The challenge of reaping a harvest from school-based learning initiatives: Sources of learning through the perspectives of school leaders, teachers and students

Abstract

Implementing and sustaining school-wide learning initiatives through a wider distribution of leadership is espoused as a means of generating a higher quality ‘harvest’ of student learning outcomes. Two in-depth 20-month case studies situated in urban New Zealand secondary schools revealed that the ‘harvest’ of improved student learning was more challenging than first envisaged. Perspectives of the school leadership teams, the teachers and 500 students revealed multiple sources of influence in relation to student learning with some possibly related to the two respective initiatives that each school had introduced. Tensions between the change that the schools wanted to see and what they actually experienced arose due to day-to-day demands, other initiatives and a limit to resources. Consequently planting for a ‘harvest’ of improved student learning is a long one, packaged approaches and expected quick results are not realistic, nor should they be encouraged for the leadership for learning.