Middle leadership practices in secondary schools associated with improved student outcomes

ABSTRACT

This paper describes findings related to the effectiveness of secondary school middle leaders as a contributor to within-school variation in academic results for students at department level in urban high schools. The ‘high-stakes’ academic assessment results for students in 10 urban high schools in New Zealand in English, mathematics and science were collated over three years. The analyses revealed variable subject department performance by 16- to 18-year-old students in the national qualification within these schools. The extent of the effectiveness of the middle leadership practices in these departments was investigated using individual questionnaires for each middle leader and the teachers who reported to them. This paper reports the results of the statistical analyses of the questionnaire compared with the aggregated academic results for students by department and finds specific middle leadership practices that were strongly associated with improved academic results. In schools where students were socially disadvantaged, the statistical significance of the results was greater. This study contributes to the previous schooling improvement literature on department effectiveness by enhancing our understanding of why students in departments in the same high school perform differently and how effective middle leaders can impact positively the student academic outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Middle leadership
• within-school variation
• secondary school departments
• schooling improvement

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 The GPA was calculated using a numerical system based on the grade achieved. The university system assigns a zero to ‘not achieved’, 2 for ‘Achieved’, 3 for ‘Merit’ and 4 for ‘Excellence’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Camilla Highfield

Dr Camilla Highfield is Deputy Dean at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland. Camilla’s teaching, research and professional interests are in school change, culturally responsive teacher and leadership practice, teacher professional development, the arts and creativity. She works on projects with a focus on equity and social justice.

Christine Rubie-Davies

Christine Rubie-Davies is a Professor of Education, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her main research interests are teacher expectations and beliefs that moderate expectancy effects. Christine primarily focuses on teacher expectation effects for disadvantaged groups. She has published six books and over 150 articles and chapters in prestigious presses, has won national and international awards for research, teaching, and service, and is a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science.