leading and supporting change in schools a discussion paper
TRANSCRIPT
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LEADINGAN
D
SUPPORTING
CHANGEIN
SCHOOLS
DISCUSSI
ONPAPER
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C
IntroduCtIon 5
Ca picip 6
t nCCA a ca 7
t ca pap 9
PrInCIPles or leAdIng And suPPortIng ChAnge 10
t pc ca 10
tac a i ca 16
t nCCA a pic-a ii ca 18
ACIlItAtIng the ProCess o leAdIng And suPPortIng ChAnge 20
Wi picip 20
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INTRODUCTION
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The impetus or this discussion paper on Leading and
Supporting Change in Schoolsarose out o a Council
discussion in 2008 on the implementation o curriculum
change in the education system. During the course o
that discussion, there was concern with how curriculum
and assessment developments and their implementation
play out in the education system and the role that
the NCCA plays in relation to leading and supporting
educational change in this context.
Particular questions arose about the length o time it
took to introduce new and revised curricula in schools,about the scale o resources usually applied to the
process and, more generally, with what was perceived as
a lack o planning and joined-up thinking on leading and
supporting change. Questions were also raised about the
current models or the implementation o change in use:
how eective have they proven in terms o achieving real
and lasting change in teaching, learning, school culture
and organisation? How closely have the scale and eects
o change been evaluated?
This questioning was urther prompted by research
ndings related to the implementation o the Primary
School Curriculum, the ESRI research on the experience
o students in post-primary education and the extensive
public consultations that took place around the senior
cycle developments, all o which have cast some doubt
on whether all the change that has taken place has
genuinely reshaped the educational experience in our
classrooms.
In more recent times, with schools experiencing cuts
in the resources available to them as a consequence
o economic recession, there is also a sense that some
new thinking on change that is highly sensitive to and
refective o the real environment within which schools
are working is needed i curriculum and assessment
change is to advance in the coming years.
For all these reasons, Council decided to generate a
discussion paper that would attempt to take stock o the
current situation and set out any emerging possibilities or
taking a dierent approach in the uture. It also decided
that such a paper would be the subject o consultation in
2009 and would play a key role in the development o its
next strategic plan.
At the outset, its important to note that the paper is
reerring to change in quite general terms, as the pursuit
o general progress, as a process that is ongoing towards
the realisation o a vision and goals related to a highquality education or all. This general view o change
encompasses planned change arising rom national
policy initiatives. But nationally planned change is only
one dimension o change alongside all the other sources
o planned and unplanned change that schools have
to take into account in thinking about and dealing with
change as part and parcel o what they do.
It is also worth noting that, while the paper is issued
or consultation at a time o economic recession, whenmorale among those working in education and beyond
can be somewhat diminished, it is unapologetically
imbued with the belie in progress that the NCCA
experiences rom working with schools and all the
partners in education. The view o change here is based
in the optimism and belie that schools, notwithstanding
the diculties being aced, will as always contribute
directly to the potential o the next generation o learners
to ace and master the challenges o the uture.
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Ca picip
Rather than, or example, taking as its starting pointan exhaustive analysis o past and existing models
o implementation, the paper sets out a number o
principles that underpin the thinking and work o Council
on leading and supporting change in schools. These
principles can inorm discussion o change within the
wider education system but, more directly, they inorm
and guide the thinking o the NCCA when advice is
being generated on the change process and supports
that are needed to introduce a particular curriculum or
assessment development in schools. Establishing sound
working principles in this area is critical and those set out
here draw on what has been learnt and experienced rom
involvement in implementation approaches and models
used in recent years.
The principles are also refective o a number o trends in
thinking about leading and supporting change in schools
that have emerged in more recent times in the work o the
NCCA and others. This includes work that the NCCA has
conducted directly with schools and networks o schools.
At early childhood level, work with settings has involved
research into childrens early learning and development
experiences, and using this to inorm the development o
the Framework for Early Learning. At primary level, work with
schools has ocused on the development o advice on and
tools or reporting to parents, and on research and review o
the Primary School Curriculum.
