Mr Nick Burnett
i-for-k
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

' There are 3 categories of people
The ones that make things happen
The ones that watch things happen, and
The ones that wonder what the hell is happening '
(Barbara Prashnig, 1999)

Introduction

The research for this paper was originally undertaken as part of a Research Associate report funded by the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), in the UK, and has been adapted from a chapter in SEN and Leadership: Meeting the challenges in special and mainstream settings, which is to be published by David Fulton Publishers in 2005.

The paper draws on recent literature, extensive interviews with recognised successful leaders and discussions with leading experts in the field of Special Educational Needs (SEN).

Key issues

From undertaking the research, there appears to be four key issues that have significant leadership implications for the current and future leaders of SEN environments.

The first key issue is around change. Within the education system there has been an incredible amount of change and, in SEN settings, this has often been magnified by uncertainties over their future. Leaders have to manage ever-shifting challenges and change, and keep positive about their ability to cope with this, both personally and within their schools. A key element of doing this is to develop all staff as leaders of change. Michael Fullan (2001) summarises the key challenges of leading in a culture of change:

• Moral purpose;
• Understanding change;
• Relationships, relationships, relationships;
• Knowledge building; and,
• Coherence making

The second area is innovation. Leaders of SEN environments need to ensure that their settings are at the forefront of developing new practice, models and approaches in many areas. The most important of these are:

• Learning (knowledge of the brain, individual learning styles and multiple intelligences);
• Curriculum and pedagogy (using the above information to change and develop approaches used to ensure individualised education becomes a reality);
• Design (the development of a ' full-service ' school model that crosses the boundaries between education, health and social/family services);
• Funding (identifying, exploring and making use of a range of funding sources to promote further development of the provision);
• Leadership (the building of strategic partnerships and developing capacity within the setting);
• Management (of knowledge and of systems, policies and procedures); and,
• Professionalism (ensuring they are data-driven and research-based).

The third area is partnerships. The leader of SEN in the future needs to demand increased partnership, working from his or her own school, other schools and professionals. There have been a number of key initiatives in the UK to promote partnership working; Networked Learning Communities and Specialist School status. Effective leaders of SEN have taken these opportunities and built extensive partnerships. They have also built effective partnership working with parents, industry and the wider community.

The final area is the use of ICT/new technology. Leaders of SEN in the future need to utilise the capacity of ICT in making the curriculum more accessible for pupils, by ensuring that all staff become more skilled in both, their and their pupils ' use. They will also use the expertise that lies within their settings, to benefit the wider communities.

Qualities

' If schools are to be that different, there will be a radical shift in the challenges faced by their leaders and in the qualities needed for such a role. '
(David Bennett, in an NCSL essay entitled ' The School of the Future: Key issues for school leaders ' )

What qualities does the Special School Leader of the future require?

The leader of SEN in the future is clear about the need to engage in the systematic abandonment of old ways, including:

• Design (abandonment of previously held models);
• Boundary spanning (abandonment of ' silo ' model and belief that problems and solutions occur in one simple sector);
• Curriculum (abandonment of many carefully built-up curriculum areas in order to introduce and establish new areas); and,
• Pedagogy (abandonment of old styles in favour of new knowledge).

When a leader and his or her setting embark on a sustained period of reform, there are undoubtedly many challenges that will be faced. In such a period of rapid change, the need for moral leadership will be a prerequisite for a successful leader and this needs to be based on a firm set of personal values that will include:

• Integrity;
• Social justice;
• Humanity;
• Respect;
• Loyalty; and,
• A sharp distinction between right and wrong.

Strategic relationships will not be successfully initiated, developed and maintained if such a value system is not strongly held and exercised on a regular and consistent basis.

The major challenges that lie ahead will not be achieved by direct conflict, although the need to be authoritative in leadership style at each major change was identified by more than one successful leader. The ability to resolve conflict, whilst challenging some long-held beliefs, will be a key quality of the successful leader of SEN in the future.

