Base legal de la educación no formal en El Salvador

2.5.1 Perceptions of Incumbent Head teachers

The daily activities of a head teacher were recorded, for two weeks, by The National College (2007) to counteract the preconceptions some leaders have about the role. By then,

commissioning analysing of the head teacher data (on the exact activities that headship face) the research attempted to focus on the “concepts of well-being, work-life balance, stress and job satisfaction… the tasks that head teachers are expected to undertake have changed greatly and their work is increasingly perceived as pressured” (The National College 2007 p4).

Analysis of the work of 39 head teachers, in various differing stages of their careers, found that:

“24% of time was spent on admin, 17% spent on work for external stakeholders, 9% on internal stakeholders, 15% on management (mainly issues related to staff), 9% CPD, 18% on unspecified personal issues and the rest on strategic leadership (mostly through SMT meetings)” (The National College 2007 p 6).

From the survey and observations of the head teachers, over a two week period, there were some similarities that were identified in the report by The National College 2007. The 24% administration time issues activities included: the general running of the whole school day; assemblies; and dinnertime supervision and breakfast/after school club observations. This indicates that the main activities of the head teachers’ day are the visual presence of the person in every aspect of their school. The 17% work ‘on external stakeholders’ and 9% on ‘internal stakeholders’ considers the paperwork involved in governor meeting preparation, and the networking that head teachers’ are a part of. The management of staff would obviously depend on issues related to the head’s school. What is surprising with these statistics is that there is 18% of time on ‘unspecified personal issues.’ This could be simply being at the school gate before/after school, or being on lunchtime duty where presence of the head can often improve parental, pupil and head relationships. In the era of

this may need to be looked at if time management is indeed an issue regarding head teachers perceived hours.

The National College (2007) article surprisingly does not mention children, which must ultimately be the main reason that people become school leaders. This may be that leadership takes the individual out of the classroom. From the heads, interviewed by the National College, the only mention is the leadership “stressed the importance of having a high profile in the school, both for students and staff alike, to model desired behaviour and establish the ‘right’ ethos” (2007 p8).

As a theme, needing further exploration is workload of heads. All the literature available indicates that head teachers work long hours and it is argued “heads often worked on average 52.9hrs a week by over 70% of heads” (The National College 2007 p6). The report also indicates that increased hours increase stress levels and that work-life balance is affected directly by the emotional involvement the job entails. Stress and work life balance are repeated themes emerging from the literature review. The two, interlinked, themes leads one to question if deputy and assistant heads’ observing the ‘paperwork and meeting’ workload of their head teacher are deciding that they do not want to take on that role. Could life factors be a fundamental reason for heads leaving the profession? In order to consider if there is a leadership crisis, all outwardly perceived problems, related to being a head

teacher, will need to be explored in both the questionnaire and individual interviews. The areas that will be investigated are: school leadership recruitment; aspirations of middle and senior leaders; the policy context around accountability; stress and work life balance; and the economic context question around salary.

2.5.2 Perceptions of Deputy and Assistant heads

The primary school leadership team, historically, was made up of the head teacher and a deputy head. The deputy was a full time, class based teacher who was relied upon often in crisis, but the responsibility for the school was solely the head’s. The 1988 Education Act changed the direction of leadership by allowing governing bodies to have more influential power on budgets, staffing and a new National Curriculum which to monitor through governing meetings.

The Education Act (1998) has allowed other senior teachers to progress to positions such as assistant head or phase leaders. There has also been the introduction of the school business manager, as more financial control has been assigned from local authorities. The delegation of some responsibilities has been given from the head teacher to middle leaders, so they can gain experience of making decisions and are able to consider the outcomes of

these decisions. The middle leaders, therefore, have become accountable for their judgments when questioned by outside agencies. Canavan (2001) cited this as “providing development opportunities that are critical to an individual’s leadership preparation” (p76). Distribution of tasks, specifically designed to enhance succession planning, maybe a solution to the leadership crisis. Planning for future career development was an aspect that could be explored further within the senior leaders’ interviews.

In 2008, the National College conducted a piece of research with Halliday-Bell, Jennings, Kennard, McKay, Reid and Walter into why there is a head teacher shortage, and found that there were “negative perceptions” (p1) or inhibitory factors to headship about the role itself from the senior leadership teams. The work looked initially at the enthusiasm and energy of six head teachers, in a small scale study, but then found that senior leaders viewed the demands on head teachers in a negative way and this formed the main findings in their report. The inhibitory factors were grouped as either “emotional or operational” (p1). 2.5.3 The Inhibitors of Headship

2.5.3.1 Emotional Inhibitors

The emotional factors, according to Halliday-Bell et al (2008), are “guilt and anxiety” (p2) and the operational inhibitors are “flitting, fire-fighting and procrastinating” (p2). From the

descriptions, the emotional factors that was found to be factors in stopping people from moving towards headship, was attendance at meetings. External meetings stop head teachers from being in their school environment and the perception stops them from teaching; all of which causes guilt:

“Examples of particular areas of tension include using time as a resource and creating a work-life balance” (Halliday-Bell et al. 2008 p2).

Feelings of guilt and anxiety triggered by some of the harder aspects of headship are usually created by people. This could be disciplinary or capability issues, for example. Staffing and parental concerns can cause leadership stress and the notion of ‘book stops here’ approach means that the head teacher can often become the “sole decision maker” (p2) which is a view held by other members of staff. A collaborative approach, working alongside the SMT, may prevent feelings of isolation, but if middle leaders see anxiety in their school leadership does this put them off? Halliday-Bell et al. (2008) seem to imply that the head teacher should:

“Endeavour neither to carry guilt nor avoid the critical issues they face… through modelling the importance of displaying commitment to learning and their own well-being” (p3).

2.5.3.2 The Operational Inhibitors

The three aspects that Halliday-Bell et al (2008) feel are inhibitory factors, towards headship, are very similar in their content. The operational factors are all time consuming activities that prevent strategic, forward planning from happening. The three areas are ‘flitting’ ‘fire-fighting’ and ‘procrastinating’ (2008 p2). Flitting is simply looking busy but not really settling to work. Fire-fighting is similar in that everything has to be completed as a matter of urgency, creating unnecessarily panic amongst staff. This is also the sometimes overwhelming accessibility that people feel they have on head teacher’s time, making a “dependency culture” (2008 p2). Procrastinating is similar to flitting, except it involves not dealing with important issues,

burying one’s head in the sand concept. All three of these operational factors could stop middle leaders from developing their career, as the head teacher role could be viewed as very time consuming, paper work orientated and frantic. Do middle leaders perceptions of the daily work commitments need to be changed in order for people to further their career? From the National College funded research in 2007 and 2008 (Halliday-Bell et al.) there appears to be wide gaps between the ‘observed’ participation of the head teachers’ role and the actual job itself. As a researcher, it will be very important to explore the perceptions in greater detail to try to summarize the reasons, in order to gain some possible ideas for moving forward. In the thesis interviews, senior leader discussions about inhibiting factors were explored fully to determine if the perceived daily activities of headship are in anyway obstructing people from moving forward in their career. Discussions on the roles and

responsibilities of head teachers may give an insight into the realities of the everyday actions of the school leader and possible solutions for development of the job.