School self-evaluation and empowering leadership in DEIS schools: an exploration of success

ABSTRACT

School leadership and school self-evaluations (SSE) have emerged as central to school improvement and effectiveness. In Irish policy, SSE has had a challenging history as several attempts to embed SSEs have been met by poor clarity around roles of responsibility, a moratorium on middle leadership appointments and more laterally, a global pandemic. However, schools providing for students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, known as DEIS schools, have proved quite successful in SSEs for over 15 years. This study aimed to explore the leadership and school self-evaluation experiences in DEIS schools. This small-scale qualitative study comprised in-depth interviews with school leaders in DEIS schools. The themes identified suggest how leaders negotiate a dichotomised societal perspective of DEIS schools, and how culture and structure facilitate an empowered collective. The research also highlights SSEs as a space for professionals to also consider their own professional learning in the form of job-crafting.

KEYWORDS:

• School self-evaluation
• empowering leadership
• socioeconomic disadvantage
• school leadership
• job-crafting

Introduction

As schools are expected to function as ‘dynamic learning organisations’ (DES 2016, 7; OECD 2016) which serve the learning needs of students while remaining flexible and responsive to broader societal demands, two interconnected factors crucial to both school effectiveness and school improvement appear to be school leadership and, commitment to school self-evaluation (SSE). International research clearly indicates that effective leaders have an indirect yet powerful influence on the effectiveness of schools and as a result, student achievement (Brown et al. 2019; Harris and Muijs 2003; Leithwood, Jantzi, and Steinbach 1995; Muijs et al. 2004). As learning organisations, schools are now fundamentally expected to approach leadership in a distributed manner (DES 2016). This is a welcomed divorce from outdated and sometimes, archaic approaches to ‘monocratic leadership’ (Brown et al. 2019, 458), in which one individual (typically the principal) assumes ownership of all matters of school business. This monocratic approach has proven to be both ineffective and unsustainable (Muijs et al. 2004) especially with growing demands for organisational flexibility to meet the needs of its learners. As a result, a distributed organisational framework for strategising leadership seems an attractive and agreed alternative (Harris 2009), an approach ‘through which individuals can collectively realise the organisation’s aims and objectives’ (Brown et al. 2019, 459). Drawing on interviews with Irish school principals, Murphy and Brennan (2022, 15) found that some viewed the shift towards distributed practices of leading a learning organisation as a ‘radical departure from the hierarchical and managerialist structures of the relatively recent past’ with the lack of research and shared understanding regarding what constitutes distributed leadership as a contributing tension. Yet, despite a lack of clarity regarding the concept and its possible enactment, distributed leadership has been specifically denoted in Irish educational policy as core to modern leadership practices in schools (DES 2016). For example, the circular letter 0003/2018 issued by the DES attempted to define and provide guidance in terms of distributed leadership, however, the circular lacked clarity in terms of the enactment of distributed leadership.

Leadership in a school context, creates a vision for development leading to improvements in outcomes for learners, and is based on shared values and robust evaluation of evidence of current practice and outcomes. In this way, leadership is distributed throughout the school as a key support for student learning. (2018, 4)

A distributed organisational framework in a school, therefore, assumes the empowerment of teachers in light of student learning outcomes (DES 2016; Harris 2009); however, there is a dearth in the literature which explores the concept of empowering leadership itself within schools. Empowering leadership emerges from human resource management literature and is focused on the idea of job-crafting and actively engaging within dynamic organisations and corporations (Kim and Beehr 2021). Zhang and Bartol define empowering leadership as ‘the process of implementing conditions that enable sharing power with an employee by delineating the significance of the employee’s job, providing greater decision-making autonomy, expressing confidence in employee’s capabilities, and removing hindrances to performance’ (2010, 109). Empirically, effective empowering leadership approaches have reportedly resulted in greater organisational commitment and intrinsic attachment, job satisfaction, a sense of autonomy and trust (Kim and Beehr 2021; Kim, Beehr, and Prewett 2018; Lee, Willis, and Tian 2018), all while leading to organisational improvement (Conger and Kanungo 1988). Due to the ambiguity surrounding the concept of distributed leadership (Daniëls, Hondeghem, and Dochy 2019; Murphy and Brennan 2022), for the purpose of this paper, we view distributed leadership as a structural consideration of the roles and duties which comprise a learning organisation whereas, empowering leadership involves the micropolitics of purposeful interactions among individuals within a learning organisation. A learning organisation can be distributed in terms of leadership but certainly does not ensure empowerment, while empowering leadership requires a distributed delineation of leadership responsibilities.

Within the context of a school, an empowering leadership approach aligns with the OECD’s vision for school leaders and teachers to lead and craft their own learning and professional development in order to meet the evolving learning needs of students and hence, improve the effectiveness of the learning organisation; by setting a culture of inquiry for school improvement.

