Increased attention has been placed on school improvement over the past
four decades, borne from international agendas to reform education
systems to improve student outcomes. The role of school leadership has
been spotlighted as a crucial factor in driving such reforms and
improvements within education systems (Leithwood, 2019). Furthermore,
the evolving changes in education systems, policy, and curricula have
placed increased and changing expectations on school leaders1
(Leithwood et al., 2019). Policymakers have expressed growing concern
about high attrition and turnover rates in school leadership and a decline in
applications to replace such turnover due in part to the vast
responsibilities, including financial and human resource management,
alongside leadership for teaching and learning within the school (IPPN,
2022; OECD, 2008, 2009, 2013; Sugrue, 2015; Tobin, 2023).In addition, it
has also been found that reluctance to apply is due to a lack of support
and insufficient preparation for the role (Burke et al., 2022; DeMatthews et
al., 2019).
In responding to the issues presented above, the past two decades have
witnessed a policy turn to make leadership more sustainable, alongside an
agenda to enhance the quality through supports such as professional
learning and mentoring (De Matthews et al., 2021; Stynes & McNamara,
2019; Ummanel et al., 2016). A call by scholars and practitioners has
flagged the need for school leaders to be provided with time and capacity
to focus on practices required to improve teaching and learning (IPPN,
2023; King et al., 2023). In addition, there has been a call for schools to be
more autonomous through processes such as self-evaluation, coupled
with distributed leadership, alongside efforts to make the role of school
leadership more attractive (Stynes & McNamara, 2019).
Despite the above attempts to improve school leadership on the island of
Ireland, the challenges of retaining and recruiting school leaders still need
to be addressed in both jurisdictions. While efforts have been made North
and South to make schools more autonomous, evidenced in processes
such as school self-evaluation and increased attention towards distributed
leadership within policy, several reports continue to raise concerns about
the sustainability of the school leader’s workload responsibilities
(Fitzpatrick Associates Economic Consultants, 2018; Murphy, 2023;
SCoTENS, 2008; Sugrue, 2015). In addition, the reports have also flagged
that applications for the role of school leader remain significantly low, and
the heavy workload and demands have been attributed as one of the
critical factors.
