The International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) met in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 5th - 8th January 2010.

Papers presented in the conference:

Headteachers' views of support and challenge, and of critical friendship: insights from interviews

Sue Swaffield

A current study in England seeks to develop understanding of headteachers' perceptions of the professional support and challenge they experience from outside their schools. This paper draws on data gathered through face-to-face in-depth interviews following up a national postal questionnaire. The interviews were designed to explore in detail issues raised in the questionnaire, to seek explanation and fuller understanding. The study adopts an interpretivist perspective. The interviews indicate a number of contextual factors that contribute particulalry to the challenges experienced by headteachers, and some key sources of support and challenge that individuals experience and value differently. The overall picture was a of ubiquitous challenge and erratic support. Most interviewees were favourably inclined to the concept of critical friendship, although there was a range of reactions to the term. Some school improvement partners utilise the skills and qualities of critical friendship but the role includes some aspects fundamentally incompatible with authentic critical friendship.

Developing Leadership for Learning in Ghana: opportunities and challenges

John MacBeath, Sue Swaffield, George Oduro and Rosemary Bosu

A current major initiative of the Centre for Commonwealth Education at the University of Cambridge is a collaboration with the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, aimed at improving the quality of pedagogy in Ghanaian basic schools through learning-centred school leadership. Headteachers throughout the country are participating in a programme devised and facilitated by fifteen Ghanaian educators known as Professional Development Leaders, who have been prepared for this role by working with colleagues at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, first at a workship in Ghana and then at a summer school in Cambridge. The work takes as its theoretical framework the Leadership for Learning principles and framework developed through the Carpe Vitam Leadership for Learning project. In the early stages of the initiative it was essential to ascertain the current situation and to consider the context in which the development was to take place. This paper reports the Professional Development Leaders' perceptions of the opportunities and challenges for developing Leadership for Learning in Ghanaian basic schools.

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