The importance of strategy will remain but it will be through relationships, and not plans, that this will be exercised. It is the nature and quality of the leader ' s relationships, both internal and external, that will be crucial to the success of the school. Developing effective relationships will be achieved through:

• The development of trust;
• Open communication;
• Making meaning to work;
• Empowerment of individual and teams; and,
• The development of teams through involvement.

The ability to harness the will and skills of a diverse and expanding group of partners, both within and outside the complex organisation which is a school or service, is crucial in ensuring that the SEN setting is successfully led and meets the needs and aspirations of all stakeholders. During such a period of discontinuous and accelerating change, tomorrow ' s leaders need to embrace change with optimism and conviction that resistance can be overcome and differences reconciled. It must also be acknowledged that there is the need to build a learning community with a high level of intelligence. This involves the need to build a broader set of basics such as:

• Systems thinking;
• The ability to utilise technology in learning;
• Working co-operatively in high-performing teams that may change, depending on the project;
• Taking the initiative; and,
• The ability to acquire new skills.

These learning communities will operate within the SEN environment and across the partnerships that have been developed. The leader of SEN in the future needs to foster these skills within his or her own setting.

Throughout the discussions with successful leaders, and from reading current literature, the use of different leadership styles was a common theme. A number of the leaders identified the need to be able to adopt different leadership styles, depending on what was required at that particular situation. They identified the need to often move back to an authoritative style at each major change but then be able to move to the coaching style as soon as possible. What became clear from the discussions and reading was that the concept of transformational leadership will be the style of leadership required from the leader of SEN in the future.

Transformational leadership, as identified by Leadership Research and Development Limited (LRDL), is based on integrity, openness and transparency. It recognises, values, and promotes the talents of each individual within an organisation. It articulates a shared vision that empowers employees through developing potential. It not only enables settings to cope with change but enables them to be proactive in determining the change. Transformational leadership is also proactive in nurturing leadership within all individuals. During such a period of change and subsequent challenge, clearly this is the leadership style that is required now and also in the future for leaders of SEN to be successful and build effective schools and services. The Transformational Leadership Questionnaire (TLQ), developed by LRDL and used collaboratively with NCSL, in the TLiS project (2003), demonstrated the significant rewards gained by those leaders undertaking it and identified the following conclusions.

• The leadership qualities and behaviours identified by direct reports are those that a leader at any level should strive to develop, and toward which leadership programmes should be aimed.
  
• If schools are to develop in ways that suit them to the needs of the 21 st century, then programmes of leadership development at all levels, must have the development of transformational behaviours, attitudes and qualities at their core. This is not only important for ensuring that headteachers can do their job effectively, but that such effectiveness is a hallmark of leadership at all levels in schools.
  
• If schools do become more transformationally-orientated, they can ensure that the quality of life in schools is such that teachers not only want to remain within the profession, but also seek promotion to middle and senior management positions.
  
• For a transformational culture truly to be embedded in the school, the most senior teachers must adopt such a model in their own day-to-day behaviour - a model based on feedback from others, leading to appropriately targeted personal development plans.

Clarke and Cohn in Caldwell, B (2002), identified that there are three essential elements to the transformational reform: restructuring, reorganising and reculturing.

Restructuring includes looking again at learning and teaching practices and at the policies and procedures that govern the school. Reorganisingincludes looking at roles of leaders and staff within schools, the size and purpose of schools and how the school is measured. Reculturing is looking at the beliefs, values and assumptions that shape the behaviour of members of the school community. For the leader of SEN in the future to be successful he or she needs to engage in all three elements if transformational reform is to be achieved within their settings.

Whilst the focus of this paper has primarily been on leaders in SEN environments, it is important to note that, for leaders of mainstream environments who wish to develop their settings to be more inclusive, the work by Kugelmass (2003) identified common characteristics shared by leaders of inclusive mainstream schools in the UK, USA and Portugal, as follows:

• Uncompromising commitment to inclusive education;
• Clearly defined roles, responsibilities and boundaries;
• Collaborative interpersonal style;
• Problem-solving and conflict resolution skills;
• Understanding and appreciation of the expertise of others; and,
• Supportive relationships with other staff.

