Leadership Connections

LEADERSHIP CONNECTIONS

WELCOME

We are very excited to release the second, edition of Leadership Connections, UCL Centre for Educational Leadership’s (UCL CEL) annual magazine.

The publication fits within UCL’s connected learning mission, centred around our shared passion for educational leadership. This is an exciting year for the IOE, which is celebrating 120 years since its foundation. As part of this I wrote a blog about one decade within this period called A leader of leaders in a time of recognition and pressure, 2002-12. This charts important educational leadership issues through this decade and the role, and present day for UCL CEL.

In this second edition we have an exciting range of content created by our team of staff, students and alumni aimed at connecting students with each other, students with the Centre, Department, and UCL IOE.

Below you will see a short leadership article written by one of our MA alumni, looking at the potential for school-to-school collaboration in the Armenian context*.

Following that we have two interviews of CEL staff conducted by present MA students, one of Hilary Adli and another of Dr Rupert Higham. These discuss the early career framework (ECF and ethical leadership respectively. We also have two country profiles, one about school improvement in Bahrain and a further one looking at the post-covid challenges for education in Chile.

Following this we have three pieces looking at where our past MA students have got to since they graduated and some reflections on their experiences studying with us. We then have news from UCL IOE, the Department and the Centre, including some exciting (free) webinars at the IOE that will be of interest to many and open to all. Look out for the description of our present Educational Leadership programmes too – places still available for 2023!

We hope you enjoy this second edition.

Dr David Godfrey

Centre Academic Programmes Leader David.Godfrey@ucl.ac.uk

*If you are interested in collaborative school improvement, you will see that the evaluation of the Schools Partnership Programme, funded by the EEF was published recently.

In Search of Collaboration: How Can

School-to-School CollaborationRespond to Foundational Learning Crisis in a Developing Country Context

autonomy for schools have become the central themes of policy papers.

School-to-school Collaboration

Why should schools in such a context choose to collaborate?

A look at the Armenian context

In the aftermath of the global pandemic and war with Azerbaijan in 2020, the old cracks of inequity in Armenia’s education system are becoming ever more visible. According to various sources, there is 35 to 44.5% foundational reading illiteracy among primary and middle school students mostly living in rural underprivileged areas (World Bank, 2019; NBER Working Papers, 2022). The constant waves of displacement and school closure due to the conflict cause interruptions in the cycle of learning. This situation challenges educational leaders across the country to create safe learning environments for all when life is so chaotic outside schools.

Additionally, the education policy landscape has been changing rapidly. Result-based management, decentralisation of school governance in a context of community amalgamation, and more

School-to-school collaboration (S2SC) is defined as a joint action between two or more schools in which they work on a shared goal (Armstrong et al., 2021; Vangrieken et al., 2015; Wu et., al, 2021) in a reciprocal manner (Wu et al., 2021). studies in several countries suggest that S2SC positively influences the exchange of ideas and resources, provides opportunities for critical friendship, and supports innovation in schools and professional development (Wu et al., 2021).

Multiple purposes of S2SC can be identified:

• As a vehicle for facilitating educational reforms

• A way to devise locally responsive education policies at the regional level

• A way of giving agency to school practitioners in the process of managing change in leadership or pedagogical processes.

• As an alternative to traditional continuous professional development

Mher Davtyan , Alumni, MA Educational Leadership

A query from Armenia: Can School-to-School Collaboration be Applied

in Developing Countries?

Context is a key word because it matters in educational leadership. When it comes to Armenia, major obstacles adversely affect S2SC:

• Rapid policy change (schools have little time to process change)

• Geographical and regional peculiarities (rural communities are located in high-altitude regions with major issues in infrastructure)

• Time and access to technology

• Competition between schools for limited resources

• Low educational leadership capacity (school principals pass a multiplechoice examination to be certified as principals without adequate educational leadership preparation).

The work of NorArar Education NGO

Collaboration is hard, yet it is a fruitful and rewarding experience through which it is possible to reveal the tacit knowledge of local educational leaders for more sustainable development in education.

This belief is fundamental for NorArar Education NGO, a charity co-founded by UCL IoE alumni in the Lori region of Armenia. Partnering with Armenia’s national and local state agencies responsible for inclusive education and

schools, NorArar has been integrating innovative practices in capacity development for improved reading literacy in disadvantaged regional schools. Collaboration across schools, Joint Practice Development principles of equal partnership, appreciation, and synthesis of procedural, and contextual knowledge have been incremental in NorArar work with schools.

