Members' library

• Leading schools
  • Academies
    • Research into the leadership of sponsored and converting academies
      • Background and aims of the study
      • Context, sponsorship, governance and collaboration
      • Leading an academy
      • Converting to an academy

Leading an academy

“As far as we are aware, there is not a single documented case of a school successfully turning around its pupil achievement trajectory in the absence of talented leadership. One explanation for this is that leadership serves as a catalyst for unleashing the potential capacities that already exist in the organisation .”

Three aspects of leadership were explored in the research:

• strategic leadership
• organisational leadership
• operational leadership.

These different aspects of leadership are discussed further in chapter seven of the full report.

Strategic leadership

Strategic leadership was found to be strongly influenced by the context of the school. In particular, for academies, the research suggests that it is important to take account of the starting point at the time of converting in terms of pupil attainment. The focus of strategic leadership for sponsored academies was developing and delivering a transformational vision for education, and for converting academies the focus was to build on the existing platform of excellence and to use academy status as an enabler to raise standards even further.

The type of challenges for strategic leadership were linked to the schools' motives for becoming an academy and the schools' vision and values reflected this.

• The key challenge for sponsored academies was to implement organisational change with the aim of achieving the vision of the school which was focused on raising standards.
• Converting academies already had a strong ethos and vision in place. The key challenge for them was to use their financial autonomy so that they could continue to be a centre of excellence in terms of educational provision

Organisational leadership

The key finding is that sponsorship has influenced the leadership model and structure in sponsored academies, and there was a distinctive business feel to how they operated. Leadership structures in converting academies tended to be more ‘traditional’.

Other key findings include:

• Senior leadership in sponsored academies has tended initially to be more directive in order to drive school improvement. However, it has also been accompanied by giving middle leaders greater responsibility and accountability for teaching and learning strategies.
• Sponsored academies were using a wider range of leadership strategies. For example, 76 per cent of sponsored academy survey respondents indicated that they monitored performance data to pinpoint gaps in pupil attainment and progression more than they had done in their previous maintained school context.
• The leadership structures in converting academies tended to be more ‘traditional’. Some interviewees suggested that they did have plans to use their academy freedoms to change the leadership model. Therefore, a wider range of leadership models may emerge within converting academies as the programme develops.

Operational leadership

Research evidence points to some common ground between respondents in sponsored and converting academies in relation to the types of attributes and skills that were more important for leaders in an academy context.

• 69 per cent of sponsored academy survey respondents and 64 per cent of converting academy survey respondents indicated that being excited by autonomy and freedom was an important leadership attribute to have.
• Sponsored and converting academies agreed on four of the top five skills that were more important in an academy context. These included: financial management and budgeting skills, political and diplomatic skills; dealing with accountability and change management skills.

Implications for leadership development

The research findings propose a number of ways to support and strengthen leaders across all parts of the academy sector. These include:

• training and research to support governance and sponsorship
• preparing leaders for the expansion of academy chains: The growth of chains is likely to continue and there is a need to help academy leaders think through the implications of this
• supporting academy leaders to develop wider system roles, such as becoming a teaching school
• supporting leadership capacity building and improvement, for example through National Leaders of Education and Local Leaders of Education
• understanding and enhancing the skills and attributes required by leaders in an academy context
• developing middle leaders (and supporting succession planning): There is a need for bespoke leadership development support that takes account of the context of academies
• developing the skills of school business managers