What roles does the leader of SEN engage in to help achieve the outcomes identified earlier? Brighouse (2002) identifies five roles that successful leaders will need to engage in:

• Learner;
• Historian and Futurologist;
• Pogo-Stick Player;
• Climate Setter; and
• Utility Player.

Roles

The leader of SEN in the future needs to ensure that his or her knowledge is up-to-date and that he or she is modelling the learning they would want from their staff. They need to build learning communities where lifelong learning and research is seen as the norm. The role of Historian and Futurologist is to be always looking at ways to invent the future, whilst keeping a keen eye on the past to ensure the same mistakes are not made again. The Pogo-Stick Player role is having the ability to keep the overview needed to be a successful leader, whilst ensuring that your feet spend sometime on the ground understanding the implications of strategic decisions that have been made. Climate-Setting is ensuring that you always remain positive and that you reward staff for the successful implementation of changes and also saying, and meaning, ' thank you ' for their day-to-day achievements, in what are often stressful environments. The final role identified by Brighouse, of Utility Player, has at least two meanings. Firstly, there is the role within school, the ability to interact, talk and work with the full range of staff in a meaningful and appropriate way and, secondly, there ' s the ability to interact, talk and work with the full range of external people, be they politicians, other headteachers, or senior staff from other professions.

Conclusion

Identified below are a number of key skills and abilities shared by current successful leaders of SEN environments. Some of these add further credibility to the topics already covered within this paper, whilst some help to further clarify the skills and practices that will need to be used by the future leader of SEN:

• Sharing the vision but being very clear that change is needed;
• Be able to communicate the vision and bring people on board;
• Creating a culture of openness;
• Sharing decision-making;
• Creating the best structure for change;
• Leading by example (do not ask staff to do something you are not prepared to do yourself);
• Being alert to what is expected (grasping the initiative);
• Looking to always develop the capabilities of individuals; and,
• Being non-protectionist.

This paper certainly does not aim to produce an ' identikit ' leader of SEN in the future. What has become crystal clear from discussions and interviews with successful leaders in a range of SEN environments is that there is no perfect model to which a prospective leader of SEN can aim for. What has become clear, though, is that there are a number of key issues that require a range of skills and qualities to ensure that the successful SEN leader in the future is someone who ' makes things happen ' .

References

Alban-Metcalfe, J., Alimo-Metcalfe, B., (2003). The Transformational Leadership in Schools (TLiS) Project, LRDL, Leeds.

Bennett, D., (2000). ' The School of the Future: Key issues for school leaders ' , Essay written for NCSL.

Brighouse, T. (2001). ' Doomed to Succeed - the Eldorado of School Leadership ' . In Leading Edge, Volume 5, Number 2. London. The London Leadership Centre, University of London Institute of Education.

Burnett, N., (2002). ' Special Leadership ' , Research Associate Report, Nottingham: NCSL www.ncsl.org.uk.

Caldwell, Brian (2002). ' A Blueprint for Leadership for the Successful Transformation of Schools in the 21st Century ' , Paper presented at a seminar in April 2002.

Dryden, Gordon and Vos, Jeanette (1998). ' The Learning Revolution ' , The Learning Revolution Co. Auckland.

Kugelmass, J.W. (2003). ' Inclusive Leadership; Leadership for Inclusion ' , Research Associates Report 2003 www.ncsl.org.uk.

Prashnig, B, (1998). The Power of Diversity. David Bateman. New Zealand.

About the author

Until recently, Mr Nick Burnett was a special school headteacher in the UK, having been identified as ' an excellent leader ' by Ofsted in May 2004. He is now living in Australia and is Managing Director of i-for-k, a company is based in Brisbane. i-for-k is committed to developing capacity, at state, district and school levels, in the areas of leadership and management development, behaviour management and increasing access through a range of strategic partnerships. Nick will shortly be releasing a book on SEN and Leadership through David Fulton Publishers.

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