While there is a myriad of reasons to believe that collaboration is time consuming and hard to achieve without sustained external facilitation, our belief in S2SC is based on school principals’ and teachers’ inspiration and engagement in collaborative practices.

To explore the local educational leaders’ perceptions and readiness for S2SC, NorArar engaged school leaders in a series of creatively facilitated sessions supported by Karen Edge, a Reader from the UCL Centre for Educational

leadership (UCL CEL). Supported by the British Council Armenia, NorArar implemented a pilot project. The analysis of qualitative data from participative sessions suggests our principals mostly cooperate by helping each other understand and act on policy changes and engage in the share of immediate resources, such as teaching staff substitution.

Participation in events and competitions in neighboring schools is perceived as collaboration, which means more critical and informed reflection is needed to develop a deeper understanding of S2SC among school principals. While principals find value in S2SC to find solutions for specific issues that often remain in the

margins of policy objectives, time, space, trust, technology, and quality facilitation are needed to collaborate.

NorArar continues to strive to find novel solutions to embed S2SC in existing mechanisms and systems.

References

Armstrong P. W., Brown C., & Chapman C., J. (2021) S2SC in England: A configurative review of the empirical evidence. Review of Education 9(1): 319–351.

National Bureau of Economic Research. (2022). Global Universal Basic Skills: Current Implications and Deficits for World Development, Massachusetts. Retrieved from: https://www.nber.org/system/files/ working_papers/w30566/w30566.pdf

Vangrieken K, Dochy F, Raes E., & Kyndt E. (2015) Teacher collaboration: A systematic review. Educational Research Review 15: 17– 40.

World Bank. (2019). Learning Poverty Brief: Armenia.Report Number: 166222.

Retrieved from: https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documentsreports/ documentdetail/745741637566026842/ armenia-learning-poverty-brief-2019

Wu, H., Shen, J., Reeves, P., Zheng, Y., Ryan, L., & Anderson, D. (2021). The Relationship Between Reciprocal S2SC and Student Academic Achievement. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 1-24.

CEL STAFF INTERVIEWS

An insight into UCL – An Early Career Framework Lead Provider

An interview with Hilary Adli Director – Early Career Framework- UCL

and learn about future plans.

How do Teachers at the beginning of their careers benefit from this programme?

The Early Career Framework was introduced to support the recruitment and retention of teachers in the UK as a mechanism to support teachers throughout their careers. UCL’s Early Career Teacher Development Programme, fully funded by The Department for Education, is a well-established, high-quality programme of professional learning that is rooted in the best available evidence and provides a seamless transition from initial teacher education to becoming a qualified teacher as part of the DfE’s ‘Golden Thread’ of professional development.

Over two years the programme covers all eight of the Teachers Standards, i.e:

1. Set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils

If you are starting your teaching career in the UK, you are now entitled to a 2-year programme of professional learning to support your statutory induction. UCL's Early Career Teacher Development Programme provides Early Career Teachers and their mentors with a high-quality professional learning experience. Here, in an interview with Hilary Adli, Director- Early Career Framework for UCL, we explore the reasons behind the programme’s success

2. Promote good progress and outcomes by pupils

3. Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge

4. Plan and teach well-structured lessons

5. Make accurate and productive use of assessment.

6. Manage behaviour effectively to ensure a good and safe learning environment

7. Fulfil wider professional responsibilities

Designed and run by IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, in the Centre for Educational Leadership (CEL), Hilary emphasises the programme’s academic underpinning and its strong moral purpose.

This commitment to building a system that invests in schools, helps improve them, and leads to positive student outcomes, and their lives, keeps CEL working to connect the best of academic research from around the world to school practice.

The programme has received positive feedback from the Department for Education (DfE), 22,000 ECT and mentor participants and 21 Delivery Partners who have taken part since it started in 2021. With a 95% satisfaction rate, it has proven to be invaluable for Early Career Teachers whatever their phase or specialism.

How has the project progressed, and what challenges have been encountered?

The national roll out of the ECF has been running since September 2021. With 2 cohorts running simultaneously, the CEL team continue to refine the programme in a cycle of continuous improvement. To encourage more practitioners to get involved, CEL has designed a Moodle platform where participants can access all aspects of the programme. In addition, CEL has created a community of learners through a blog and forum.

According to Hilary, one of the main challenges of the project so far has been that some experienced teachers initially needed help understanding the rationale behind the research base that is the Early Career Framework and felt that the content could be more varied. Additionally, some teachers had busy schedules, limiting the

programme's expansion. The CEL team continues to work to respond effectively to these issues.