One of the marks of any professional is the ability to reflect critically on both one’s profession and one’s daily work, to be continuously engaged in self-improvement that will lead to improvement in students’ learning. To be able to do this within an organisation requires a pervasive spirit or inquiry, initiative and willingness to experiment with new ideas and practices. This mind set is critical for schools as learning organisations. (OECD 2016, 6)

School self-evaluation (SSE) processes which are internally driven by members of a school, are examples of how schools as learning organisations can collectively engage in a systematic examination and reflection to inform current practices and pathways towards future goals of the school (Faddar, Vanhoof, and De Maeyer 2017; MacBeath 1999; McNamara et al. 2011). As a result, SSEs hold the entire learning organisation to account instead of individual teachers so that the process can be perceived as a ‘low-stakes accountability’ system in which improvement and reflection are placed at the forefront (Brady 2019; Skerritt et al. 2021). Essential though for McNamara et al. (2011, 67) is that the teachers engaging in the SSE feel empowered with a sense of autonomy to drive the evaluation and improvement process, rather than SSE becoming an external accountability measure, they explain that:

the emphasis is on having the teachers themselves ‘own’ the evaluation process from the beginning to the end. They themselves decide in teams what they want to know about their own school and what happens there, they decide which evaluation questions to ask and what kinds of data would answer those questions, and they themselves decide what to change on account of their analysis of the data.

School self-evaluation in Ireland

In Ireland, there is historical evidence of school evaluations and inspections ‘dating back to the nineteenth century’ (Brown et al. 2017, 3). However, there have been several national considerations pertaining to the implementation of SSE over the past 20 years that mirror similar international discourse developments. In 2003, the Department of Education and Skills (DES) (at the time known as the Department of Education and Science) released the Looking at Our School – an aid to self-evaluation in second-level schools (LAOS) framework, aimed at unifying external evaluations through an inspectorate and the promotion of internal evaluations (school self-evaluations), which would ultimately inform the external, inspectorate evaluation (DES 2003). However, this framework, which was clearly focused on quality assurance, failed to explicitly delineate responsibility within schools for leading the evaluations, presented a narrow definition of stakeholders and overlooked the need for adequate training and support to empower educators to engage in such an endeavour (McNamara et al. 2011). As a result, it ‘failed to take hold’ (McNamara and O’Hara 2006, 577).

A number of factors converged in 2010 to create concern regarding the achievement levels of Irish students, including what is commonly referred to in Ireland as the ‘PISA Shock’ whereby Irish students fared less well than expected in the international league table, overall results of the National Assessments of Maths and English Reading (NAMER) and reports from inspections in schools (DES 2011). As a response to these concerns and in an attempt to revitalise discourses of school improvement, in Department of Education & Skills (2012), the DES released the School Self-Evaluation Guidelines for Post-Primary School, which superseded its predecessor by attempting to outline the ‘new self-evaluation process, the self-evaluation quality framework, evaluation criteria and quality statements, self-evaluation methods and guidelines for completion of the report and improvement plan (O’Brien, McNamara, and O’Hara 2015, 380). Given the clearer focus of the guidelines in terms of responsibilities and a focus on improvement, the mandated requirement for school engagement, the alignment with a national panic over domestic literacy and numeracy performances, and by introducing a parallel evaluative relationship with that of the quality of management and leadership within schools (DES 2011; O’Brien, McNamara, and O’Hara 2015), on paper, this subsequent attempt at embedding SSE in Irish schools appeared positioned to take hold. Ironically though, at the same time, the middle management layer of schools was ‘decimated’ as a result of funding cutbacks (McNamara and O’Hara 2012, 95) associated with the economic recession, which limited schools’ capacity to authentically engage, resource and deliver on such expectations.

More recently, in 2016, the DES released their Looking at Our School 2016: A Quality Framework for Post-Primary Schools (LAOS) (DES 2016) framework, which seeks to ‘help schools to identify their strengths and areas for development and will enable them to take ownership of their own development and improvement’ (6). LAOS 2016 focuses on two interconnected dimensions (1) teaching and learning and (2) leadership and management, and reflects attempts to align with international efforts associated with quality education (Muijs et al. 2004). Reflecting the ‘tone of managerialism’ suggested by Skerritt et al. (2021, 5), the framework defines schools as dynamic learning organisations that ‘should assume responsibility for the quality of the education they provide’ (7) and the responsiveness to evolving needs/trends within the school. Secondly, for such dynamic learning organisations to thrive, leadership must be focused on creating and sustaining environments that prioritise the learning of all stakeholders. This is noticeable in the framework’s prioritisation of developing organisational and leadership capacity in a distributed model by empowering all staff members ‘to take on and carry out leadership roles’ within the school (12) while also involving a broader community of stakeholders. This reflects international approaches that embed models of distributed leadership within schools (Harris and Muijs 2003; Harris 2009). This was further supported by the re-instating of certain layers of middle-management/leadership positions in Irish schools.

