Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Research Article
Vanessa Lebrasseur and Melissa Leonard
Article:
Successful School
Leadership Across
Contexts and Cultures
(Gurr, 2014)
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Introduction
Qualitative case study
research from:
● International Successful School
Principalship Project (ISSPP)
● International School Leadership
Development Network (ISLDN)
“ “Whilst successful school
leaders are culturally
sensitive, they seem to be
less constrained by context
than would be expected”
(Gurr, 2014, p. 75).
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Same leadership across different context and culture
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Principal John Fleming
Educational Philosophy Teachers Students
⊷ teacher - directed ⊷ relationships with ⊷ have teachers who
learning students care for them
⊷ explicit instruction ⊷ high expectations ⊷ have friends
⊷ moving student ⊷ demonstrating ⊷ are given work at
knowledge from the excellent their level of ability
short-term to the presentation skills
long-term memory ⊷ provision of timely
⊷ positive relationships and learning focused
with students feedback
⊷ display of student
work
⊷ getting the right tone
for school
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Leadership for change – leadership
responding to context and culture
Sustainability of successful leadership to show how principals can
respond in different ways to similar policy contexts
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Similarities vs Differences
Principal Jan Shrimpton Principal Bella Irlitch
Restorer-Builder Driver-Builder
❖ Consistent improvement
❖ Successful turn over ❖ Change was embraced
❖ Maintained for over a decade ❖ Inspired school community
❖ Changing external contextual factors ❖ High expectations
❖ Changing Internal school-culture factors ❖ Developed a shared vision
❖ Developing people and supporting
Not interested in further change for the sake their leaderships of new initiatives
of change ❖ Inspirational and motivating
behavior
❖ External factors were used as an
advantage
❖ Internal school culture
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Leadership across countries – Australian,
Indonesian and Singaporean models of
successful school leadership
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SINGAPOREAN MODEL OF SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
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AN INDONESIAN MODEL OF SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
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Leadership in challenging circumstances – leadership
struggling to respond to context and culture
School 1: Hume Central Secondary College
Principal Glen Proctor (experienced)
Principal:
- Primarily relationship focused
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Leadership in challenging circumstances – leadership
struggling to respond to context and culture
⊷ Human Central
- is firmly established
- is becoming a school of choice
- student learning outcomes are increasing
⊷ Aboriginal School
- rich curriculum provided
- students enjoy being at school when they attend
- learning is happening when they attend
- school is a central part of the community
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Conclusion
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In summary good leaders:
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References
Day, C. (2015). International successful school principalship project (ISSPP): Multi-perspective research on school principals. The
http://www.uv.uio.no/ils/english/research/projects/isspp/isspp-brochure-27_jul_final_amended.pdf
Drysdale, L. & Gurr, D. (2011). The theory and practice of successful school leadership in Australia. School Leadership and
Gurr, D. (2014). Successful School Leadership Across Contexts and Cultures. Leading and Managing. Vol. 20, No. 2. pp.
75-88
Raihani. (2007). Successful School Leadership in Indonesia: A study of the principals’ leadership in three successful senior
Wang, P.. (2010). Successful School Leadership in Singapore Government Schools. PhD thesis. Melbourne, The University of
Melbourne.
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Credits
Special thanks to all the people
who made and released these
awesome resources for free:
⊷ Presentation template by
SlidesCarnival
⊷ Photographs by Unsplash
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