Advice for educational leaders and a vision for the future

When asked to offer advice for education leaders, Hilary highlights two critical points from the perspective of programme: the first of these is that teacher development programmes must be relevant to teachers' starting points and ongoing development needs. Secondly, teachers need to be able to fit professional development within their often-considerable work demands.

Educational leaders can do much to support this, by listening to what their teachers are saying they need and by creating the conditions that teachers and their mentors need to thrive and engage fully in the programme.

The UCL ECF delivery model involves the Centre in an undertaking that stretches over the next few years and beyond; developing content and strategy centrally and ensuring high-quality, contextualised delivery in local regions. UCL are committed to work with and for the profession and adopt a truly collaborative approach with their Delivery Partners.

Looking to the future, the team at CEL will continue to improve the programme, with a focus on integrating research and practice, and are excited about expanding its implementation in more countries worldwide.

Ethical Leadership

An interview with Dr Rupert Higham by Shengling Hong MA Educational Leadership (pre-service)

where young people’s knowledge, skills, and dispositions are developed to respond intelligently and humanely to new challenges and opportunities [1].

What is Ethical Leadership?

Dr. Higham defines ethical leadership as “framing the practice of leadership through shared moral principles and frameworks”. In the western tradition, there are three broad schools of ethical theory that frame educational leadership, namely Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Ethics. “While these all remain valuable perspectives, they are fundamentally flawed in that they rely on the future being like the past,” he argues. “Deontology presumes adults have the moral authority to say what values children should have, what they should learn, and what the aims of education should be.

Dr. Rupert Higham has been active in education research for 12 years, with a particular focus on responsible leadership, values-led school improvement, and dialogue. In his publication last year, he elaborated on the urgency to reframe ethical leadership in a world with economic, political, and environmental volatility [1].

He stressed that traditional ethical frameworks in education fail to address the existential threats we face. In the past three years, he argues, we have experienced a pandemic and geopolitical conflicts that have radically changed our lives. We are still far from achieving the essential goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. These urgent threats require that we rebuild an education system grounded in an ethic of collective engagement, dialogue, and transformation,

However, it is no longer logically and scientifically defensible to teach the next generation that what we were taught was all right and good. The utilitarian position presumes we can calculate and predict the best outcomes, but often modelled on a future similar to the present. For example, we cannot be sure what will constitute a ‘good job’ in 2030 and beyond, as many industries may become unstable. Lastly, the virtue ethics’ approach assumes we have time to develop the character and attitudes of young people in a protective bubble, and then send them to face the challenges of the world at the age of 18 or later. In reality we have little time – and those values and virtues must in part be cultivated through acknowledging and responding to those challenges”.

In response, Dr. Higham calls for a new ethical theory drawing on dialogue, Deweyan Pragmatism, and Noddings’ Ethics of Care that can enable “an intelligent and humane response to the

“The traditional ethical frameworks in education fail to address the existential threats we face”

challenges we face”. “Intelligence is better understood not as an IQ score or academic grade, but as property of cyclically rethinking, reflecting, researching, planning, designing, acting, and evaluating in the pursuit of valued goals, with sustainability an integral dimension. A humane response values others unconditionally, and makes connections across differences instead of isolating others to protect ourselves” he says. Critically, this must also apply to humans and non-humans, born and not yet born.

Advice to future leaders studying MA Educational Leadership.

Finally, Dr. Higham also gives some genuine advice for students taking an MA in Educational Leadership. For leaders, the courage to rebel is essential, he says – but they should do so inclusively, compassionately, and intelligently. Instead of pointing fingers at others, it is more

powerful to reframe the issues in ways that draw in the needs and shared values of all. He advocates a vision of local and global communities in which both today’s young people and their grandchildren, will all be able to flourish.

References

[1] Higham, R. (2022). ‘Reframing ethical leadership in response to civilizational threats’, in Greany, I. and Earley, P. (eds.) School Leadership and Education System Reform (2nd ed.) London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp.253-262.

[2] XP School. Available at: https://xpschool.org/

[3] Dixon, D. (2022). Leadership for sustainability: saving the planet one school at a time. Bancyfelin, Carmarthen, Wales: Independent Thinking Press.