In an attempt to distance LAOS 2016 from previous concerns about external evaluations leading to a targeted sense of accountability, it was hoped by the DES that the framework would be viewed as ‘an enabler of self-reflection and improvement and not as an inflexible check-list’ and therefore, in keeping with discourses around dynamic learning organisations, the SSE process should empower teachers/leaders to focus on ‘what is most relevant to suit the specific purpose of individual teachers or schools’ (10). While SSE in Ireland is still associated with relatively low-stakes accountability and largely focused on school improvement (Skerritt et al. 2021) through professional collaboration and reflection, the deliberate shift towards a framework model of SSE can have subtly pervasive impacts on such organisations and the individuals working within them (Ó Gallchóir and McGarr 2022; Whitty and Wisby 2006). For example, Brady’s (2019, 609) analysis of the LAOS 2016 framework highlights how the inclusion of educational jargon (such as ‘targets’, ‘outcomes’, ‘measurable improvement’) and the key identification of standards of ‘effective’ or ‘highly effective’ practice (DES 2016, 13) in fact shapes and constrains how we discuss the act of teaching, learning or, for that matter, leading a school/learning organisation.

While the above documents the mainstream struggles of the DES to implement practices of both SSE and leadership discourses, there was a parallel story associated with school improvement taking place in practice, behind the scenes. This was occurring in schools within ‘communities at risk of disadvantage and social exclusion’ (DES 2017). In the Irish context, these schools are referred to as DEIS schools.

DEIS – delivering equality of opportunity in schools

In alignment with similar international initiatives intended to tackle educational disadvantage (No Child Left Behind 2001; Every Child Matters 2003), Ireland introduced the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools – DEIS (Irish word for opportunity) programme in 2006. The purpose of the programme was to provide an action plan ‘aimed at providing supports to schools with high concentrations of students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds who are at risk of educational failure’ (Weir and Kavanagh 2018, 1) while also standardising how a school may be identified as holding DEIS status as a provider ‘based on a deprivation index that includes variables such as employment status, education levels, single parenthood, overcrowding and dependency rates’ (Fleming and Harford 2021, 5). Schools fitting the criteria were expected to individually set targets and improvement plans for a number of educational categories highlighted by the DES (2005, 16) to address ‘under-achievement’: literacy and numeracy, student attendance and retention, examination and progression and, partnerships with parents, community and external agencies. While an initial evaluation of the DEIS programme showed improvements in retention rates and state examination performances of DEIS schools (Weir et al. 2014), there still existed a clear gap in terms of student achievement in DEIS and non-DEIS schools (Fleming and Harford 2021). Cahill and O’Sullivan (2022, 3) suggest that despite the DES’s financial commitment to resourcing DEIS schools’ improvement plans, DEIS schools are expected to compete with non-DEIS schools in an ‘education game’ requiring ‘winners and losers’ as inter-school competition in the form of league tables and third level entry becomes more prevalent in Ireland (Skerritt and Salokangas 2020).

In 2017, a reviewed programme was introduced referred to as the DEIS Plan, which superseded the 2005 plan. Noticeable in the DEIS Plan was a more explicit and increased focus on leadership. Goal 3 of the DEIS Plan specifically highlights the autonomy of schools and the responsibility of school leaders to effectively collaborate in the whole school planning process, with the goal of improving ‘the capacity of school leaders and teachers to engage, plan and deploy resources to their best advantage’ (2017, 9). Chapman and Muijs (2014) suggest that improving student outcomes in disadvantaged areas is a collaborative approach in which all are involved in the co-creation of a collective vision towards school improvement. Goal 3 in the DEIS Plan outlines that teachers and school leaders are responsible for engaging with practices that empower them to realise the targets collectively identified in the school improvement plans. This collective autonomy reflects McNamara et al.’s (2011) emphasis on school self-evaluations’ effectiveness being determined by teachers’ sense of ownership as the learning organisation collaboratively identify a plan, delineate roles, and then working together towards its enactment. This reflects an empowerment of not just attempts to improve the schooling environment or educational outcomes but also the subtle implications for self-betterment as a professional within the process.

However, with the revitalisation of mainstream SSE discourses in 2016 (LAOS), it seems that DEIS schools’ successes and contributions to the space of SSE (under the terminology of school improvement plans) were overlooked. To the point that the DES (2018, 2) retrospectively and apologetically admitted a sense of ‘uncertainty’ within DEIS schools in terms of expectations between their improvement plans and a mandate to engage in SSEs, and that DEIS schools were in fact ‘ahead of the curve in many ways when SSE was formally introduced’. Therefore, the school improvement plans generated by DEIS schools, acted as and replaced the need for repeating a largely similar cycle of completing an SSE. This was addressed in a circular to all schools by the DES (39/2016, 4):

Schools in the DEIS programme are required to develop and implement three-year improvement plans as a condition of their participation in DEIS. These plans are the school’s improvement plan for the purposes of school self-evaluation, and no additional or separate improvement plan is required. (bold in original)

Set against this specific context, our study aimed to explore the leadership and school self-evaluation experiences from the perspective of DEIS school leaders. We achieved this by interviewing senior leaders in a small sample of DEIS schools in the Republic of Ireland.

