative learning culture. It is evident that schools will vary in their enthusiasm and scepticism of the need for networks and the leadership readiness to adopt the concept. However, in a time when school networks have become ever more popular as the mode of initiating changes and large-scale reforms there is a strong case for the development of leadership roles that accommodate inclusivity of staff in networking activity. School leaders must be enabled to promote learning activities within an interactive web of leaders and followers in different situational constellations (Hargreaves, 2006) if they are to effectively serve the needs of their learners and the wider community.

References:
[1] Hargreaves, A. (2006). Educational change over time? The sustainability and non-sustainability of three decades of secondary school change and continuity. Educational Administration Quarterly, 42(1), 3-41.
[2] OECD (2003). Education at a Glance. Paris: OECD.
[3] Sachs, J. (2001) Teacher professional identity: Competing discourses, competing outcomes. Journal of education policy, 16:2, 149-161 Taylor & Francis

Keywords:

Leading Learning Networks.