Southampton Education School - Seminar: The Networked School Leader. How to Improve Teaching and Student Outcomes using Learning Networks Event

What is the seminar about? Education networks can facilitate a more willing distribution of professional knowledge; enable the development of context-specific strategies for school improvement; and even facilitate schools and others to share resources. At the same time, to achieve such benefits requires school leaders to consider how best to connect network activity to the day-to-day practices of their school. To explore this area a mixed methods approach (interviews, survey data and social network analysis) was used to examine models of networked leadership within schools participating in a Research Learning Network in Hampshire, England.

What are the key messages? To benefit all teachers and students, the leaders of schools participating in networks must find ways to actively support the broad mobilisation of networked-driven innovations.

What are the implications for practice or research? Distributed leadership that involves a whole-school collaborative process tends to be most successful in ensuring networked innovations are effectively mobilised.