Principals need wider support from their school communities to have a profound impact on improving students’ reading, according to recent study by Flinders University education specialist Anne Bayetto and Tony Townsend of Griffith University.

The researchers found that shared leadership and shared responsibility underscore the moral purpose of a school’s work, through their interviews with teachers, school leaders and families to assess how school principals have supported teachers to increase student engagement and reading improvement.

“It is incumbent upon the principal to facilitate the development and articulation of a clear moral purpose, one that promotes improving the quality of reading instruction while ensuring equity for all students,” says Bayetto. “It emphasises the concept of shared leadership rather than ‘a single heroic principal’. Such principals were relieved to not be ‘doing it all’ and this saw a measurable improvement in the attitude of teachers.”

Bayetto says students’ lack of progress in reading is not the fault of individual teachers and so needs to collectively be addressed. Therefore every school needs a clear and common goal developed by all staff.  “In terms of reading, that may mean the school having a goal for every student to be able to read by the end of year two and then planning for how the school community comes together to achieve this goal.”

The research -“Supporting school leaders to become more effective in leading reading improvements, School Effectiveness and School Improvement,” (DOI: 10.1080/09243453.2020.1858118) – found that collective engagement and responsibility galvanises a school’s purpose, resources and information-sharing.

“Shared leadership ensures everyone has the skill set to support the common goal of the school. This led to the need for the tailoring of support for teachers and a major focus was on the provision of professional learning that was evidence-based.”

As noted in the research, implementing other ways of working is not without its challenges. Some schools reported resistance to change around long-established teaching and learning approaches, some teachers were reluctant to alter their instructional practices, and some schools faced barriers to accessing and allocating resources specifically aligned to their school priorities.

Many schools also reported challenges in parent engagement. “Some parents are fully committed to quality education for their children’ whilst some families don’t seem to place much value on education at all.”

Based on the research evidence, positive support for school leaders helped them identify what they needed to know about reading to support their teachers and to consider a shared leadership style that supported engagement, learning, and achievement.