At post-primary, work with a range o subject teachers
and schools has ocused on how assessment or
learning in one initiative, and key skills in another, can
be eectively embedded in daily teaching and learning
in classrooms. Some network schools have been
directly involved in curriculum development through the
generation o transition units. Others have been involved
in looking at the development o fexible learning proles
or education programmes in the context o educational
disadvantage and beyond.
In addition, working directly with schools has contributed
to developing processes o consultation, not just in
relation to curriculum and assessment development
but also into questions o implementation: how schools
could and would handle a particular aspect o change i
introduced? This work with schools has been inormed
by international research and thinking on the nature
o educational change and the centrality o teachers
and schools to that change. In turn, there has been
considerable interest among the research community and
education policy makers in other countries in the work o
the NCCA in this context.
the nCCA And ChAnge
The NCCAs core activity can be seen as relating to the
our areas o curriculum and assessment development,
consultation, support and change. The recent trend o
NCCA thinking in each o these areas can be summarised
as ollows.
dvp in curriculum and assessment can be
achieved through working both with committees and
directly with schools, with the process being inormed by
research ndings and refections on practice.
Cai can be viewed as on a continuum
rom large-scale catch-all consultation to varied,
multi-stranded and customised consultation.
spp or teaching, learning, curriculum planning and
curriculum development can go beyond guidelines into
the realm o online support and ACTION1.
Advice on implementation and ca can aspire to
a much closer t between the requirements o national
policies and initiatives and the situation and organic
needs o schools as centres o learning and change.
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Perhaps the most concerted and coherent expression o
some o this thinking on leading and supporting change
is represented by Project Mathswhere schools have
been directly involved, rom the outset, in curriculum
and assessment development, in continuous processes
o consultation, in the generation and undertaking o
proessional support, and in the carrying out o the
change simultaneously. In some ways, Project Maths
can be viewed as a rst attempt to retire the concept o
implementation o change and replace it with the idea
o leading and supporting change in schools. It also
represents the rst articulation o a new role or the NCCAin the change process, and new sets o relationships
between the Council and schools, and between schools
and the change process.
In its most ar reaching expression, what may be
involved here is a dierent way o looking at policy
making and the encouragement o educational change.
A recent OECD Conerence on Schooling or Tomorrow
placed a strong emphasis on seeing the involvemento national organisations like the NCCA in policy
making as being largely aboutpuzzling and poweringin the pursuit o change. From this perspective, those
involved with system wide change should be less
concerned with nding the denitive solution centrally
and disseminating it locally or implementation. They
should be more inclined to posing the key questions to
the system, drawing attention to the complexity o those
questions and to the need or multiple, more customised
solutions, and then powering those working on the
challenges to nd solutions. In this context, agencies like
the NCCA are viewed more as acilitators, supporters and
encouragers o collaboration to address challenges being
aced by schools on a daily basis.
A key dimension o puzzling the issues involved and
powering those who are able to identiy solutions, is how
the knowledge generated in the process is managed. In
a situation where greater responsibility and resources
are devolved to schools, it is essential that knowledge
management systems are in place to assist with the process
o change and development. This knowledge management
involves, or example, clear communication about and
provision o inormation on change. It involves extensive use
o evaluation and educational research and the outcomes
o these to inorm both the puzzling o policy makers and
the work o the schools that are being powered. It involvesthe encouragement o networks, communities o practice,
centres o innovation, and dierent orms o proessional
development as vehicles or managing and distilling the
most important learning taking place among all those
involved. Again, Project Maths would come to mind as an
initiative where the management o the knowledge being
gained rom all o those involved is critical to its progress.
