Special Journal Issue

Special Journal Issue How Successful Secondary School Principals Enact Policy Leadership and Policy in Schools

Theme	How Successful Secondary School Principals Enact Policy The issue draws upon empirical evidence from a UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and HK Research Grants Council (RGC) jointly funded bilateral project (ES/J017035/1) on how ‘successful’ secondary schools in England and Hong Kong mediate government policies in furthering their own broad improvement agendas. The research was guided by three broad questions: 1) How do leaders in successful secondary schools across different contexts respond to government systemic reforms? 2) What key challenges and issues do they face in sustaining academic standards for all whilst forwarding their broader educational success agendas? 3) How and to what extent do school leaders at all levels in these schools maintain a strategic and operational focus on the leadership of learning and teaching whilst managing wider structural and cultural changes?

Issue Co-editors		Professor Gu Qing Professor of Education School of Education Jubilee Campus The University of Nottingham UK Senior Research Fellow Asia Pacific Centre for Leadership and Change The Education University of Hong Kong China : Qing.Gu@nottingham.ac.uk	Professor Christopher Day Professor of Education School of Education Jubilee Campus The University of Nottingham UK Senior Research Fellow Asia Pacific Centre for Leadership and Change The Education University of Hong Kong China : Christopher.Day@nottingham.ac.uk
		Professor Allan Walker Joseph Lau Chair Professor of International Educational Leadership Dean of Faculty of Education and Human Development Director of The Asia Pacific Centre for Leadership and Change The Education University of Hong Kong China : adwalker@eduhk.hk	Professor Kenneth Leithwood Professor Educational Leadership and Policy Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto Canada : kleithwood@oise.utoronto.ca

Contributors	Professor Christopher Day Professor Gu Qing The University of Nottingham UK Professor Allan Walker The Education University of Hong Kong China Professor Kenneth Leithwood University of Toronto Canada *How Successful Secondary School Principals Enact Policy* https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2018.1496343 Abstract Schools in many countries across the world have undergone considerable reform over the past two decades and their principals have had to learn to manage increased volumes of government educational-policy initiatives designed to raise standards of teaching, learning, and academic outcomes for all students. Although these initiatives are seen by governments as a means of building human, economic, and social capital in increasingly competitive and socially turbulent global environments, there are continuing concerns over how effectively they are being implemented by school leaders and teachers. This special issue provides new knowledge about how leaders of schools designated as “good” and “outstanding” in England, and high-performing schools Hong Kong, achieve and sustain school improvement. This includes but goes beyond the claims so often made by many ideologically driven policy-enactment studies that neoliberal policy agendas necessarily result in cultures of oppression and compliancy in all schools. On the contrary, we found that in these successful schools, leaders were values driven, building structures, cultures, and relationships that reflected their deeply held humanistic educational values. In these schools, external policy was only one of several considerations and its policies were incorporated only when they were able to be aligned with their values. By using a longitudinal (2005–2014), mixed-methods design to investigate the interface of reform at macro (country), meso (school), and micro (classroom) levels, the research investigated how government reforms (mandatory and non-mandatory) were received and mediated by principals and senior and middle leaders in improved and effective schools serving communities of contrasting socio-economic advantage. “Success” was defined as characterising those schools that had shown sustained improvement in student academic outcomes over time (measured by pupil progress and attainment outcomes between 2003 and 2012), other key aspects of school improvement (measured by national inspection results), and reputation. In these successful schools, policies were conceptualized as “opportunities,” resources that leaders skillfully weaved into their processes of school improvement to create educationally equitable, and values-based “landscapes of success.” Thus, the project did not focus on policy analysis, finding that this was only one of the contexts that informed the ways in which principals led their schools.
	Professor Christopher Day Professor Gu Qing The University of Nottingham UK How Successful Secondary School Principals in England Respond to Policy Reforms: The Influence of Biography https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2018.1496339 Abstract This article examines how values embedded in the biographies of principals of successful schools influence their responses to systemic policy reforms. Drawing on examples from two secondary principals with similarly strong moral purposes but contrasting value positions, the research found that, despite differences in the cultures, practices, and students’ learning experiences in their schools, they directed and shaped—in remarkably similar ways—how and to what extent external policies were incorporated in preferred, values-led cultures and practices; and that leadership and school-improvement realities in their schools were different from those portrayed in “policy enactment” research in so-called “ordinary” schools. *Keywords: leadership biographies; leadership values; policy enactment; principal leadership*
	Dr. Darren Bryant Dr. Ko Yue On James Professor Allan Walker The Education University of Hong Kong China How Do School Principals in Hong Kong Shape Policy? https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2018.1496340 Abstract This article draws on data from cases of high-performing and improving schools in Hong Kong. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with principals, middle leaders, and senior teachers to identify key policies and steps taken for their enactment, and to solicit interpretations of the policies. Principals were found to actively select, prioritize, and emphasize policies based on clearly articulated values. These values-led and contextually informed decisions formed the basis for redesigning the school organization and leadership structures, allocating resources, and aligning multiple initiatives to policies. School-based and mandated policies worked in synergy, and school principals responded rather than reacted to mandates. Keywords: principals, school leadership, policy mandates, policy enactment
	Dr. Paul Wilfred Armstrong University of Manchester UK Dr. Ko Yue On James Dr. Darren Bryant The Education University of Hong Kong China Values-Driven Leadership Through Institutional Structures and Practices: How Successful Schools in England and Hong Kong “Absorb” Policy https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2018.1496341 Abstract This article analyzes how principals of high-performing secondary schools in England and Hong Kong establish structural arrangements aligned to their core values as educators. Such values-driven structures provide a platform by which principals create the conditions in which policy and reform can be managed and absorbed without compromising the core purpose and contextual priorities of these schools. The findings reveal how the participating school principals have carefully embedded and institutionalized these structures within the cultures of their organizations as part of a multilayered approach to leadership. *Keywords: values, leadership, school improvement, institutional structures, policy*
	Professor Gu Qing The University of Nottingham UK Professor Pamela Sammons University of Oxford UK Dr. Chen Junjun The Education University of Hong Kong China How Principals of Successful Schools Enact Education Policy: Perceptions and Accounts from Senior and Middle Leaders https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2018.1496344 Abstract This article investigates, from the perspective of senior and middle leaders, how secondary principals in England lead their schools to achieve sustainable performance despite policy shifts. Empirical data were drawn from structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses of a questionnaire survey from 309 effective and improved secondary schools in England and longitudinal interview data from a subsample of four case-study schools. The research suggests that what the principals were perceived to be doing successfully was to use policies as opportunities—purposefully, progressively, and strategically—to regenerate coherent cultures and conditions which support the staff to learn to renew their practice. *Keywords: policy enactment; principal leadership; middle leadership; senior leadership; successful school leadership*
	Professor Kenneth Leithwood University of Toronto Canada Postscript: Five Insights About School Leaders’ Policy Enactment https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2018.1496342 Abstract This postscript uses a framework explaining the influences on principals' practices in order to highlight key findings from the four papers in this journal issue and to surface five insights related to such findings. These five insights highlight important qualities associated with effective leadership and point to several areas in need of further research.