Methods

This was a single-phased qualitative study, employing semi-structured interviews. As we were focused on conducting our exploration in DEIS schools, it was appropriate to recruit school participation via purposive sampling methods based on two inclusion criteria (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2011): (1) the schools possessed DEIS status and (2) the schools were post-primary. We contacted several post-primary DEIS schools in the south and west of Ireland to seek participation by email. The criteria for participation was the engagement of senior leaders within the school: the principal, a deputy principal and the DEIS coordinator. Interestingly, there is no defined role or job specification for DEIS coordinators, nor does the role come with remuneration, unless associated with an additional post of responsibility. As a result, three post-primary DEIS schools agreed to participate in our study. Table 1 contains a pseudonymised overview of the nine participants in terms of demographics, role and years of experience. Table 2 outlines a brief descriptor of the participating schools, but we have been deliberate in not presenting information that could lead to the identification of the individual schools and as a direct result, the possible identification of the participating school leaders.

Table 1. Overview of participants.

Pseudonym	Role	School	Years of teaching experience	Years of leadership experience
Seán	Vice Principal	School 1	11	2
Matty	Principal	School 1	24	16
Geraldine	DEIS coordinator	School 1	29	11
Noreen	Principal	School 2	30	10
Veronica	Vice Principal	School 2	17	13
Peter	DEIS coordinator	School 2	26	10
Laura	DEIS coordinator	School 3	15	2

Table 2. Demographic information of participating schools.

Pseudonym	No. of students	Descriptors
School 1	750–800	Co-Educational; Rural; Interdenominational
School 2	550–600	All-Girl School; Urban; Catholic Ethos
School 3	550–600	Co-Educational; Urban; Catholic Ethos

Data collection

As a result, we conducted nine semi-structured interviews with senior leaders from the three volunteering DEIS schools. Given the exploratory nature of the study, semi-structured interviews were deemed the most appropriate method for data collection (Lindlof and Taylor 2011) as it allowed for the subjective experiences of the participants and the individual subtleties of the school contexts and leadership roles to come to the fore. We have deliberately not utilised a case study design for this research, as we focused on exploring the initial experiences of the participants (school leaders), but we intend to follow-up with each of the three schools to conduct a whole-school case study to be guided by the findings of this paper. The interviews took place on-site in the respective schools and lasted on average 50 min. To ensure consistency, the Lead Author (LA) conduct all nine of the interviews. They firstly ensured informed consent from the participants and outlined how the anonymity of the participants and their school would be protected throughout. The interviews were transcribed verbatim by the LA, and once accuracy was confirmed, the original recordings were deleted.

Data analysis

Once transcribed, drawing from an interpretive analysis perspective (Miles and Huberman 1994), we analysed the data using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six stages for conducting interpretive thematic analysis. Prior to the analysis, we completed an individual reflexive activity recommended by Clarke and Braun (2013), which allowed us to note any pre-existing assumptions held in relation to the research topic. This was completed in order to account for how certain assumptions may have guided our analysis. Table 3 provides an overview for how we engaged with Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six stages for the first identified theme.

Table 3. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-stage thematic analysis.

Stages	Action(s)
1. Familiarising yourself with the data	To become familiar with the structure and content of the interviews, we as a group, repeatedly read all of the transcripts of the participants’ interviews. The ‘First Author’ (FA) listened back to the original recordings to ensure the accuracy of the transcriptions
2. Generating initial Codes	Based on our reading of the transcripts, we noted and organised initial codes. FA then led the coding of the transcripts. This was an iterative process as new codes were identified throughout the reading of the interviews, therefore, requiring revision of previous interviews considering newly identified codes
3. Searching for Themes	FA then compared and collated the codes to create themes and sub-themes. For example, ‘Leading to Empower’ comprised of codes such as ‘shared vision,’ ‘ownership,’ and ‘collaborative’
4. Reviewing Themes	Themes and sub-themes were reviewed to confirm suitability of definitions. For example, ‘Leading to Empower’ was explained as ‘approaches to leading and empowering staff members in realising the collectively established goals of the schools.’
5. Defining Themes	FA then re-read the transcripts in light of the identified themes and subthemes to confirm accuracy of representation. Once completed, we further refined the sub-themes, assigned clear titles and finalised definitions
6. Producing Analysis	Writing the report, making the explanation of the themes and sub-themes coherent

Findings

The findings of this study provide invaluable insight into the experiences of leadership within a DEIS school. Two overarching themes were identified in the participants’ responses during the semi-structured interviews. Firstly, there appeared to be a distinct tension between the participants’ experiences of working within a DEIS school and the external labelling of the school. Secondly, the participants highlighted pre-existing distributed nature of the DEIS Schools and how this has allowed for them as school leaders to empower all members of their staff through the DEIS Plan.

Dichotomised perspective of ‘What is a DEIS school?’

The participants’ responses suggested a dichotomised perspective of DEIS schools between those who operate within the schools and external assumptions of DEIS schools. Internally, a culture of togetherness was the largest factor. Peter (DC2) spoke of his belief that ‘culture permeates everything here, it is the hidden curriculum of what really goes on’. In describing the unique nature of DEIS schools, Laura (DC3) spoke to her deep connection to the culture of her DEIS school.

Is at the heart of DEIS schools, it stirs something different inside in you. There’s an ebb and flow between culture and DEIS, the two go together.