Clearly, this view o how change does and should happen
involves seeing schools, more than ever, as the key site ochange where most o the available resources should be
applied and where greater autonomy in decision making
related to change should be aorded. While education
systems as a whole can tend to be relatively traditional,
adaptive and incremental in their approach towards change,
schools who are acing the immediate impact o social and
economic change on a daily basis oten have to be, and
can be, highly innovative in this context. Work undertaken
by post-primary schools on developing Flexible Learning
Proles and by primary schools on Report Card Templates
are good examples o this. Within schools, the greatest
importance should be attached to how change is refected
in the quality and practice o teaching and learning and to
the orms and sources o leadership across the school that
encourage and support change.
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t ca pap
To date, this paper on Leading and Supporting Change
in Schoolshas been an internal NCCA paper developed
to support discussion about educational change by
Council and thinking about changing curriculum and
assessment by executive sta o the NCCA. It may have
a wider use as a vehicle or consultation and discussion,
especially in the emerging contexts o economic recession
and public sector reorm when schools are subject to a
rapidly changing and challenging environment and when
dierent ways o achieving development and progress in
education are likely to be explored. In light o the extent o
and nature o the change in the educational landscape at
this time, the paper attempts to situate the discussion o
change in this context.
The rst section o the paper sets out a number o
principles which are oundational to leading and
supporting change in education. They are tentative,
provisional and are presented or urther discussion and
teasing out. The second section o the paper, which
is equally tentative and exploratory, addresses the key
question o how, bearing these principles in mind,
strategies related to the process o leading and supporting
change in schools can best be acilitated by the education
system. In other words, it looks at what is involved in
creating the conditions where the kind o change already
suggested can actually happen. In this way, the second
section begins to explore the processes, roles and
relationships across the education system that are needed
to achieve deep and continuing change in schools and,
given the source o this paper, the part that the NCCA can
and should play in this.
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PRINCIPL
ESFOR
LEADINGA
ND
SUPPORTING
CHANGE
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Picip ai a ppi ca
Some principles that should be taken into account
in planning or change, in policy making aimed at
accomplishing change, and in the process o carrying
out change are outlined below. The principles are
generalised, they overlap, they are not exhaustive. They
seem to orm comortably into three categories: those that
have to do with the process o realising change; those
related to teachers as essential agents o change; and,
nally, those concerning the broader systemic and policy-
related dimensions o change.
the ProCess o ChAnge
Aciv cai ii a c ca
Clarity o intention is a key success actor in eecting
change. The rationale or the change, the principles
associated with the change and the intention o
the change must be clearly articulated, shared and
understood by all involved. The process o achieving
clarity and a sense o shared purpose takes time or the
individuals involved in the change. Whats more, the
clarity o intention has to be pursued both at the outset
and as it evolves through review o the change process.
Because change is an iterative process, the meaning o
the change needs to be regularly revisited and claried or
rearticulated as the process o change continues.
It is one thing to be clear on the idea and intention o
change. But that clarity also needs to be eectively
communicated to all and by all involved. Sometimes clear
intentions can become obscured or can be misread or
interpreted in dierent ways when the quality, means
and media o communication are poor. Even when the
communication is o a high quality, intentions can be
misinterpreted because o previous poor experience o
change. What is said and what is heard may not always
be the same.
The intention must be claried and understood at the
range o levels and in the areas which it is expected to
infuence. What change is expected in terms o teaching
and learning? Is it intended that certain aspects o
the school as a learning environment or as a learning
organisation will change? How is the experience o
education or the learner and or the learning proessional
expected to change? What contribution, i any, is the
change expected to make in the wider context o peoples
lives and societal change?
So, clarity o intention and continual review o thoseintentions is critical or those involved in the change,
and or all aspects o the change including planning,
resourcing and evaluating the change. Its also
important to recognise that the intentions associated
with change are oten likely to be ideologically and
politically contested.
Ca app a i
The great illusion that hampers centralised
implementation o educational change is the idea thatchange is controllable, that you can ring-ence change,
that change is amenable to an input-output model. The
opposite seems to be the case. Educational change
comes in many orms and is already happening, all
the time. Students lives, the lives o teachers, not to
mention schools as organisations are being changed by
globalisation, technology, changing societal institutions,
and the prevailing economic and political climates. At
the level o the many daily learning interactions taking
place in every school, change is an ever-present actor.
