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Research and policy

The National College’s research programme focuses on five broad areas affecting leaders of schools and children’s centres:

  • Understanding good and outstanding leadership – exploring the nature of effective leadership and what it looks like in practice
  • Leadership development – focused on understanding the ways in which individuals learn to become leaders and build their capacity to lead others
  • Policy related research – examining the impact and implications of policy changes for school leaders and school leadership
  • Design of new provision – we are looking at how we meet the needs of school leaders. Key to the success of this work is improving our assessment of needs and demands for different products and services.
  • Research and development (R&D) network – working with teaching schools to explore three national R&D themes and to create and share new knowledge and evidence of effective practice regionally and nationally.

Current research projects and interim reports

The growth of academies chains – research to understand the implications for school leaders posed by the rapid development of both sponsored and converter academy chains.

Resourceful leadership in learning organisations - research into how leaders introduce structures and promote a culture of across children's services to achieve improved outcomes for children

Highly effective leadership in children's centres - research that explores the nature of highly effective leadership for the foundation years and the ways in which centre leaders are supporting others across the sector

Effective knowledge transfer in teaching schools – research with the University of Sussex looking at how a Teaching School shares its best practice in relation to in-school variation and across alliance variation

How can system leaders be really effective in turning schools around and closing the gap? – Research undertaken by Isos, involving national leaders of education (NLEs) and teaching schools. This project builds on the report 'Does school to school support close the gap?' and trials the strategies identified for closing the gap on general school improvement and closing the gap.

Review of the school leadership landscape – undertaken by the Institute of Education (IoE), this research study provides a comprehensive consideration of the nature of school leadership in 2012 and the key challenges and opportunities facing leaders.

Establishing and leading new types of schools – research to develop an understanding of the skills that free school principals will need to enable them to meet the unique challenges involved in running a free school.

National research and development themes – teaching schools will be working with commissioned research teams to undertake research around the three national R&D themes:

  • What makes great pedagogy?
  • What makes great professional development which leads to consistently great pedagogy?
  • How can leaders lead successful teaching school alliances which enable the development of consistently great pedagogy?

If you would like any information about any of the projects mentioned here please contact research@nationalcollege.org.uk.

How we communicate our findings

One key priority is to integrate our research work and findings into the College's core curriculum and provision. The findings are also published on the website and used as a basis for many online network discussions.

Related information

  • Using research to improve your school - advice on how and why to get involved in research activity plus a wealth of resources and links to key research publications, websites and newsletters.