Part of this unique culture in DEIS schools, appeared to centre on the holistic development and care of its students. Reflecting on the socioeconomically disadvantaged background of some students, Noreen (P2) explained that ‘for some, this (school) is the only place that they’re safe’. As a result, many of the participants outlined that their and their colleagues’ roles within the school were to ensure the care and well-being of the students through prioritising relationships.

Our school places a big value on developing good people. There’s an element of socialization, and you’re hoping that when they leave they will be able to contribute to society. You also hope that they will take pride in their own well-being. (Matty (P1))

You have to be very vigilant in the school; always looking out for pupils’ wellbeing. (Geraldine (DC1))

The teacher-pupil relationship is huge. Finding out about their background, showing that you care and building a relationship is really important for me now. (Peter (DC2))

Care and connection with pupils are so important in DEIS schools. (Maria)

Veronica (DP2) believes that this focus on the learner is a trait of professionals working within DEIS schools and that the culture of togetherness is the first step towards addressing the effectiveness of DEIS schools.

The culture in a DEIS school is main driver of the DEIS Plan. I don’t mean to sound condescending here, but teachers in a DEIS school have this real sense of care and of ‘we’re in this together’. Together, we, our culture drives the plan. (Veronica (DP2))

However, while the sense of togetherness and focus on the development of learners was strong, the participants all cited adverse external influential factors. The frequent use of terms such as ‘stigma’ and ‘perception’ gave an insight into the challenges that DEIS schools may experience from external onlookers. This external perspective seems to encompass a certain labelling of the school in terms of student recruitment profiles and success. Geraldine (DC1) felt that there was a ‘misunderstanding in society about what it means to be a DEIS school’. Several of the participants believed that this directly influenced parental decisions around sending children to the school.

The stigma and the ignorance that surrounds it would be a big problem for us. You have people in the area who won’t send their kids here, because we’re the ‘DEIS school.’ That’s a major challenge for us, attracting the kids. (Laura (DC3))

I’ve worked in other schools and the work that goes on here far exceeds what happened in my old schools, but still because of our status we don’t attract a certain type of pupil in the area. (Peter (DC2))

Every year in Ireland, a list of post-primary schools is published, which presents statistical numbers based on the percentage of students from a given school who proceed to higher education. These are referred to as ‘league tables’. Participants noted the issues associated with these league tables and the impact upon how school educational success is subsequently perceived in Ireland. McCormack, Lynch, and Hennessy (2015, 528) found that league tables potentially communicated a sense of elitism while also reflecting ‘broader ideological shifts in education and demands for greater accountability.’ Both Noreen (P2) and Peter (DC2) reflected on working in different school contexts and how the league tables drove much of their decision-making.

I was principal in a non-DEIS school and I used to rush out on the Sunday the tables were published to buy the paper. Now I couldn’t care less about them, because they’re not relevant to me in my context. (Noreen (P2))

I’ve taught in other schools where I felt I was doing the right thing, but really I only focused on results. At the time I thought that this was what mattered and that couldn’t be further from the truth now. (Peter (DC2))

Both responses noted a similar shift in the valuation of the league table results. The sense that the league tables are not relevant is a significant shift in their sense of their role as an educator. Veronica (DP2) suggests that the league tables do not capture the whole picture of educational success and as a result, believes that ‘they’re a crude indication. They don’t mention holistic education.’

This sentiment seemed to be shared amongst the participants as both (Veronica (DP2)) and Seán (DP1) felt that the external validation and media rhetoric of the league tables further exacerbated negative branding of the DEIS status and failed to represent the breadth of what educational success could mean.

Getting children through six years of school can be a huge achievement here. Even though that’s the norm everywhere else, we have to put so much effort into it here. But that’s never the rhetoric in the media. ‘Such and such a school is after doing a great job getting Johnny through six years of school.’ No, you’ll never hear that, but to be honest that’s often success for us. (Veronica (DP2))

The way I see it is that we have kids exceeding national average in some subject and them they’re below the average in others and they’re the same kids! ‘DEIS’ can be used as a handy way out sometimes. (Seán (DP1))

Capacity building

Naturally, several of the participants discussed the emotional labour that is involved in both leading but also leading a school in ‘communities at risk of disadvantage and social exclusion’ (DES 2017).

Working in a DEIS school as a leader is incredibly rewarding, but also very challenging. You really have to be a workaholic, working in a DEIS school is really intense. (Maura (DP3))

The emotional side of it is very challenging. This Christmas I went home, and I was thinking about the houses that some of our kids were going home to and I was genuinely worried. I never carried that with me in my other school. (Noreen (P2))

However, this theme explores participants’ approaches to leading and empowering staff in realising the collectively established goals of the schools. Two subthemes were identified. Firstly, the subtheme of vision refers to how the participants viewed the importance of collective input in the vision of the school. Secondly, all of the participants recognised the alignment between distributed leadership priorities and the guiding document of the DEIS Plan.

Vision

Participants were unanimous in terms of the importance of a clear and collective vision for a school. Interestingly, the ability to lead also appeared to be heavily connected to the nature and enactment of the outlined vision.