Change is part o the rhythm and lie o the classroom
and school. When a specic change intention is
introduced to teachers and schools it joins the ongoing
fow o change, is aected by it and infuences it. It is
added to what has been absorbed rom previous change
initiatives and interventions and to their letovers. In other
words, it becomes part o an already existing change
archaeology that shapes schools and those who work and
learn in them.
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This appreciation o change as already happening,
complex, fuid, built on previous rounds o change is one
that should inorm any planning or strategising in the area
o educational change; the closer our understanding o
the kinds o changes that are taking place with students,
teachers and schools, the greater the prospect or
success in accomplishing specic intended change.
Knowing that specic curriculum and assessment change
joins a wider pool o ongoing change should mean that
good judgement is exercised in the amount and scale o
specic, intended change proposed.
I a i aciv p ca
A common deault setting in relation to change in education
is the expectation that once a specic change is introduced
and supported in some way, it will happen. But achieving
real change, educational change that is deep and lasting,
takes time. This is because most real change involves
changing the way teaching and learning happens or
changing the culture o schools as places o learning and
organisations changing the way things are done! Realising
this kind o proound change involves proessionalsgrappling with undamental belies, dispositions and habits
and altering practice on the basis o experience. There is
probably inadequate appreciation o the time involved in
this process, o the dynamics o change involved, and o
the conditions needed to support this kind o deep change.
This is, in some measure, refective o a policy making
and management environment where the setting o short-
term, easily measurable targets rather than longer-term
transormative processes is the norm.
I a iv aciv p ca
Access to appropriate levels o resources and undingis also a key to achieving deep and lasting change.
Resources play an important role in nudging and
incentivising people towards engaging with change. But
theyre also more intrinsic to processes o change than
that. Investment in people, in the learning environment,
in aspects o schools as learning organisations is
undamental to establishing a momentum or change. In
the context discussed earlier o puzzling and powering
and managing knowledge well, the resources needed or
those involved to think, refect, negotiate their way, plan,try out, review, and share ideas and experiences cannot
be viewed as anything other than essential provisions.
Ca ivv aip
It is no accident that the title o this discussion paper
includes the idea o leadership. The word education
is rooted in the idea o leading out and inevitably
educational change involves leadership. Reports o pilot
projects and implementation initiatives published during
the past twenty years in Ireland commonly conclude that
change happens most eectively when it is supported by
those in positions o leadership, such as school principals,
and when leadership is in evidence at every level o
the project or initiative. Distributed leadership, where
the leadership in a given aspect o change comes rom
multiple sources and where the change comes about
through the relational activity that ollows, has particular
potential or schools. Leadership in making meaning out
o and developing ideas or change, in building eective
personal and institutional relationships or change, in
encouraging innovative and creative thinking and action, in
establishing eective services or change, in motivating the
next person or network to be involved in change, is critical
to achieving deep and lasting change.
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sai ca b ai
This principle is closely related to others associated
with the process o change. I the intention o change
needs to be continually claried and shared, i a specic
change strategy is to take account o other changes that
are happening all the time, i deep change can only
happen over a medium-long timescale and is continually
evolving through support, then it ollows that any strategy
or change must be agile, quick-ooted, and responsive.
It also needs to be agile because o the multiplicity o
change agents and contexts or change, and because
in the realm o educational change one size seldomts all. Agility o this kind requires sensitivity to the
dynamics o change at the level o the proessional and
the school, a strong evidence base to acilitate decision
making, creative and imaginative thinking, and a shared
understanding o the process o change.