COUNTRY PROFILES

School Improvement & Turnaround in the Arab Region

Hala Al Khalifa, PhD Candidate, Department of Learning & Leadership

Across the Arab region efforts towards improving schools have been heightened by unsatisfactory student

standard achievements and the collective realization that schools have been failing to reach their most important goal – that of student learning (Al-Barwani, 2011). Schools across the Middle East face key challenges that can be summarized by three main points according to the UNDP (2016): an increase in educational disparity between countries; a persistent decline in the quality of education (despite a constant increase in per capita education expenditure) and finally a mismatch and gap between labor market needs and educational outputs.

School turnaround in the Arab region is a relative concept because the improvement and development of schools across the region is still an ongoing issue. Furthermore, in the majority of Arab states and more specifically countries of the GCC, planning and decisions related to the school curriculum, syllabus, teacher recruitment, training and examinations are highly centralized in ministries of education. The hierarchies established in a centralized system ultimately give little power or accountability to teachers or school communities (Chapman & Miric, 2009). This centralization makes school turnaround a difficult notion to achieve on a school level, and instead is mainly linked to overall systemic education reform and school improvement initiatives across the districts or governorates.

Educational reform in Arab countries, as mentioned previously, is seen as the sole responsibility of governments and ministries of education and not of educators at the school level (Akkary & Rizk, 2014). Hence, planning for education reform and ultimately school turnaround and improvement is left to government officials, politicians and educational consultants. As such educators and school leaders simply act as executors of top-down educational reform initiatives without displaying a real sense of accountability in the school improvement process (El-Amine, 2005).

As educational reform and school turnaround policies are mainly rooted on perspectives taken from Western literature and practice, educators across the Arab region question their applicability in their local contexts because these reforms disregard many local values and social perspectives in education (Oplatka & Arar, 2017). Furthermore, numerous scholars argue that the majority of the current reform

initiatives across the Arab region are driven by political agendas that are not linked with the priorities and needs of educational practitioners and school cultural contexts (Abi-Mershed, 2010; Akkary, 2014; Mazawi, 2009).

Over the past thirty years, countries across the Arab region have adopted neoliberal economic policies to various degrees that included privatizing state owned industries, opening up to foreign investment flows, relaxing trade barriers and reforming tax regimes (Hanieh, 2015; Morgan, 2017).

According to Bogaert (2013, p. 215) “this shift away from state-developmentalism to neoliberal governance has undermined the quality of public schools, eroded the teaching profession, and contributed to increases in social inequities”.Additionally, the shift to market oriented economic policies is linked to the emergence of an educational market place in the Arab region, the spread of privatization of education and the decrease of public expenditure on education (Hartmann, 2013; Sobhy, 2012).

Class and social inequalities are intensified when families purchase education in the form of private schools and tutoring, where parents across the Arab region believe that private schools deliver an enhanced learning environment and instruction as opposed to public schools (Buckner & Hodges, 2016; Morgan, 2017). As such socio-economic and geographic

inequalities are exacerbated across the Arab region when students from disadvantaged backgrounds are concentrated in low-quality public schools while more well off students attend private schools (Jorman & Murray, 2010).

Yet while there is general agreement that the quality of education in the Middle East region poses a problem, there is little research into why this is the case (Chapman & Miric, 2009). As such teachers within the region have come under increasing scrutiny, for despite the lack of available data on education quality in the region, teachers are continually viewed as a key issue (UNDP, 2016). Classroom instruction across the GCC public schools remain largely teacher dominated with a focus on rote learning (Kirdar, 2017).

According to a study by the World Bank, as reported by Rugh (2002, p. 408):

Education in the region does not impart the higher-order cognitive skills such as flexibility, problem solving and judgment needed by workers who will face frequently changing tasks and challenges in increasingly competitive export markets. Instead, the systems teach students how to learn and retain answers to fairly fixed questions in problem situations with little or no meaningful context and thus reward those who are skilled at being passive knowledge recipients.

It is true that teacher quality and background can be highlighted as one of the main indicators of low performing schools across the region, however, not enough research into this has been established to fully confirm the notion (Akkary & Rizk, 2014; UNESCO, 2016).

In conclusion, despite the sense of urgency to improve the failing educational system across the Arab Region, reformers have

to address this transformation patiently and according to their local contexts and challenges. For as Akkary and Rizk state (2014, p. 329) “Arab reformers need to allow time for the process and accept failures as opportunities to learn, remembering that it is a process that does not develop without normal growing pains and that it takes time to show results”.

References

Abi-Mershed, O. (2010). The politics of Arab educational reform. Trajectories of education in the Arab world: Legacies and challenges, 1-12.