Schools are built on vision and not every leader is able to get that vision across. I’ll put it to you like this: a leader without a vision will get by in a normal school, but they’ll tear a DEIS school to the ground. (Laura (DC3))

To ensure that a leader’s vision is realised, both Orla (P3) and Seán (DP1) explained that it is important that the school community are part of the process and represented throughout.

The vision has to be a collective vision. The real skill of a leader is bringing the whole school community with them. (Orla (P3))

In a DEIS context, the vision had to be closely aligned to the ethos of the school, to the school’s mission statement. (Seán (DP1))

Matty (P1) explained how he drew from the DES’ LAOS 2016 document to begin conversations with the teaching staff regarding how their practices and plans aligned with the ethos of the school and how this addressed their primary goal of focusing on the development of the learners within the organisation.

Now in my discussions with teachers, I would start everything with LAOS and use that as why we are doing something and even fundamentally going one step further back we’d link to that to our vision, mission and ethos which is really rooted in running a professional organisation that includes and provides the best opportunities for kids. The ‘how’ is having the vision to know what you’re about and the courage to challenge people along the way.

The above responses certainly highlight the importance of leaders having a clear vision for the school. However, the effectiveness of the vision is dependent on its collective representation, in that, all within the community should feel a sense of ownership of realising the vision. As Laura (DC3) suggested, ‘leaders become great not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower’. The data clearly indicates a sense that school leaders bear a consultative responsibility in the crafting of such a distributed vision.

DEIS Plan facilitating distribution

Due to the goal-orientated structure of the DEIS Plan, participants all believed that distributed leadership was already an embedded part of being a DEIS school. Geraldine (DC1) explained that ‘distributed leadership is perfectly suited to a DEIS school because everyone is in a working group and they are planning together.’ Therefore, the plan itself, which governed the identification of DEIS schools, seemed to be utilised as a tool to distribute the workload based on committees/working groups focused on delivering a key goal.

The plan is great in that it gives real focus. Central to that community involvement I mentioned is that every teacher in the school is one on the eight committees, so everyone has an idea of what’s going on. (Laura (DC3))

The DEIS Plan is far more effective than the [School Improvement Plan]. Everything is clearer because of the committees. Everything is covered under the DEIS umbrella. We get all of our school initiatives to suit the plan and that gives clarity. (Seán (DP1))

This is significant because there appears to be no ambiguity around the nature of distributing responsibilities within the learning organisations as the DEIS Plan clearly identifies areas of focus. Therefore, the role of the leaders within the schools is to ensure the operationalisation of the members of these committees.

The improvement plan gives opportunity to delegate various roles to someone that you might feel is suited to a role. If you notice leadership potential in someone, the various committees give you an opportunity to encourage them to put themselves forward. (Seán (DP1))

The whole-school distributed approach offers all members of the teaching staff the opportunity to experience, volunteer and/or lead initiatives. This was seen to benefit the aspirations of teachers in future applications.

Distributed leadership works very well In a DEIS school. The different teams give an ideal framework towards distributing leadership. Like all teams, some people will naturally gravitate to leadership positions, and their involvement in meeting with their teams and planning gives them a good grounding in management and leadership. (Orla (P3))

Teachers in DEIS schools were perceived to be ‘the teachers are at the coalface, They’re in the classrooms every day and they’re the real leaders; they’re the ‘foot-soldiers’ enacting leadership’ Peter (DC2). As a result, the focus for the participants was on ensuring that the teacher leaders, who were leading the various committees within the DEIS Plan, were supported and felt valued in the process. Building capacity within the teaching staff for sustained leadership, was seen as core to the work of a DEIS school leader.

Your role as a leader is to develop capabilities in others and for a while I missed that point because I wanted to get things done. My idea at the time of success was to get to the end goal rather than to go through the process of bringing people with you. I’ve realized now that the role of the leader is to develop and to bring people with you, to empower them. And when you do that, there’s far more achieved. Sometimes when I didn’t delegate, I might have achieved my end goal, but actually done nothing for developing the school. (Maura (DP3))

Distributing leadership is crucial. All of my time is actually spent on mentoring and coaching, because there’s only one of me and 65 staff, so I’m much better distributing leadership and delegating responsibility. It’s like the African proverb ‘If you want to go fast go alone, but if you want to go far, you bring a crowd. (Matty (P1))

Discussion

The findings from our study suggested several insights in terms of both leadership considerations and the approaches of DEIS schools to coordinating SSEs. In order to frame our discussion, we will explore the findings under the following headings: ‘Culture of structural togetherness’ and ‘Empowering autonomy through SSEs’.