The agility o strategies related to change is also critical
because schools as sites o change are so dierent rom
one to the next. While there are clearly commonalities
that some schools share, and a need to ensure qualityacross the system, the adage that no two places are the
same applies particularly well to schools. In tangible
terms, schools can dier radically in type, in size, in
resources and the scale o unding, in the communities
served, in their physical structure and environment. In
cultural terms, schools dier in their state o readiness or
change, their ethos, the nature and quality o leadership,
their history o involvement in change among many other
actors. It ollows that the potential uniqueness o the
situation o each school must be refected in the agility o
strategies or change with which the school has to engage.
ti i vvi a ppi
a caiThis principle involves reocusing the question o the
time it takes to carry out educational change. Perhaps
it is more appropriate to the process and complexities
involved to think in terms o teachers as proessionals
and schools as places o learning being continuously
supported in the process o change and evolving in
their engagement with key elements o educational
change. This may well be a better description o the way
things are anyhow, even i rom a policy implementation
perspective they are imagined to be otherwise. Andwhen we think in terms o evolution more than change
we probably shouldnt see the evolution involved as
smooth or even at every point. Change more oten than
not involves jumps and starts, leaps orward, steps
backwards, shits o direction and many other orms o
movement. But overall, in an Irish context, changes in
teaching and learning practice, changes in the culture
and organisation o schools, and changes to schools as
institutions are usually characterised more by evolution,
adaptation and incremental growth towards a particularkind o change than by big bang large-scale adoption o it.
raii ca ivv i a a
The motivation to change can come rom a range o
sources and rom diering interpretations o those sources
among teachers and others involved. Some are encouraged
to change when they see the light. Something in the
proposed change encourages the person to revisit what
they believe, what they are disposed towards, what they do,
and to change personally and proessionally on the basis
o the light that has been thrown on what they do. In other
cases, heat can be eective. The person and proessional
responds to an imperative that they view as unavoidable
or as unavoidably important, such as a change in policy,
provision or legislation. Or, the specic change proposed
meets an urgent need or an emerging challenge that is
being elt by the teacher or the school at the time. In other
words, the motivation to engage with change can come
about by means o both intrinsic and extrinsic actors.
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sai ca b i
paicipaiTeachers and schools need to be seen as more than
mere tools in other peoples purposes. A weakness in
centralised strategising about the implementation o
change is that it doesnt involve those who will be at
the oreront o carrying out that change enough. As
the gatekeepers o policy change in their classrooms
and schools, teachers and school management should
be closely involved in the policy development process.
Strategies or change need to open up more and be
genuinely participative, so that all involved at the levelo the school in very particular contexts can engage in
meaningul conversation and refection with one another
and the wider school community about what works in
teaching and learning, about how improvements can be
made, about how change can be brought about. Truly
participative change strategies involve policy decisions
being made by those who will realise them.
Ca b caaci b qai
In every walk o lie proessionals respond to the idea oquality. In this sense, the quality o thinking on education,
on change in general and on specic aspects o the
intended change is a critical actor in realising change.
The quality o the theory underpinning development,
the quality o research supporting it, the quality o
documentation thinking it through and articulating it, the
quality o the process o conversation and consultation
through which shared understanding is reached, and
the quality o the resources supporting it will be directly
associated with the change itsel. The worth and potential
o the change will be judged on that basis by teachers
and schools.
teAChers At the sIte o ChAnge
tac a a ca
Everyone who works in education is amiliar with the
rhetoric that teachers are key agents o change. Its a
amiliar phrase, its a sel-evident truth. Yet there is only
some evidence that implementation processes in their
design and practice are ounded on this truth. Existing
models o in-career proessional development oten
place teachers at the receiving end o policy changes
generated at national level. Teachers have oten been
the object o implementation products rather than
the subject o processes o educational change. The
perception o teachers on the ground is that the change
agenda is oten set elsewhere, with the interests o
teachers as proessionals well down the list o prime
considerations. Realising deep educational change can
only happen through teachers and school management
and their interactions and relationships with the learner.