Akkary, R. K. (2014). Facing the challenges of educational reform in the Arab world. Journal of Educational Change, 15(2), 179-202.

Akkary, R. K., & Rizk, N. (2014). School Reform in the Arab World: Characteristics and Prospects. International Journal of Educational Reform, 23(4), 315-332.

Al-Barwani, T. (2011). Leadership for learning in the Middle East: The road travelled thus far. In International handbook of leadership for learning (pp. 103-112): Springer.

Bogaert, K. (2013). Contextualizing the Arab Revolts: The Politics behind Three Decades of Neoliberalism in the Arab World. Middle East Critique, 22(3), 213234. doi:10.1080/19436149.2013.814945

Buckner, E., & Hodges, R. (2016). Cheating or cheated? Surviving secondary exit exams in a neoliberal era. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 46(4), 603-623.

Chapman, D., & Miric, S. (2009). Education Quality in the Middle East.

International Review of Education, 55(4), 311-344. doi:10.1007/s11159-009-9132-5

El-Amine, A. (2005). The dynamism of educational reform in Arab countries – a synthesis paper. Reform in general education in Arab countries, 321-368.

Hanieh, A. (2015). Shifting Priorities or Business as Usual? Continuity and Change in the post-2011 IMF and World Bank Engagement with Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 42(1), 119-134. doi:10.10 80/13530194.2015.973199

Hartmann, S. (2013). Education 'home delivery' in Egypt: Private tutoring and social stratification1. In (pp. 57-75).

Jorman, R., & Murray, H. (2010). Education justice in the Middle East and North Africa. In: New York: Open Society Foundations. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org

Kirdar, S. (2017). Introduction – Regional Overview. In S. Kirdar (Ed.), Education in the Arab World (pp. 1-18): Bloomsbury Publishing

Mazawi, A. E. (2009). Naming the imaginary:“Building an Arab knowledge society” and the contested terrain of educational reforms for development. In Trajectories of Education in the Arab World (pp. 217-241): Routledge.

Morgan, C. (2017). Constructing educational quality in the Arab region: a bottom-up critique of regional educational governance. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 15(4), 499-517.

Oplatka, I., & Arar, K. (2017). The research on educational leadership and management in the Arab world since the

1990s: A systematic review. Review of education (Oxford), 5(3), 267-307. doi:10.1002/rev3.3095

Rugh, W. (2002). Arab Education: Tradition, Growth and Reform. The Middle East journal, 56(3), 396-414.

Sobhy, H. (2012). The de-facto privatization of secondary education in Egypt: a study of private tutoring in technical and general schools. COMPARE, 42(1), 47-67. doi:10.1 080/03057925.2011.629042

UNDP. (2016). Arab Human Development Report 2016: Youth and the Prospects for Human Development in a Changing Reality. Retrieved from New York:

UNESCO. (2016). UNESCO Arab Regional Education Support Strategy: 2016-2021. Retrieved from Beirut https://en.unesco. org/sites/default/files/unaress.pdf

In this article I would like to present some of the most important consequences that left the pandemic in the educational system of my country, and how these profound challenges are at the same time a great opportunity to develop a new approach of

A great opportunity that faces the Chilean Educational System in the post-pandemic era.

Nicolás Garrido, Chilean teacher and a current postgraduate student of the Master´s program in Educational Leadership, UCL

educational leadership.

“Educational earthquake”, “deep crisis”, “excessive impact”, are some of the expressions used by Chilean figures to try to reflect the effects that the pandemic has generated in the Chilean educational system. Regarding the consequences on student learning, there are still no formal and consolidated data, but all educational workers agree that the gaps and difficulties

other places where they can, increasing the chances of being part of gangs and/or other high-risk groups.

The situation seems critical and even desperate, but we cannot lose hope. As Gabriela Mistral, one of our most emblematic educators and poets of the 20th century, said “children's education is today, tomorrow will be late”, and there are many things that we can and must do.

The Ministry of Education has implemented some programs and plans to improve student attendance and reintegrate children who have dropped out of school. They have also provided guidance to school leaders to address student behaviour challenges and will inject more resources for these purposes in 2023.

in student learning are enormous. In another area of the school environment, the Ministry of Education shared data stating that more than 50,000 children did not return to school in 2022, after a year and a half of distance learning. Additionally, around 40% of students presented a high level of non-attendance, a situation that deeply affects their continuity in the educational process, and complaints related to discipline and behaviour problems of students within schools rose by almost 30% during 2022.

