The role of school leader : formal model and its understanding by teachers preparing themselves to become school heads and existing head teachers

The complex challenges of contemporary educational organizations make it more and more difficult to play the role of school head teacher. It requires numerous competencies that can be developed through long process of preparation, induction and continual professional development. Some educational systems have built models of such preparation. They were developed in certain national contexts with local tradition and current priorities of educational authorities that influence the state of educational management and leadership in schools. Paper tries to show such contextualised vision of educational management and leadership understanding developed in Polish educational system. It presents existing model of school heads training with emphasis on understanding of the head teacher role and her/his competencies as it may be seen in formal regulations and current policy of educational authorities. Author then tries to show how such formal models and expectations of the system look from the perspective of those functioning in the system. To understand how school leaders think about their role and how their understanding is different from formal model and expectations of authorities, small qualitative research was carried out. Two groups were asked about their understanding of head teacher role and competencies needed to play that role. First group consisted of teachers taking part in preparatory courses required by Polish Educational law to run for the post of school head. Second group consisted of existing school heads with at least one term experience in being a school head (formally more than 5 years). Differences in understanding are shown and practical consequences or recommendations for head teachers training and professional development are discussed