This kind o change has to see teachers, truly, as the
key agents o change.
tac xpic cfici xpcai a
aai
Increasingly, teachers experience a range o conficting
expectations o them as proessionals in their working
lives. The views and expectations o education authorities,
o school management, o colleagues, o parents and o
students on what is valuable and important in teaching
and learning can dier radically and these dierences
can be urther refected between schools, between
stages o education, between communities and socio-
economic groups, between dierent interests in society.
The perception and measure o a good teacher, the
acknowledgement and recognition o accomplishment and
achievement in teaching varies across dierent audiences
and ranges rom the most educationally idealistic at one
end o the spectrum to the most utilitarian at the other.
What is valued in teachers in the early stages o primary
education can be ar removed rom what is valued in the
run-up to the Leaving Certicate examination.
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In the implementation o change, teachers experience a
signicant degree o ragmentation. Teachers and schools
requently have a sense o contending with multiple
and sometimes competing innovations and initiatives
simultaneously. They have concerns about a lack o
joined-up thinking in the area o proessional support. It
can be dicult to access and engage with educational
change when what is essential about that change, how it
can cohere with their work as proessionals, is elusive.
Teachers, with some diculty, have to chart their course
as proessionals amid these changing conditions, theseshiting expectations, this ragmentation. The response
o teachers to the idea o educational change can,
at the very least, be heavily infuenced by conficting
expectations and ragmentation.
Ca i pa a pia
For teachers, change is both personal and proessional.
Realising lasting changes in teaching and learning can
involve changing deeply held belies about lie and the
world, and long established dispositions in relation toparticular aspects o learning, education and society. It
can also involve changing amiliar, habitual practices that
have stood the test o time. In this sense, accomplishing
signicant change is not just a proessional matter, no more
than, in most cases, it was a proessional matter to decide
to teach in the rst place. There is strong research evidence
that decisions to join the teaching proession are very oten
based in the most noble intentions to contribute to the
lives o children and young people, to make a dierence
through the transormative power o education. These may
be drivers that motivate the proession but they are intensely
personal ones too. Sensitivity to the essential connection
between the personal and the proessional in the lives o
teachers is a key to the success o initiatives in the area o
educational change. Proessional support or teachers in the
process o change should attend both to proessional needs
and those aspects o personal development that can have a
spin-o proessionally.
the nCCA And PolICy-relAted
dImensIons o ChAnge
Appciai cai ac a c
ca pc
Appreciating this centrality involves ensuring that
learners, teachers, schools and their communities are
the genuine starting points or thinking about change.
It involves giving schools greater autonomy in setting
the agenda or change at the local level. It means
involving those most closely associated with trying to
achieve change in planning or how that change is to
be accomplished and what it will take to accomplish it,
as well as involving them in the process o change. It
also involves developing deeper sensitivity towards and
closer understanding o the dynamics o change or the
learner, or the teacher as a proessional and or the
school as an organisation.
In recent years, direct engagement with schools has
enabled the NCCA to access the perspectives o
teachers and schools on many dimensions o curriculum
and assessment change. These are critical inputs
and insights not only in the context o curriculum
development but also in how to generate an eective
model or leading and supporting change. The initiatives
have valued teacher inquiry and insights by recognising
teachers as generators o real knowledge about what
works in teaching and learning and, as such, have
brought teachers and their schools into the eld o policy
development and change in the area o curriculum and
assessment. Appreciating the centrality o teachers to
leading and supporting change involves continued work
on initiatives directly with schools and placing a particular
emphasis within that work on researching and consulting
on leading and supporting change.
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sa pp a a ca
While teachers and schools have been identied asthe key agents o change, they are not the sole agents
o change. Any change can be viewed as stretching
across a wide variety o agents, actors, situations
and contexts and as it stretches the meaning and
the nature o that change can be altered. Teachers
and schools oten perceive the implementation o
change to be ragmented in nature and underline
the importance o joining up the thinking on leading
and supporting change. Systems thinking also
highlights the connections between subsystems thatare part o a change process, particularly where the
systems in question, such as education systems, are
characterised by complex relationships between the
various agents o change.