All these problems show that the school does not represent a place of safety and protection for many Chilean children and young people. It reflects that students do not have a significant relationship with their school communities, that they don´t feel motivated to attend school and that they don´t feel part of them. If young people don´t belong in their schools, they will try to find

These efforts must be complemented by the critical role of school leaders. More than ever, we need them to make their best contribution to the country and society. They have a great opportunity to rebuild their communities and transform them into places where the well-being of all members of the schools is at the centre.

They also need to enrich the educational experiences to engage and delight not only the students, but to the teachers as well, because they have also experienced a very challenging period and many of them are exhausted and demotivated because they see no signs of improvement.

The challenge is enormous, but if school leaders encourage collaboration, teamwork, added to the strong sense of ethical and moral commitment that characterizes them, the possibilities of improvement are great.

Nicolás Garrido

TESTIMONIALS. WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Chengkai Liu alumni, MA Educational Leadership (pre-service)

experience at IOE was very meaningful. I am incredibly grateful to have met Dr. Tracey Allen and Dr. Monica Mincu in my master's programme. Dr. Allen led an extraordinary programme.

For each assignment, we were able to submit our drafts through the submission box and receive our feedback before we officially submitted our papers. This was an important and effective process for us to apply our knowledge and theory to real assignments. Meanwhile, I am grateful to Dr. Mincu for her help during my dissertation period, my topic was the role of educational leadership and technologies in the higher education system and the promotion of an inclusive education system in China.

I had the pleasure of studying the Educational Leadership (pre-service) programme at IOE (Institute of Education). As a pre-service practitioner, this course fully met my expectations. The programme offers courses in

“Introduction to Leadership in Education”

“Leadership for the Learning Community” and “Leadership in Diverse Cultures and Communities”. This rich curriculum has provided a very solid theoretical foundation for my future career path in academic research.

In addition, I would like to state again that my

Before preparing my dissertation, Dr. Mincu and I had many discussions about this digital field, a topic that I felt a bit confused about because there was little research on this topic in the Chinese context. However, she provided me with some reading lists and some professional advice on educational leadership which help me to define the research landscape. During the completion of my dissertation, Dr. Mincu gave me timely feedback on my dissertation, which improved my academic skills and really made me aware of what critical thinking is and how to apply it to my dissertation.

Therefore, a tip for completing a dissertation successfully is to follow the timeline that you set for yourself and to

confirm the direction of your research with your supervisor. In the end, I submitted my dissertation successfully and received an “A” as my final grade. So, I really appreciate IOE for providing me with this solid theoretical foundation, and all the tutors who helped me.

Lihua Fu, MA Educational Leadership (in-service)

getting a C for my first assignment. In fact, I cried bitterly, questioned myself and even thought about giving up.

However, the support of the programme staff and my initial desire to come to UCL made me change my mind. My supervisor, Dr Aly Colman, not only mentored me when it came to research and writing, but also encouraged me when I made progress. This has given me a lot of confidence. Also, the module administrator, Rebecca Hussain, was always the first person to help me with questions other than academic ones, saving me from worrying.

With their support, I used my time in the Student Centre wisely, reading academic papers and constantly editing my tasks. Ultimately, the effort paid off, as I achieved an A for both my fourth assignment and my dissertation.

I am a student in MA Educational Leadership (In-service) 21/22. I come from China.

Before joining UCL I worked as a TV presenter for educational programmes and founded a school catering to high school students. Because I wanted to gain more knowledge in leadership and management and make my school better, I chose to return to student life after eight years of work.

This year has been an incredible learning experience. In the first semester, I found it hard to adapt to the fast-paced learning style of the course. This resulted in me

Another way I have benefitted is through gaining an awareness of the importance of research. Writing is all about researching as well as critically analysing cases in which you are a leader. Through analysis, you can then adopt a leadership style that is appropriate for your educational institution. In other words, the findings of the study can guide students in making leadership decisions that are applicable to their practice. According to Godfrey (2017), research-engaged schools (RES) are educational institutions that foster a culture in which research informs professional discourse. In my future work, I will strive to turn my school into a RES.

Learning from and communicating with my classmates was really rewarding. In-service students all have a rich experience of working and leading. They shared their experience of success. Meanwhile, they were open about

issues they are currently facing in their organisations and invited discussion. It was this collaboration of different cultures and perspectives that helped develop my leadership knowledge in a more holistic way.

Overall, MA Educational Leadership (In-service) is an excellent programme. Now, I would like to say to prospective students: this is a family, and when you have learning or emotional problems, there is lots of help available. I wish you all the best for your year of study.

