Pre-figurative practice and the educational leadership of Sir Alec Clegg in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England (1945–1974)

ABSTRACT

This article recalls a time when local government infrastructure was strong and a Chief Education Officer's (CEO) vision could be realised across a region, in Clegg's case the West Riding of Yorkshire, one of the largest of the pre-1974 counties in England. It is timely to revisit Clegg's educational leadership and practice from 1945 to 1974, as a valuable source of learning, and challenge to the current ideologically-informed policy rhetoric which has undermined the framework of democratic educational decision-making. The authors identify four possible areas to learn from Clegg's work. Firstly, the need for CEOs or their modern-day equivalents or successors, to consider their potential as political and community leaders; secondly, Clegg's leadership style prefigures some of the recent discussion about the leadership of public services in uncertain times; thirdly a re-evaluation of administration and bureaucracy; and lastly the need for supportive partnerships to enable schools to thrive.

KEYWORDS:

• Alec Clegg
• education leadership
• education policy
• local authority
• schools

Acknowledgements

The assistance of the archivists for retrieval of items and making these available for the purposes of this research from the special collections at the University of Leeds Library, the National Arts Education Archive at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park; and the West Yorkshire Archive Service, Wakefield is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Sir Alec Clegg's sons for permission to quote from his papers in the special collections archive. We also wish to record our thanks to the two retired teachers for sharing their reflections and insights. The authors would like to thank Professor Jon Nixon for his valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of the article. The authors would also like to thank the two anonymous referees who commented on the submitted original manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would also like to acknowledge that the study was supported by York St John University and the Centre for Education and Policy Analysis (CEPA) at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

Notes on contributors

Margaret Wood

Margaret Wood is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Theology at York St John University, UK. She has a particular research interest in educational enquiry in higher education, through which she aims to develop pedagogic understandings by creating structures and conditions for genuine dialogue to develop student agency and to embed this within practices. She is co-editor of Cosmopolitan Perspectives on Academic Leadership in Higher Education (2017), published by Bloomsbury.

Andrew Pennington

Andrew Pennington was a senior officer in two local authority education and children's services departments. Following his retirement he was chair of governors at a large secondary comprehensive school and now chairs the Board of Trustees of a newly-formed multi-academy trust. He is currently conducting doctoral research on democratic governance and community accountability in multi-academy trusts.

Feng Su

Feng Su is Senior Lecturer in Education at Liverpool Hope University, UK, and a Visiting Research Fellow to The Education University of Hong Kong. His main research interests and writings are located within the following areas: cross-cultural learning contexts and the development of the learner in higher education settings, and academic practice and professional learning. His most recent books include Cosmopolitan Perspectives on Academic Leadership in Higher Education (edited with Wood 2017); The Reorientation of Higher Education: Challenging the East-West Dichotomy (edited with Adamson and Nixon 2012); Professional Ethics: Education for a Humane Society (edited with McGettrick 2012); and Chinese learning journeys: Chasing the dream (2011).