School Leadership and Pedagogical Reform: Building Student Capacity

This chapter explores the journey of one Australian primary school that participated in an internationally renowned school revitalization project, where the nature and quality of leadership and results of change are able to achieve and sustain pedagogical reform, and improve and enhance student achievement. It illuminates the nature of school change and examines its impact on pedagogy and learning. Through mapping a school’s journey and a focus on research, changes in practices such as use of frameworks and protocols, teacher professional learning and the compilation and use of assessment data are explored, as are the vital roles of both teachers and students in achieving change. The inclusion of students in the process, combined with leadership in schoolwide pedagogy, is shown to have contributed to building students’ capacity for learning besides that of teachers to implement a schoolwide approach to pedagogy.