Discourses of leadership: the changing context of primary education and the implications for the public sector

This paper explores how contextual factors function and shape leadership within a Primary School. The development of leaders and managers continues to be of interest to Human Resource Development (HRD) academics and practitioners. In recent years leadership has been viewed as a practice which can sustain growth. Within the field of education, government policies of school improvement use leadership and management to explain differing outcomes and measures of success. Since 1988 it has been regularly debated by both academics and policy-makers what the priorities of school leaders should be. Mainly over the last three decades owing to Educational reforms the role of headteachers and principals has changed dramatically. How a school is led and managed is regarded by both policy-makers and practitioners as a key factor in ensuring a school’s success. According to a systematic review conducted by Bell et al (2003:1), “there is a widespread, strongly held belief that school leadership makes a difference and that headteachers should be supported and trained to raise educational standards.” In addition, “the school as an organisational context for the work of leaders is complex” (Southworth 2004). Leaders in a school have to deal with multiple variables that change constantly in a variety of ways and as a result have to be conscious of the contextual factors impinging on their behaviour.