Culture of structural togetherness

Throughout the participants’ responses, there was a noticeable sense of togetherness. The DEIS status of the school, and as an implicit result, the DEIS status of the learners within the school appeared to provide a common purpose for the schools to collectively strive towards (Hargreaves and O’ Connor 2018). In their review of literature on school improvement in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, Muijs et al. (2004) noted that teachers and leaders operating in such environments require greater levels of commitment and perseverance, as sustaining improvement can be fragile (Darmody and Smyth 2011; Whitty 2001). This was evidenced in the participants’ description of the emotional labour involved in working in a DEIS school, focusing on a more holistic set of improvement goals as opposed to the nationally favoured ‘league tables’ (McCormack, Lynch, and Hennessy 2015) of school success and the importance of having a collective vision. Within each of these examples, student learning and development underpinned these considerations. These cultures of togetherness also seemed influenced by the external perceptions of DEIS schools. Several participants outlined how the stigmatic misperception of DEIS schools, and in fact, what it means to be a DEIS school, also collectively unified the professionals within the school together. This reflects Cahill and O’Sullivan’s (2022, 3) suggestion that the designated label underachieving schools may mask reproductive societal inequalities. Responses from participants would suggest an almost rebellious transformative focus on holistic learning in spite of societal expectations. This dichotomisation resulted in a culture similar to the empirical impacts of empowering leadership, such as organisational commitment, intrinsic attachment and collective trust towards organisational improvement (Kim, Beehr, and Prewett 2018; Lee, Willis, and Tian 2018).

Also noticeable, was the structural distributed organisational framework of the participants’ schools. This seemed to have emerged organically via the need to structure the DEIS Plan response. Given the increased difficulty of working within challenging contexts (McCoy, Quail, and Smyth 2014; Muijs et al. 2004), it would be foolish to expect success from monocratic approaches to both school leadership and improvement (Brown et al. 2019). The DEIS Plan recognises this and supports the necessity for a whole school approach to realising a school’s vision. Participants strongly conveyed the importance of having a clear vision but also ensuring a collective and cohesive creation of this vision so that all have shared ownership over the successful enactment of the vision. This sense of collaborative practice (Hargreaves and O’ Connor 2018) aligns with the values of empowering leadership (Kim, Beehr, and Prewett 2018; Lee, Willis, and Tian 2018). The distributed framework of the DEIS Plan facilitates this in how the plan is organised in terms of goals and actions, which naturally allow for a distribution and professional collaboration of staff as teams focusing on each goal. Of particular, importance though is that the clustering of teams and their evaluative work would be less effective if team members lacked a sense of empowerment, ownership and autonomy within the process. Therefore, in terms of leadership, it is quite clear that a distributed framework alone does not translate to empowered organisational members, instead, it is the empowering acts of leaders in building the capacity of others that contribute to this sense of professional autonomy. Having shared goals within a shared vision appears to be vital.

There is an interesting, ‘chicken or egg’ scenario in terms of culture or structure within the participants’ responses. Fullan (2007) suggests that in terms of change and improvement, there is a need for ‘re-culturing’ rather than restructuring. While a collaborative culture focused on student learning as outlined by the participants, it is difficult to ascertain whether this is a result of a dichotomised societal perspective of DEIS schools, the organisational structure provided by the DEIS Plan or an understanding of empowering leadership from the leaders interviewed. DEIS schools reportedly have a higher teacher turnover rate than non-DEIS schools (McCoy, Quail, and Smyth 2014) which aligns with international findings from challenging contexts (Muijs et al. 2004) but perhaps the whole school assignment of roles and responsibilities in terms of the goals identified in the DEIS Plan provides structural comfort to operationalise both teachers and leaders’ work towards improvement and effectiveness of learning, nonetheless, it remains crucial that the leaders involved within the school display empowering leadership practices to sustain and capitalise on the potentials of the culture of structural togetherness we found in these DEIS schools.

Empowering autonomy through SSEs

The international focus on the professional as an inquirer seems to be an evolved development from previous discourses of the teacher as an autonomous agent of/for change. The SSE process offers possible opportunities for professionals to not just fulfil expectations of professional inquiry into their practice, but also provide the potential for ownership of themselves within their role. While conversations in the literature warn of the spectre of accountability associating SSEs with external examinations (McNamara et al. 2011), we would like to focus on SSEs as a tool for empowering job-crafting. Haneda and Sherman (2018, 405) define job crafting as the

various ways in which individuals or groups of individuals define and redefine the boundaries of their jobs, as they act in the light of their professional commitments and goals rather than simply in response to official directives.

Purposing SSEs as a process through which schools can define their priorities and where teachers can continue to actively craft their identities as educators, and their professional autonomy, offers great potential. This understanding of SSEs allows for the professional to consider how they exist or wish to exist in their role, within the organisation and, in light of the professional commitments (effective learning outcomes and school improvement) and official directives (accountability measures) associated with the terms of their employment. Therefore, it allows the individual opportunities of ‘conceptualising and empirically exploring the creative and motivational bases of employees altering their jobs’ (Berg, Dutton, and Wrzesniewski 2013, 282) to improve their experiences of work but also, how they can agentively better equip themselves to support student learning.

