John West-Burnham

This meticulously researched and carefully argued book will serve as a stimulus and resource for educationalists to support their personal and team understanding of the nature of learning, their grasp of the future they are preparing young people for, and their understanding of what leadership is needed for their school to truly face the future.

This brilliant book, focused on the education of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children, offers a radical critique of traditional approaches to school improvement. The text argues for a movement away from the focus on social mobility to placing equity at the heart of school leadership. It suggests moving from improvement to social justice through a re-examination of the school's role in relation to its communities. The book is evidence-based and combines a focus on moral leadership with strategies to turn principle into practice.

Following on from their bestselling title Leadership Dialogues, Dave Harris and John West-Burnham's Leadership Dialogues II: Leadership in times of change examines eight more themes crucial to the effective education of our young people in schools. We are living in times in which school leaders are looking for both simple answers and detailed instructions to help them progress to their goals. But in a period of rapid change, like the one we are in now (at least for the foreseeable future), there is no step-by-step guide, there is no instruction manual - only strong tools to support leadership teams on their journey. Leadership Dialogues II is not a book containing all the answers; rather it is a book containing many of the questions that will help school leaders work with their colleagues to find the answers for their own schools within the communities in which they work. Harris and West-Burnham believe that the best people to interrogate the problems and find the answers are those people working in, leading and governing these schools every day, and so they have compiled this helpful resource to promote more constructive dialogue and debate - which will result in the generation of feasible solutions specific to their own schools. Each of the eight themes in Leadership Dialogues II is of contemporary relevance to 21st century education and is split into five sections, each containing an outline on why this is an important topic, some key quotes to engage your thinking, a 10 minute discussion to provoke debate, some questions for your team to consider and - to help frame the dialogue's outcomes - downloadable, printable resources for each section. The resources are often in tabular form and relate to the material, which means they can be used with little extra preparation, and are all available for download in PDF and Word formats for ease of circulation. The only thing you have to do is think, discuss and then act.

Designed to provide stimulus materials for school leaders to support their personal development, Leadership Dialogues encourages personal reflection, dialogue with a coach or mentor and conversations in leadership teams. It includes short think pieces, case studies, diagnostic reviews, selected quotations on a particular theme and questions for discussion and reflection. The book is a valuable and practical resource for leadership teams. Much of the content is included on a free CD-ROM of printable resources. Education Resources Awards finalist - Best Educational Book 2016.

The aim of this book is to find a paradigm that can be used to achieve greater social fairness, by finding individual/local solutions still in line with national policies and strategies. This book is an argument for equity and inclusion in education based on a model of social justice which is grounded in relationships and learning rather than policies and structures. Securing equity is fundamental to government policy in England - it is at the heart of Every Child Matters and underpins the Children's Strategy. A key issue for education policy and practice in England is the disparity between excellence and equity - in essence, England has the longest tail of under achievement of any country in Western Europe. However, this problem is not limited to wide disparities in educational performance. In the 2007 UNICEF Report 'The wellbeing of children in rich countries' the UK came at the bottom of the international league table. There are numerous examples of how a wide range of variables can compromise a child's life chances, wellbeing and opportunities. At present, the design and delivery of the education system can be seen to reinforce these negative factors rather than seek to explicitly address them. Countries that combine excellence with equity and where young people experience high levels of wellbeing tend to be societies with a commitment to social justice, equity and inclusion. There is an increasing recognition that long term educational and social reforms have to focus on issues around social justice if they are to be more than palliative responses. The aim of this book is to find a paradigm that can be used to achieve greater social fairness, by finding individual/local solutions still in line with national policies and strategies.

John West-Burnham offers a radical critique of prevailing models of leadership in education, particularly models of school leadership, notably the British view of headship. For almost a generation, school leadership has been focused on the concept of improvement, within a policy context of improvement and a prevailing culture rooted in incremental adjustment rather than a fundamental reappraisal. Transformation is a particularly evocative concept; it is one of those words that it is almost impossible to raise objections to. However, as is so often the case with such words, its power is often proportionate to the ambiguity with which it is used. In the context of a discussion about transforming schools three broad categories of usage might be identified: transformation as improved performance, transformation as the achievement of optimum effectiveness and transformation as profound change. It is in this latter respect that the book will offer an alternative model of leadership. Transformation is not about improving output or efficiency; it is not about incremental improvement or optimising organizational effectiveness. Transformation is rather about the profound change of every component of the organization following a fundamental reconceptualisation of its purpose and nature. Transformation is a process that ensures that an organization is appropriate to the context in which it operates. Transformation is about questioning the very nature of the school as an organization and the nature of organizations. The distinctive nature of this book is that it will focus on leadership attitudes, values and personal qualities (the elusive and intangible elements of leadership) rather than simply reworking the traditional blend of knowledge, skills and experience. Central to the book will be the notion of the personal 'mind map' - the model of leadership that determines personal behaviour. The book will focus on helping leaders review and reconceptualise their personal mindscapes. The book will have a strongly practical focus and is designed to be a resource for school leaders who find that their work is increasingly moving beyond traditional boundaries into areas for which there are few precedents and only limited resources.

This book is designed to serve as a personal development resource for all who work in schools and have responsibility for the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils. It provides materials for staff development activities and resources for use in classrooms. The first section covers the background, relating to the Every Child Matters agenda; the second section offers practical strategies for implementing the key components of spiritual and moral development as outlined in the first section.

Human relationships are fundamental to educational and social development and increasing importance is being attached to cooperation and collaboration between schools and the community. This book is rooted in the principle that every child and young person has a fundamental entitlement to equal educational opportunities.

This companion volume to Personalizing Learning: Transforming education for every child provides a complete range of specially developed activities to help implement personalizing learning in schools. Topics include: successful learning and teaching strategies incorporating learning styles using assessment for learning mentoring programmes creating personal learning plans developing a dialogue with your students. As well as a comprehensive set of practical materials, this book provides essential guidelines and information for school leaders, CPD coordinators, advisors and consultants concerned with leading change in schools. Supports personal understanding and planning Provides team development activities Included resources and ideas for professional development

Most schools have improved significantly over the past ten years. The quality of teaching is better than it has ever been and yet there is a sense that schools are still not meeting the needs of all young people. The answer to this challenge is personalizing learning; a switch from the school to the learner - from the needs of the system to the needs of the person. This book presents both a manifesto and a model for the personalization of learning. It combines emerging theories of learning with best professional practice to support schools in developing their own way of moving from improvement to transformation.

Educational Leadership and the Community has been written in conjunction with the Community Education Department Centre (CEDC) and offers you different approaches to educational leadership which are focused on community engagement and social regeneration.