Contracting Headteachers as Leaders: an analysis of the NPQH

ABSTRACT

Within the restructuring of the public sector there is a complex process involving challenges to professional practice. This paper seeks to describe and understand this through analysing the integration of commercial contracting into the professional practice and status of headteachers. It is argued that a key feature of this process is training and this is the context in which a critical evaluation of the National Standards for Headteachers combined with the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers (NPQH) is located. Commercial contracting is being overlain on top of democratic notions and practices of the social contract, and centrist determined NPQH training and assessment is being overlain on top of pluralist professional development opportunities. Aspiring and in‐post headteachers are being presented with a model of contractual leadership which is in tension with educational values and it is argued that as a consequence alternative and more humane traditions are being marginalised