The findings of our study suggested that the school improvement plans (SSEs for DEIS schools), provided opportunities for staff to volunteer, take lead on initiatives, and feel a sense of ownership of the improvement process and direction of the school. Each of the participants were either senior leaders (principals or deputy principals) or the DEIS coordinator. Perhaps, job-crafting happens at the teacher level and therefore, the leaders’ perspective is limited to facilitating conditions that allow for this empowering agentic work of job-crafting. While the SSEs naturally focus on whole-school planning, perhaps a future iteration of the SSE may extend to the individual to reflect on how they exist as an agent and what steps in terms of CPD do they need to take in order to become the professional inquirer intended within the framework.

Conclusion

Our study aimed to explore the leadership and school self-evaluation experiences of three DEIS schools in the Republic of Ireland. Naturally, there were limitations in our study. Firstly, there are >200 schools in Ireland designated as being a DEIS school. As this was a qualitative and small-scale exploratory study, we drew from a small sample of schools (N = 3). Additionally, we focused our engagement on post-primary schools alone, whereas DEIS incorporates both the primary and post-primary sector. Also, in our recruitment, we only interviewed the senior leaders (principals and deputy principals) and the DEIS coordinator of each school. As a result, the responses to the interviews may have given a particular perspective on the DEIS Plan and leadership practices that may not have represented a broader participant sample. It is our intention to follow-up with each of the schools for an in-depth whole-school case study research based on leadership experiences and practices within DEIS schools. Nonetheless, our study offered important initial insights into the nature of working/leading a DEIS school, vitalness of professional togetherness and collectivism when working in DEIS contexts, and the SSEs prospects for professional empowerment and job-crafting. We draw two conclusions from our study with associated recommendations.

Firstly, we acknowledge the sequence of events that comprise the SSE history in Ireland. While mainstream schools have concurrently struggled with a lack of clarity and role delineation, the decimation of middle-management during the recession and the unfolding of Covid-19, DEIS schools have been quietly practicing SSEs all along through their school improvement plans. Therefore, it is appropriate to examine what insights can be gained from the experiences of DEIS schools. The goal-orientated nature of the DEIS Plan appears to have provided a purposeful framework for leadership distribution and agency, on a foundation through which schools can begin to develop collaborative practices involving engagement with the whole school community and contribute to the noted cultural sense of togetherness. The concept/practices of distributed leadership in Ireland is a recent addition to educational discourses (DES 2016); however, there exists ambiguity in terms of how a school might effectively enact distributed leadership with purpose. We are suggesting that distributed leadership is but an organisational consideration for the infrastructure of tasks and roles expected of a learning organisation, whereas empowering leadership is concerned with the micropolitics and relational interactions involved in leading and being led as it prioritises not just the professional responsibilities of the professionals within the learning organisation but provides a platform for their agentic learning and development. Further research is warranted, such as a wide-scale systematic exploration of leadership practices in DEIS schools but also nationally to advance conversations around what is occurring within distributed organisational models, collaborative cultures and school improvement, and what these concepts can mean in an Irish context. Such conversations would be greatly enhanced by engaging with both culture and context when engaging with advancing leadership policy and practice.

Finally, the use of leadership as a replacement for what was previously discussed in terms of management is, to some degree quite, a paradigmatic shift, resulting in an element of uncertainty. For the centralised support structure in Ireland for the continuum of leadership in the form of the Centre for School Leadership (CSL), perhaps job-crafting and empowering leadership may provide a framework to engage senior leaders in schools. While capacity building is a cited important role of senior leaders, having the necessary skills, education, lexicon and support to engage with staff around job-crafting and contributions to a learning organisation is a different matter. The CSL may consider their role in terms of facilitating principals with support to assist staff in a dialogic manner targeting specific CPD opportunities which empower them as agents of their own practice and specifically align with the outcomes of school self-evaluations. Therefore, the fear of accountability within SSE is possibly lessened as professionals themselves become central in school improvement discussions, as the on-going learning outcomes of the professional educators are also considered in the improvement and effectiveness of learning organisations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ger Barry

Ger Barry is a post-primary teacher in Coláiste Iósaef Kilmallock, Co. Limerick. He is currently pursuing a Professional Doctorate in Elite Performance in Dublin City University examining pedagogy and athlete learning in Talent Development Environments. The focus of his research interests are talent development, pedagogy in sport settings and athlete learning.

Celia Walsh

Celia Walsh is a former SET, Primary Principal & Director of Waterford Teachers Centre. She completed her M St in SEN in Trinity College, while her Doctoral research at Dublin City University examined the leadership and management of SEN provision in mainstream primary schools. She lectures part-time in educational leadership at the University of Limerick, while also providing online CPD in SEN through the Education Centre network and facilitating school staffs in developing effective SEN policy and practice. Her areas of educational interest include teacher professional networks, promoting school inclusion and developing effective school leadership.

Ciarán Ó Gallchóir

Ciarán Ó Gallchóir is a Lecturer in the Department of Education at Maynooth University. He teaches on the university's initial teacher education programmes and postgraduate programmes in educational leadership. His research interests are identity development, school placement and educational leadership.

Patricia Mannix-McNamara

Patricia Mannix McNamara is Head of the School of Education in the University of Limerick. Research interests currently include leadership, organizational wellbeing, workplace bullying, doctoral supervision.