A surprising result from both the survey data and interviews were the responses to the concept of ‘leadership’. In the responses to the open ended questions in the survey, the word ‘leadership’ only occurred 7 times; 5 in the context of greatest pleasure and 2 in the context of greatest challenge. In the responses to the interview question “Which aspects of your leadership role do you most enjoy?” activities such as “taking Y6 swimming” and “I enjoy regular contact with the children” were quoted. This would suggest that headteachers do not differentiate between leadership and other roles and, perhaps, use the term ‘leadership’ as an umbrella term to encompass all of their activities. This would accord with the views of Lewis and Murphy (2008) that the link between leadership and management in education is difficult to separate and with those of Alvesson and Sveningsson (2003) that every day activities are important in order to create a good working atmosphere. However, it may suggest that these practitioners have not had access to academic studies about leadership and so may be unaware of the views that exist regarding the nature of leadership. Similarly, the leadership styles quoted by interviewees all related to relationships with staff – none of the interviewees quoted any of the styles associated with educational change (e.g. transformational, instructional) though they clearly are involved in promoting the best possible educational outcomes for their schools.
Some interviewees appeared to veer between different styles, for example, “authoritative but listen a lot”, “collegiate but will lead from the front”. This may also indicate a lack of awareness regarding leadership styles though Bush and Glover (2003) describe the ‘contingent’ style of leadership as being one where styles are adapted according to context and Hammersely-Fletcher and Kirkham (2007) noted that, in small primary schools, ‘at times, it may be appropriate for the headteacher to act autocratically, at others more democratically or, indeed, in a more distributed manner’ (p 430).
The management of finance and premises featured strongly in the survey as being extremely challenging. In the ‘How could colleges/trainers better prepare headteachers for leading voluntary aided schools?’ question, these management tasks were the top priority with interviewees requesting less theory and more practical advice to prepare them for headship. Specific examples of areas that involve voluntary aided headteachers were quoted; for example, LCVAP (LA Coordinated Voluntary Aided Programme). These responses support the views that managerialism creates pressure for headteachers of voluntary aided schools due to the conflicting demands of budgets, finance and marketisation as opposed to the religious requirements of serving the poor (Grace 1995, 2002 and 2009a;, Luckcock 2006; Fincham 2010) and educational matters (McInerney 2003).
Responses to the statement “I believe that v/a heads have a heavier workload than do heads of other schools” produced a fairly balanced overall response with 37% agreeing/strongly agreeing and 38% disagreeing/strongly disagreeing with the statement. On applying a chi-square test, the type/age range of school group demonstrated a significant difference ranging from Primary school respondents (40%) to Secondary school respondents (22%). It was suggested in Chapter 4 that this discrepancy may reflect the fact that secondary schools by virtue of their size would have large departments responsible for subjects and administration whereas in the Primary schools, 56% of which had under 250 pupils, factors applicable to voluntary aided schools, such as employment of staff and premises, may have more impact on the workload of headteachers. This suggestion was supported by Interviewee H8 (a primary headteacher) who stated that “Extra work for v/a schools is caused by the need for organising the 10% capital cost contributions” - work which in secondary schools
would be more likely to be undertaken by a bursar. This supports the research by Robinson (2011) that, in small schools, administration forms a third element to leadership and management as there are so few members of staff.
Surprisingly, this element was not as evident in the size of school sub-group where responses from the largest schools agreeing /strongly agreeing with the statement amounted to 30% and those from the smallest schools amounted to 41% - proportions which were not significantly different (by chi-square testing). However, cross tabulations (4.3) indicate that, in fact, 19% of the respondents from the largest schools were from primary headteachers – this may well explain the larger proportion of respondents from the largest schools (compared to the proportions from Secondary schools) agreeing/strongly agreeing with the statement.
Interviewees also suggested that colleges/trainers prepare headteachers for their leadership role by providing training in faith related matters such as morals and citizenship, and inter-personal skills such as handling parents and governors. Grace (2009a) suggests that there is no shortage of training courses provided for the secular needs of faith school leaders and that, consequently, more needs to be done for religious spiritual and moral responsibilities. Similarly, the 8 headteachers in Fincham’s (2010) study all expressed the opinion that their staff would benefit from enhanced theological literacy. Sullivan (2006) suggests that in faith schools there is a greater need for training in personal formation, orientating the curriculum, community-building, coping with personal failings and vulnerabilities and on the role of prayer and worship. However, the interviewees in this research clearly felt there was insufficient preparation for practical management tasks and this would suggest that the additional management functions required in voluntary aided schools are not provided for in Local Authority or Diocesan training programmes and that that this area required more training for those aspiring to headship.
My own experiences as a headteacher of 27 years in voluntary aided schools may shed some light regarding these findings. At the time of my first appointment, there was no NPQH training for headteachers and new appointees were expected to ‘learn on the job’. Local Authority training for newly appointed headteachers varied considerably between different areas and tended to focus on local needs and priorities. Although this
has improved considerably with Local Authorities offering a plethora of management courses, these tend to focus on issues facing community schools rather than on the additional responsibilities for finance and premises that feature in voluntary aided schools.