It ollows that leading and supporting change also
involves building links and relationships, common
understandings and shared intentions: in short, a
shared sense o purpose between all the stakeholders
and change agents involved. Accomplishing deep
change requires that a concerted sense o purpose
and approach is achieved across the range o
change agents in the current eld o implementation
o educational change in Ireland including support
services and structures, Education Centres, the
Teaching Council, the SEC, the relevant sections o the
DES and the NCCA, among others.
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FACILITA
TING
THEPROCESS
OFLEADI
NG
ANDSUPP
ORTING
CHANGE
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The key question posed by the identication o the
principles just discussed is how, keeping these principles
in mind, strategies related to the process o leading and
supporting change in schools can best be acilitated by
all involved? Drawing on some o the material in the nal
two principles discussed, this section o the paper begins
to explore the processes, roles and relationships across
the education system that are needed to acilitate deep
and continuing change in schools.
Again, the approach taken has been to identiy certain
principles or consideration. However, while the principlesoutlined in the previous section might be described as
undamental to or inorming the process o leading and
supporting change, those outlined in this section are
probably best described as working principles, or even
conditions that are conducive to achieving deep and
continuing change in schools.
WorkIng PrInCIPles
c ca
The primary ocus in leading and supporting change
in schools and in introducing educational change and
reorm must be on teaching and learning, teachers
and schools, and leadership in schools. These are the
essential aspects o, and change agents in, educational
change, through which and through whom the most
signicant impact can be made. It involves seeing schools
as centres o innovation and learning and powering them
through investment, support and knowledge management
to realise that role. Policy priorities and change strategies
in education should be orientated in this context.
However, the point should always be reinorced that when
we talk about change were not talking about change or
changes sake. Given the principles outlined in this paper
what will be involved is balancing continuity with change
nding ways o progressing without overwhelming those
involved. Rather than going rom new initiative to new
initiative, oundations or working with change are laid
and built on over time. Those oundations are likely to be
based on creating a culture o learning in schools where
learning is valued or all involved. In this way change
is about integrating new useul insights and strategies
without losing what is good in what is already done. Inother words, a natural, continuous approach is taken as
opposed to each change seeming to overturn all
previous learning.
Cci piic a pic
Bringing about this ocus on leading and supporting
change and seeing schools as the key sites or change
involves engagement with political processes and a clear
basis in policy. Policy and political initiatives should set
the vision and goals and some o the challenges relatedto the change involved. Change can involve a variety o
innovations as long as theyre connected to policy-based
vision and goals. A clear policy perspective gives those
involved a clear sense o direction and empowers and
motivates them to achieve change in that direction. It also
helps to co-ordinate actions rom a wide variety o people
and organisations. A clear sense o direction also guides
decisions about what notto do and about what to do rst.Clear policy rameworks and thinking provide the best basis
or the introduction o particular strategies or change and
areas o change, and or enhancing the role o schools in
this context. For example, unambiguous policy statements
in specic areas such as those o continuing proessional
development o teachers, languages in education, ICT
in education and more general areas such as equality in
education would provide a sound basis or leading and
supporting change in schools.
aciiai pc ai appi ca
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gai ba cai
Serious public debate about education and about
education in relation to broader political and social
issues can contribute in very signicant ways to creating
the conditions or leading and supporting change in
schools. An increased level o debate among those
involved in education, and with others not involved
directly in education, will contribute to greater levels o
awareness and discussion o change in schools. It is an
essential aspect o communicating about and puzzling
about change and an essential dimension o knowledge
management in relation to change.
na ai
Strategies or leading and supporting change in schools
must be characterised by oresight and innovation,
a strong sense o direction and coherence, detailed
planning, the identication o key milestones to be
agreed, reached and attained, and decisions based in
evidence and evaluation. Strategies generated around
these elements are most likely to gain the support o
schools or change.
