https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/14499 2026-04-04T20:07:12Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/33820 Title: Becoming an effective school leader Abstract: Society is acknowledging the need for effective leadership to make an impact on students’ learning. Even though teacher quality is critical for school improvement, no matter how much a teacher is skilled and prepared, the School Leader is the one who establishes the right conditions for effective teaching and learning. To this end, improving leadership ranks as one of the highest priority in educational reforms. The aim of this study is to explore the process of becoming an effective School Leader. The type of knowledge and skills School Leaders need for their day-to-day roles and responsibilities and the preeminent learning process that enables School Leaders learn such knowledge, form the theoretical framework of this research. Shulman’s and Aristotle’s knowledge are used to aid the researcher to better articulate the knowledge needed to prepare effective School Leaders. This study presents insights brought forward by School Leaders themselves and also by the contributors to School Leaders’ professional learning regarding the conditions that need to be in place for effective professional learning. The empirical study shows that the new roles and challenges School Leaders need to meet present demands necessitates a change in the preparation in becoming effective Leaders; that from delivered wisdom to user-generated wisdom. It also sheds light on the policies needed to create effective professional learning that helps to prepare effective School Leaders. Description: M.A.EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP&MGT. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/33797 Title: The role of the head of school in supporting teacher leadership in Maltese secondary state schools Abstract: This particular study examined the role of the Head of School in building teacher leadership capability as a potential instrument to be used in meeting school improvement and development goals. Two secondary State schools located in Malta and Gozo respectively were deliberately chosen as the focus of this study for two specific reasons. First and foremost, the author of this study has a State school background, having always attended different primary and secondary State schools in his childhood years. Furthermore, after graduating as a teacher from the University of Malta in 2004, the author has always worked in various secondary State schools located around the Maltese Islands and he still works as a teacher in a Gozitan secondary State school till date. A second reason that justifies the choice of secondary State schools as the focus of this specific study lies in the fact that from a local point of view, it seems that the demands to produce 21st century learners are mostly felt at the secondary State school level. In this scenario, therefore, if secondary school Heads want to attain reform expectations, they will undoubtedly be most victorious if they can successfully exploit the knowledge and expertise of those teachers that already work in their own schools. For the purpose of this dissertation, existing literature concerning teacher leadership and Head of School leadership in relation to developing, forging, supporting and encouraging teacher leadership, building leadership capability, and also distributing leadership was reviewed and evaluated. Interviews conducted with two Heads of School and two formal teacher leaders (Heads of Departments – HODs) in two different secondary State schools located in Malta and Gozo respectively, supplied crucial data that eventually informed this study. Both teacher leaders’ and Head of Schools’ perceptions and viewpoints were captured and subsequently analyzed. The interviews that the researcher carried out with the four participants in question served to feel the pulse of both teacher leaders and their respective Heads of School on the role of the Head of School in supporting teacher leadership and building capability in Maltese secondary State schools. The analysis revealed the following seven themes: continuous teacher support, relationships and relationship building, empowerment, culture of collaboration, professional development (PD), school vision and challenges. Among other things, the study in question reinforced the belief that Heads of School are responsible for generating a culture of teacher leadership and they are using numerous tools to build leadership capability. Description: M.A.EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP&MGT. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/33789 Title: The journey into leadership : listening to the educational leader’s voice in Gozo Abstract: The educational system in the Maltese islands is undergoing a number of reforms. For these reforms to be successfully implemented, a radical paradigm shift in local educational leadership is called for. This not only means that educational leaders need to balance who they are with what the educational system requires from them but they also have to deal with the pressures of an insular society such as the one in the Maltese islands. With the current educational discourse pointing towards performativity and accountability to provide quality education for all, educational leadership can be quite a challenging role. In fact, educational leaders are constantly asked to challenge their notions of leadership and think outside the box. Current local leadership discusses the leadership skills necessary to bring about the required reform. Several documents have been written to propose suggestions on how to improve educational leadership and what the educational leader should do. Unfortunately, who the leader really is as a person is being ignored. The question here is: What impact does the experience of school leadership have on the school leader? This study will try to analyse the transition into educational leadership of six educational leaders in Gozo and it will also try to understand how the school leadership experience impacts a leader’s personality and everyday life if at all, what adaptation processes a leader needs to undergo to fit into his role and if this adaptation process involves fitting in into certain expected stereotypes. Description: M.A.EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP&MGT. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/33788 Title: A case study on leadership styles of primary school heads in Gozo Abstract: Educational leadership is known to be second most important in enabling the success of schools (Bush, 2007, 2011; Pont, Nusche & Hopkins, 2008; Reed, 2013; Peters, 2015). Due to this, throughout the last decades a number of leadership styles have been put forward by both international and national researchers, with the intention of improving the work of the school leaders. After studying the most prominent styles, the researcher chose an inductive approach, where he sought to find out what leadership styles the current heads of school in Malta are using or they advocate, aiming to elicit the best style/s which promote the way forward for the Maltese education system. Indeed, a case study methodology using a multi-method approach was chosen for this study, with Gozo being the catchment area. The qualitative method allowed for the interviewing of four heads of school using the Biographic-Narrative Interpretive Method (Wengraf, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2013). Moreover, the quantitative method was used with forty educators who work within the same schools of the interviewed senior leaders. These educators were given a questionnaire survey to answer. Furthermore, the two official documents: the National Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education and Employment, 2012) and the Malta Education Strategy 2014-2024 (Ministry for Education and Employment, 2014a) were analysed to see what type of link existed between the case study results and the content of these documents. Eventually, a Thematic Field Analysis (Charmaz, 2006; Guest, MacQueen & Namey 2012) procedure followed, where eight themes emerged from this study. After consulting with the literature review, these results showed that the heads of school were contingent, in that, as advocated by researchers like Yukl (2002), Vanderhaar, Munoz and Rodosky (2007) and Bush (2015), these made use of a number of approaches from different leadership styles. At the same time, the approaches chosen acknowledged a systematic type of leadership – a style which, in lieu of the current changes, is being promoted by international researchers like Hargreaves, Halász and Pont (2007, 2008) and Peters (2015), whilst locally by Bezzina and Cutajar (2012) and the Malta Education Strategy 2014-2024 (Ministry for Education and Employment, 2014a). Consequently, this research concluded that the best way forward suggests both contingent and systematic leadership. Description: M.A.EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP&MGT. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z