Reference

Godfrey, D. (2017). Exploring Cultures of Research Engagement at Eight English Secondary Schools. Doctoral dissertation. UCL (University College London).

Ferdinand Doepel, MA Educational Leadership (in-service)

I completed my MA Educational Leadership at UCL in 2021, having been a part-time student while working as Head of Economics and Business at an independent school in South London.

I had long considered doing an MA and had purposefully not pursued one at an earlier stage, as I wanted to ensure I had enough practical experience of leadership in an education setting before proceeding to deepen my understanding of the theory behind my daily practice.

My rationale for pursuing an MA in Educational Leadership was threefold. Firstly, I really wanted to gain a more thorough grasp of the research that underpins teaching in a secondary school. I wanted to try and bridge the McIntyre Gap, i.e. the gap between research and practice. While one can do this without pursuing a postgraduate degree, I felt that the programme would offer me the perfect opportunity to ensure I dedicate the necessary time and effort to an area that unfortunately often gets left on the backburner, even though it of course should play a far more central role in a career within the education sector.

The second reason was that I wanted to meet others on the programme, both to help me broaden my understanding of different educational settings, an area in which this programme offers unparalleled potential, and also build my network within the sector. Getting to know others on the programme was without a shadow of a doubt one of the highlights of my time studying at UCL. As so much else at the time, much of this interaction unfortunately moved online in March 2020 due to the global pandemic.

The final rationale for my pursuit of this degree was that I hoped it would help

me stand out in a very competitive labour market, as the senior leadership positions within the secondary education sector are few and far between. While it certainly helped to have an MA on my CV when securing my current role as Assistant Head Academic at Wimbledon High School, what was more important than the title was the ability to approach things from leader’s perspective as a result of having taken the Leading and Managing Change and Improvement module.

I am pleased to have completed the programme at UCL. The quality of the teaching was excellent, with the lecturers

being experts in their respective fields. One real positive was the ability to tailor all assignments and most discussions to a context that was relevant to you. It really made sure that the theory that we learnt was applicable to my context and could be actioned effectively.

Finally, I immensely appreciated the understanding and flexibility that was shown when it came to the assignments, as it can be tricky to complete an MA while working full time. The compassion and willingness to adapt that the faculty showed at a time of great uncertainty was very welcome.

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Events

Making a difference: Understanding the role of culture in education and society

8 March 2023, 2pm – 4pm, W4.01

Based at the IOE - Free to attend.

Come along to this hybrid event to hear a range of speakers discuss the role of culture in education and society.

Organiser: International Centre for Intercultural Studies- (ioe.icis@ucl.ac.uk)

Speakers:

Professor Adam Komisarof - President of the International Academy of Intercultural Research

Dr Jane Woodin - Intercultural Communication SIG co-coordinator, British Association for Applied Linguistics

Professor Jorge Diaz-Cintas - School of European Languages, Culture and Society, UCL

Dr Silvia Colaiacomo - UCL Arena Centre for Research-Based Education

Dr Leslie Bash - Intercultural Centre for International Studies, IOE, UCL

Dr Terri Kim - Intercultural Centre for International Studies, IOE, UCL

Professor Hugh Starkey - Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment, IOE, UCL School leadership in the Anthropocene

15 March 2023, 4pm – 5pm Free to attend.

The Anthropocene is a geological epoch we are in now, initiated around 200 years ago by the activities of one species –homo sapiens.

In this seminar, the panel will discuss the implications of this for the practice of school leadership. They propose an agential approach that enables children and adults to respond knowledgeably, humanely and practically to multiple global challenges.

The aim for the session is to create a space for discussion about whether school leadership is fit for the urgent challenges faced by all humanity in the Anthropocene.

The presentation will be followed by a Q&A. Speakers:

Dr David Godfrey - Associate Professor in Education Leadership and Management, Centre for Educational Leadership (CEL)

Dr Rupert Higham - Associate Professor, Centre for Educational Leadership (CEL)

Dr Monica Mincu - Lecturer, Centre for Educational Leadership (CEL)

Dr Alison Kitson - Associate Professor in History Education, UCL IOE

Reflective teaching, evidence, and control of teacher education

23 March 2023, 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm W3.01 Based at the IOE - Free to attend.

Join this event to celebrate the newest editions of Bloomsbury’s Reflective Teaching series with the authors, Andrew Pollard, Dominic Wyse and Caroline Daly and their team of esteemed contributors.

