WIREDGOV

It takes a whole school to teach a child. No one teacher or leader can carry this responsibility alone. This is one of the key messages to be proposed by the distinguished New Zealand school leadership expert Professor Viviane Robinson when she gives the annual London Centre for Leadership in Learning lecture next month.

Professor Robinson, from The University of Aukland, will set out her "five dimensions of student-centred leadership", emphasising the importance of goal-setting and teacher learning, when she speaks at the Institute of Education, London, on 22 April.

However, she argues it would be wrong to hold individual leaders accountable across all five dimensions. It would "reinforce unrealistic conceptions of heroic leadership and deny the reality of distributed leadership in schools". It would be much more useful to involve the whole school leadership team in discussions, she says.

The five dimensions of student-centred leadership are:

• Setting and communicating clear goals. This enables leaders to signal to staff what is most important and to remind themselves when they are being distracted by routines and crises.
• Strategic resourcing. This enables staff to see the connection between where the money is spent and the school's goals. It should be built on evidence on how a particular resource will make a difference to students in the school.
• Leadership heavily involved in the quality of teaching. This type of leadership requires an evidence-informed and shared theory of effective teaching that forms the basis of a coherent teaching programme in which there is collective responsibility for student learning and well-being.
• Teachers and leaders learning together. Ambitious learning goals soon reveal shortfalls in knowledge and skill among both teachers and leaders. "A powerful difference can be made by teachers and leaders learning together on the job about how to achieve their student learning goals."
• A safe and secure environment for staff and students. Everyone – students, parents, staff -- feels respected.

Professor Robinson says: "At one of the first professional conferences where I presented these findings, I was asked if the five dimensions would be a good framework for evaluating headteachers. I replied that I would prefer they were used to evaluate the strength of leadership across the school or in particular subject departments. The scope of the work is too great, and the expertise required too broad, to reasonably expect a single leader to demonstrate high or even moderate levels of competence in all five dimensions."

Editors' notes

For more information or to interview Viviane Robinson please contact Ann-Marie Evans Ann-Marie.Evans@ioe.ac.uk or 020 7911 5512

The lecture, "The impact of leadership on student outcomes", will be held at the IOE, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, on Monday, 22 April at 5.30pm, followed by a wine reception at 7pm. More information at:
http://www.ioe.ac.uk/study/documents/APR_22_ANNUAL_LECTURE.pdf

The London Centre for Leadership in Learning (LCLL), at the Institute of Education, works to support educational and public sector leadership that improves and supports the life chances of individuals and communities.

The LCLL works with education and public sector leaders and professionals in London, nationally and internationally offering academic and professional development programmes, research and consultancy. More information at http://www.ioe.ac.uk/study/departments/365.html, http://www.lcll.org.uk/ or londoncentre@ioe.ac.uk

Vivianne Robinson is a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Education at The University of Auckland and Academic Director of its Centre for Educational Leadership. She is the author of five books and numerous chapters and journal articles on school improvement, leadership and the relationship between research and the improvement of practice. In her latest book entitled "Student-Centered Leadership" she presents a compelling account of how school leaders can make a bigger difference to student outcomes and the knowledge and skills they need to do so.

The Institute of Education is a college of the University of London that specialises in education and related areas of social science and professional practice. In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise two-thirds of the Institute's research activity was judged to be internationally significant and over a third was judged to be "world leading". The Institute was recognised by Ofsted in 2010 for its "high quality" initial teacher training programmes that inspire its students "to want to be outstanding teachers". The IOE is a member of the 1994 Group, which brings together 11 internationally renowned, research-intensive universities. More at www.ioe.ac.uk