Strategies must also be ocused on the management o
resistance to change, both at the system level and at the
level o the school. In the context o supporting change
in schools, resistance can be seen as a natural part o
the change process and indeed as a sign o potential
progress. People aced with change are generally
interested in whether they are equipped to handle the
change, whether the change is meaningul or them and
whether they are motivated to engage with it. Strategies
to manage resistance involve acilitating the movement
o individuals and groups through stages such as denial,
resistance, adaptation, acceptance and commitment.
This can be achieved through a ocus on enabling people
to have the tools and skills required to make the change
and through building in short-term wins or those involved
through the change process.
Ivi i ca
Strategies or change that are rooted in policy priorities,that attract public and political support, and that are
well planned and developed, must attract appropriate
levels o resources. Investment in educational change on
a realistic scale contributes signicantly to leading and
supporting change in schools. Investing in change also
involves looking closely at the role that incentivisation can
play in encouraging educational change.
Those elements o change that are viewed as priorities
either in a national context or by individual schools canbe greatly encouraged through incentivisation. The costs
involved may not always be great, but the motivation to
change will be sustained, and the aspects o change
involved will be advanced and can be publicised as
such, which adds urther momentum to the process
o change involved.
Cabai ca
Developing and working on strategies to lead and
support change in schools will involve increased levelso liaison and collaboration between those agencies and
organisations, such as the NCCA, that contribute to the
generation o education policy, develop the instruments
and plans or the implementation o change, and are
increasingly involved in working on developments in
collaboration with schools.
The collaboration should be based in the idea o
agencies involved in policy making and support playing
an essential role in puzzling the key issues and areas o
change being engaged with by schools and supporting
them through eective direct engagement and knowledge
management.
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evvi ca cai
Strategies associated with particular areas or aspects o
change should be nely tuned to the dynamics o how
change is transacted in teaching and learning and in the
lie o schools. The principle o one size doesnt t all
should be ully appreciated in this context. A series o
change scenarios need to be developed in collaboration
with the education partners and schools which set out
and exempliy a continuum o possibilities or change.
The continuum o scenarios might be based on the
levels o resources and dierent stages o readiness orpreparedness schools are at in leading and supporting
change. Alternatively, the continuum o scenarios could
be based on the scale o change involved and consider,
or example, the dierence between introducing changed
teaching and learning in a subject such as mathematics,
changes to a generic curriculum area such as wellbeing,
or changes at a more extensive level such as programmes
o study in senior cycle.
The scenarios could prove to be useul tools or schools inmaking decisions about what to undertake and how best
to do that, and or policy-makers in planning how best to
resource and support schools in the change process.
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While the discussion paper does not draw or quote
directly rom specic sources, its contents have been
infuenced by readings in the area o educational change
such as those listed below.
Carr, W and Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming critical:
education, knowledge and action. London: Falmer Press
Fullan, R.W. (1993) Change Forces: Probing the depths
of educational reform. London: The Falmer Press
Fullan, R.W. (2003) Change Forces with a Vengeance.
Philadelphia: London: Routledge/Falmer
Goodson, I.F. and Hargreaves, A. Eds. (1996) Teachers
Professional Lives. London: Falmer Press
Hargreaves, A., Earl, L. and Ryan, J. (1996) Schooling
for Change: Reinventing Education for Early Adolescents.
London: Falmer Press
OECD/CERI. (2006) Demand-Sensitive Schooling?
Evidence and Issues. Paris: OECD Publishing
OECD/CERI. (2006) Personalizing Education. Paris: OECD
Publishing
OECD/CERI. (2008) Trends Shaping Education. Paris:
OECD Publishing
OECD/CERI. (2009) Innovating to Learn, Learning to
Innovate. Paris: OECD Publishing
OECD/CERI. (2008) Trends Shaping Education. Paris:
OECD Publishing
Sugrue, C. Ed. (2004) Curriculum and Ideology: Irish
Experiences, International Perspectives. Dublin: The LieyPress
Various. (2007) Learning Anew: Final Report of the
Research and Development Project Teaching and
Learning for the 21st Century 2003-2007. NUI Maynooth
Bac c
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