Chair: Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy hhcp@ucl.ac.uk

Speakers:

Professor Andrew Pollard

Professor Dominic Wyse

Professor Caroline Daly

Professor Alison Fuller

Vivienne Baumfield

Rachel Boyle

Adventures in drama and digital animation

13 June 2023, 5pm – 6pm, 739. Based at the IOE - Free to attend.

In this seminar, Michelle and Sara will discuss the importance of affect in the children’s processes and performance and the availability of new roles in the multimodal play, which allowed vulnerable and disenfranchised children to exert agency.

Organiser: International Literacy Centre ioe.ilc@ucl.ac.uk

Speakers:

Dr Sara Hawley - Lecturer in Media at Department of Culture, Communication & Media, UCL IOE

Dr Michelle Cannon - Lecturer in Digital Arts and Media Education at Department of Culture, Communication & Media, UCL IOE

Day 3: Wednesday 29th March 10am -

11am Enjoying the Journey: Going for Gold - How will you know that your dissertation dance is any good?

“Are you struggling to think what your dissertation is about, or how to do it? Would you like to discover the joy of academic writing? If so, please join me, Professor Kathryn Riley, in this three-part Workshop: 150 minutes of your time in all!”

To make the most of this enjoyable learning opportunity, please attend Days 1 and 3, and find the space for the writing task on day 2. The sessions will also be made available online. The link will be distributed to all students.

Study with us

We have a range of in person and an online Post Graduate Taught selection.

MBA Educational Leadership (international)

Dissertation Support Sessions: Your MA Dissertation and YOU

Finding YOUR way through the Dissertation Maze: A Workshop in three Parts March 2023, delivered by Professor Kathryn Riley

Day 1: Monday 27th March 10am - 11am

Finding your Voice: What’s at the heart of your dissertation story? What are the rules of the dissertation dance?

Day 2: Tuesday 28th March - 30 minutes

Writing Brief in your own time Writing your Brief: What’s your dissertation story about? Who is it for? Why are you telling it?

The MBA Educational Leadership (International) is the premier postgraduate degree in educational leadership, offered at the world’s leading university education department (World #1 for last eight years). The programme focuses on the business of education (hence the ‘B’ in MBA) which is defined as the establishment, maintenance and enhancement of effective learning environments for the student body to be served.

The programme is suitable for a wide range of educators and we typically have students from across the age spectrum including pre-school, state and independent schools, further and higher education and education

administrators. A prime audience is those who are or aspiring to be executive leaders in educational settings, who are accountable for multi-part or multi-site organisations. The degree is a taught programme requiring episodic attendance in London, with each module running for a total of four days, on Friday & Saturday with about a month between. We do have commuting students who fly in for the weekend and then home again. In recent times we have had many students based overseas as well as those in the UK. Successful completion of NPQEL and/or NPQH (within five years of start of programme) can be accredited on application to the degree.

Applied Educational Leadership MA

The Applied Educational Leadership MA is a world-class, fully online, flexible 3-year programme for middle or senior leaders in schools, colleges, universities, charities, edu-businesses and government around the world. It has received consistently excellent feedback and results since 2003, attesting to students’ significant personal and professional development.

AEL consists of four taught modules and a year-long practical research project. Students learn to integrate theory, evidence and experience, and to plan and implement change in their professional contexts. Throughout, they engage with expertly curated up-to-date materials, and high-quality dialogue with tutors, supervisors and a global network of peers.

Please visit our website, and contact the Programme Leader, Dr Rupert Higham, for any further information. You can also watch this short video to hear what people think about this programme.

MA Educational Leadership (in-service)

Within the Centre of Educational Leadership here at UCL IOE, the MA Educational Leadership is an excellent programme of study at postgraduate level. We focus on developing your understanding of leadership and management, analyse the policy landscape, and consider the process of change and improvement. Optional modules offer focus on leading and developing learning within a range of educational settings and an exploration of the contexts, purposes and practices of leadership within a global perspective.

These areas of study build on the leadership and management experience you will have already gained in an educational setting. One of the strengths of the course is bringing a wealth of experience together from wide ranging settings and contexts to create rich discussions in the taught sessions. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to work with a supervisor on an extended project, either a 10,000 word Report or 20,000 word Dissertation. This will be focused on a specific area of leadership research and represents the culmination of the programme. It is ideal preparation for future studies including the PhD or EdD within UCL or elsewhere.

LEADERSHIP CONNECTIONS

Centre for Educational Leadership

IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society

20 Bedford Way

London WC1H 0AL

JUNE, 2022 |

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