La “companyia d'Olot” i la defensa de Girona (1707)

Selecting school leaders for Phase 1 of the study

Six school leaders were initially part of the study (Phase 1) with a further five in the second phase of the research. Schools were selected, from the OFSTED Outstanding Providers database (OFSTED, 2011), using the following criteria:

• Geographical - schools in the East of England and North-eastern quadrant of London, enabling a variety of rural and urban locations over a wide area. The area defined is shown in Appendix 8.

• Sustainable Success - schools with two or more consecutive outstanding overall judgements from OFSTED inspections since 2002/3.

• Comparable type of institution to my school: comprehensive; mixed gender; non-religious character. I did not include pre-2010 academies as I felt that they were sufficiently different in terms of funding, support and statutory framework.

In an attempt to reduce the impact of a school that may have gained this grade for one inspection or a short period of time, I refined the initial OFSTED database search to those that had sustained this rating for at least ten years in the expectation that this would mitigate against schools that were not able to sustain this practice. The selection was based on the school and not a particular characteristic of the school leader, such as whether they were a National Leader of Education (NLE). This supported a focus on the whole-school culture without having additional caveats included about how selection criteria based on a school leader may have influenced the study’s findings.

Given the issues raised in the introduction regarding the reliability and validity of OFSTED ratings, we can say that OFSTED has judged the schools in this study as ‘outstanding’ and separately, that the headteachers of these ‘outstanding’ schools have then discussed their

perceptions of high quality or excellent provision in their schools. What is not possible is to link

these features in a meaningful way. It is problematic because there are school leaders in other contexts, for example whose schools have gained ‘good’ inspection grades, who could make a valuable contribution to this study but whose voice, I acknowledge, has been excluded.

This was a ‘criterion-based selection’ because I defined the characteristics for the potential participants and matched those available to the criteria to create a shortlist (Le Compte and Preissle, 1993, cited by Merriam, 1998, p.61). In some ways we could also consider this to be a ‘purposive’ sample (Merriam, 1998, p.61 citing Chein, 1981; Simons, 2009, p.34) because institutions were selected on the basis that the leaders in the study would hopefully maximise learning about the research questions because they led high-performing institutions.

A database was created and a final shortlist of 18 schools evolved (Appendix 9). These met the requirement of being relevant to the research questions, providing diversity across contexts and allowing for further learning about both complexity and context (Stake, 2006, p.23). The first criterion is met using a definition of ‘outstanding’ (OFSTED, 2012). OFSTED judgements were used to define ‘outstanding’ overall effectiveness (OFSTED, 2012b, p. 25). Until September 2012, a school had been able to gain this grade without necessarily having

outstanding teaching; a situation which has subsequently changed (OFSTED, 2012c, p.5) and which is addressed in Phase 2 of the study. A further constraint on diversity is given by geographical distance. However, diversity has been attempted using the geographical selection criteria above. Diversity is also challenged because it depends on those invited and who then choose to take part. Fieldwork in the Phase 1 schools began in July 2012 and into the early Autumn 2012. Six schools were part of this phase and I conducted semi-structured interviews with the school leaders in each.

Refinements for Phase 2

For the second tranche of schools I decided to adapt the research plan in the light of emerging data which was suggesting that the issue of Leadership for Learning (Timperley & Robertson, 2011, pp. 4-7) was pertinent and a key focus of further research. I therefore extended the research, until December 2012, with headteachers in another five schools that had been graded ‘outstanding’ overall and for the criteria of ‘teaching and learning’. As noted above, this greater focus on teaching and learning during inspection was reflected in the OFSTED evaluation schedule changing in January 2012 (OFSTED, 2012) so that a school could only be outstanding if this was reflected in the teaching and learning grade. I did visit a sixth school leader but did not include the interview in the study. This was because the leader has been in post since the start of that academic year. I was concerned that issues around perceptions of the school and a deeper understanding of the culture in the school would make analysis problematic.

In arriving at this list, I searched the OFSTED website for inspection reports from January to September 2012 inclusive (OFSTED, 2012d). All secondary schools were included, giving a short list of 19 schools. Eleven schools were invited to participate, based on geographical location; they were located south of, and including, the Midlands (Appendix 10). This selection process will have missed out schools not inspected during this period, including some already identified as ‘outstanding’ under the previous framework, which are inspected less frequently (OFSTED, 2012c, p. 8).

Between Phase 1 and 2, I also adjusted the scope of the study. The wide extent of the original research planned, based on a Case Study methodology in each school, following initial headteacher interviews, was apparent after transcribing interviews in Phase 1. To immerse myself in different aspects of the school’s life would involve the collection of data from a wide variety of sources including pupils and staff, with different jobs within the school structure. In addition, this would have involved a variety of different data collection methods such lesson and meeting observations together with the writing of field notes and the review of documents and other records (Richards & Morse, 2013, p. 31; Stake, 1995, pp.60-68). This use of multiple

evidence sources and methodological triangulation of data would have then enabled me to engage with the complexity of the cases (Yin, 2009, p. 18; Stake, 1995, p114) but I knew that in choosing to focus on teaching and learning, that further interviews would provide much rich data and that, pragmatically, as a solo-researcher, I could not undertake the detailed and different activites required for a meaningful Case Study approach. I was also aware, after Phase 1, that the commitment of school leaders would be challenged by further immersion in the field and that the response rate could be potentially lower than accepting an invitiation to be interviewed for an hour.

Hence the headteacher interviews have become the formal source of data for the study. I contextualised these meetings by familiarising myself with the school’s website and other documents offered by the school. OFSTED reports (OFSTED, 2019c) were also used in contextualising the interviews together with the latest school performance data (Department for Education, 2019c). I also toured the schools, with visits to classrooms, meeting pupils and staff. In the second phase, further contextualisation involved lesson observations, selected by headteachers. I requested that lessons chosen ‘typified’ the school’s learning culture. There are issues around the nature of the selection and the issue of ‘typicality’ if these were to be used in more detailed analysis.

The benefit of this preparation when interviewing the school leader as ‘elite’ was discussed in section 3.4. It also meant that I was more able to situate the interviews and use my own experience and intuition to become more sensitive to the context of the school. This then meant that I could better suit the questions to the circumstances of the school and to tease out, where possible, any areas of interest pertinent to the research and singularities about an institution. Furthermore, I could remain open to knowledge that might reveal itself, but had not been expected when structuring the interview questions.