Editorial

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One of the most challenging tasks for any school’s board of trustees is leading the process to employ a new principal when a principal change is impending. The importance of this task cannot be underestimated as there is an integral relationship between school leadership and student achievement. Globally, research indicates that this task is becoming increasingly difficult as an aging population of principals is heading towards retirement and fewer teachers and middle managers are aspiring to lead a school. This challenge is further complicated if the school has specific employment criteria such as those found in integrated faith-based schools. The pool of applicants is smaller than for state schools and this requires that strategic succession planning occurs to develop a well-prepared leadership pipeline for future leadership roles. This paper draws on doctoral research focused on principal succession in faith-based schools in New Zealand and suggests a model to successfully manage the principal succession process.
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Who will lead? Principal succession in New Zealand’s faith-based integrated schools

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This article addresses effective school leaders so that leaders may navigate robust, vigorous and well-thought through changes and supports in schools to raise the engagement and achievement of Pasifika learners. From a Pasifika perspective, a “true leader” in education is an effective leader, a leader with high integrity (aloaia) and standing, who is driven by culturally responsive principles, values, aspirations and world views of the students. Such a leader utilizes a personal humanitarian approach with the self-belief, courage, determination and perseverance to wholeheartedly take students from where they are currently at in learning, to where they need to be. This research used Talanoa methodology to explore the perceptions off our principals on supporting Pasifika students in primary and secondary New Zealand schools. This research found a significant need for effective leadership by principals to navigate educational changes that genuinely make a difference to unlock doors of opportunities in every school to raise achievement and wellbeing for all Pasifika learners.
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O le Tautai Matapalapala: Leadership strategies for supporting Pasifika students in New Zealand schools

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Leadership within the early childhood education (ECE) sector in New Zealand is both positionally assigned and a required practice of all teachers. Within this context, distributed leadership – where all team members have the opportunity to lead – is increasingly seen as an effective leadership model. This article reports on a study whose aim was to discover practices of effective positional leaders in facilitating distributed leadership. A nationwide survey was carried out in Aotearoa New Zealand to capture a picture of current perceptions of ECE teachers and positional leaders about distributed leadership for professional learning. Subsequently, leadership practices for distributed leadership in three previously-identified high quality ECE services were investigated through individual and group interviews. The analysis of literature, survey and interview findings from this study led to a framework of effective leadership practice, consisting of: mentoring and coaching; fostering relational trust; and creating vision and designing supportive structures.
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Effective leadership practices leading to distributed leadership

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This exploratory case study examined the role of leadership in the context of curriculum mapping implementation to determine leadership approaches and strategies needed for the initiative success. Twelve participants shared their experiences concerning the “phenomenon” of the study through semi-structured interviews. The study results confirmed findings from previous research about the critical role of leadership in the initiative success and provided leadership strategies for implementing sustainable educational initiatives.
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Teachers’ perspectives of the school leadership strategies for a successful change initiative

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This paper presents and compares the results of two qualitative studies about leadership roles in secondary education. Both studies were conducted in the northwest of Mexico. The results show that in the first instance principals and deputy principals do not form work teams and show little concern for participation with one another. The functions of the deputy principals focus on the control of the institution, while the principals address the broader dimensions of administration, organization, social participation and pedagogy. This difference could lead to problems of sustainability of leadership because there is no platform for preparation and promotion. In addition, the absence of training programmes in Mexico limits the professionalisation of deputy principals. It is recommended that the functions performed by the principals and deputy principals be integrated.
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The integration of the functions of principals and deputy principals in the management of secondary schools

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This article reports the findings of a study into the boards of trustees of two small primary schools in New Zealand, the boards of which had been deemed by the Ministry of Education to be “at risk”. Both boards also fitted into a broad band of schools identified by the Ministry of Education as most likely to have difficulty gaining a competent board. The study found that, while there were some issues about the understanding of the board s governance role by individual trustees, the key concern appeared to be a conflict in the perceptions about the board s role between the localised views held by the parent trustees and the centralised views held by the government and its advisors. The study also found that the centralising policies of the government had placed increasing compliance and regulations on the boards which were too complex for non-professional educators to adequately fulfil. Therefore, the article suggests that the government s centralising policy initiatives are a key factor behind the growing number of boardsofsmall primary schools being declared ineffective. The article also suggests that those policy initiatives are having an especially negative impact on boards where there are few parents available for the board or there is a small pool of parental expertise.
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Local logics versus centralisation: A possible dilemma for the boards of trustees of New Zealand’s small primary schools

Book Review

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There is a continued emphasis on the importance of building collaborative working relationships between school principals and counsellors to address the growing academic, career and college readiness, and social-emotional needs of students in K-12 schools. This study explored and analysed 1466 school principals ‘perceptions around important school counselling priorities, perceptions, and activities that are carried out in Turkish public and private schools. The study additionally explored school principals’ expectations of school counsellors’ roles and responsibilities as aligned with traditional and transformed school counselling programmes and practices. This study may be of value to school leaders, policy makers and educators interested in revising and improving their school counselling services to meet the complex academic and counselling needs of students in contemporary schools.
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School principal perceptions of the school counsellor’s role: Traditional or transformed?

AHEAD OF PRINT

Volume 37 (2023): Issue 1 (April 2023)

Volume 36 (2021): Issue 1 (January 2021)

Volume 35 (2020): Issue 1 (January 2020)

Volume 34 (2019): Issue 1 (January 2019)

Volume 33 (2018): Issue 2 (January 2018)

Volume 33 (2018): Issue 1 (January 2018)

Volume 32 (2017): Issue 2 (January 2017)

Volume 32 (2017): Issue 1 (January 2017)

Volume 30 (2015): Issue 1 (January 2015)

Journal of Educational Leadership, Policy and Practice

The peer-reviewed Journal of Educational Leadership, Policy and Practice (established 1986) presents the work of new and established scholars and practitioners. The journal aims to highlight new knowledge and important ideas both from New Zealand and internationally. In particular, JELPP welcomes studies that further international debates in the field of educational leadership.  The Journal of Educational Leadership, Policy and Practice publishes papers by researchers, practitioners and administrators in the field of educational leadership. Research papers should therefore focus on the policy and / or practice of educational leadership at international, national, regional or institutional level, in any sector of education. Leadership stories may also be submitted: these are less formal pieces, usually focussing on one aspect of leadership or a particular leadership scenario. All work submitted should be the original work of the author(s).  Issues up to Vol 33(2) have been published in print, and distributed digitally by informit.org, where back issues can be obtained.Issues from Vol 34 are published through exeley.com. We have moved to an open access digital platform in order to secure wider readership and authorship for our journal papers.  ABOUT SOCIETY  New Zealand Educational Administration and Leadership Society (NZEALS) mission is to promote and support quality leadership for learning across all educational sectors. It welcomes members from the entire educational spectrum, from early childhood to tertiary level, as well as agencies such as the Education Review Office and the Ministry of Education.NZEALS supports leadership and innovation in education. It has strong networks within and across sectors, sharing research and quality practice. It promotes leadership partnerships and supports new and aspiring leaders. Central to its work is the development and dissemination of knowledge surrounding sound leadership practice, founded on appropriate theory and research.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 