Better Schools

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Better Schools:

Resource Materials for School Heads in

Africa

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Modules

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General

Introductio

n

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Introductor

y Module

Module

One

Module

Two

Module

Three

Module

Four

Module

Five

Module Six

Module

Seven

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The Functions of School Management
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IntroductionIn this unit, we will look at some of the management functions which

you have as a school head, building on concepts introduced in Unit 1.

We look first at a case study on School Mismanagement Fever. We

differentiate between the functions of planning, organising, directing,supervising and evaluating in a school, and we see how they relate toeach other and how together they describe the role of the school

manager, or head. Lastly, we consider some indicators of effective

school management.

Individual study time: 3 hours

Learning outcomesAfter working through this unit you should be able to:

differentiate between the main functions of the head of a school and

identify some of the tasks associated with each function describe some of the inter-relationships between these functions

identify the key indicators of effective school heads.

Case study

School mismanagement feverIn Fig 3 a cartoonist is suggesting that a head of a disorganised school is

requesting help, because she's seeking a cure for a School

Mismanagement Fever.

Fig 3 S.M. Fever is school mismanagement fever

In this school we may imagine that the governing board has expired; ithas an inadequate number of teachers; the pupil drop-out rate is high; the

results in public examinations are poor; the buildings, equipment and

materials are inadequate and poorly maintained; the grounds are untidyand the morale of those connected with the school is not high.


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But the main lessons from the case study which the cartoonist isemphasising is that if as a head you are ASKing for help either to

prevent or to cure your School Mismanagement Fever, you are miles

ahead of those who do not recognise that they have a problem at all!Clearly, you appreciate your role as manager of an organisation, which

exists to provide the pupils with useful knowledge, skills and attitudesfor responsible and successful living. To be a successful head you willneed to acquire managerial Attitudes = A, Skills = S and Knowledge = K

for running your school. Thus school managers who are seeking to find a

cure for School Mismanagement Fever must recognise the need to ASK,

that is, to involve others in developing solutions, but must also recognisethe three key components: Attitudes, Skills and Knowledge, which they

need to acquire. May be your S.M. Fever can be traced to a specific

managerial issue which interferes with the processes of instruction and

learning in the school, but, more likely, there are very many issues aboutwhich you are concerned. The successful school head is someone who is

able to handle a range of problems or issues, at one time.

A school management diagnosisLet us examine or diagnose, by means of a checklist, how well you are

doing as a school manager.

Activity 3.1Complete the school management diagnosis checklist in Fig 4 by ticking

'yes' or 'no'.

Fig 4 School management diagnosis checklist

Indicate which of the following you have worked on, within the lastschool year, in your school.

Note: in each case you should be able to explain to someone what has

been done.


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CommentsIf your 'Yes' scores exceed 15/20, then your School MismanagementFever is not life threatening! However, if your 'No' scores exceed 10/20,

then your School Mismanagement Fever requires your serious attention.

The list indicates the five main management functions of school heads:

planning, organising, directing, supervising and evaluating all aspects of

school life. Although they occur in sequence, in fact each functioncontinues all the time. As the list shows each may be broken down into

several tasks. Thus the work of a head is both complex and never

complete!

The modules presented in this series for the training and support of

school heads should guide you to reduce your School Mismanagement

Fever.

Relating management functionsThe functions and tasks identified in the checklist may be put in the formof a flow chart.

Activity 3.2Take one of the main areas of life in your school, such as the curriculum.

Use the diagram from Unit 1 in which we presented the five mainfunctions or processes of school heads within a management cycle, and

demonstrate through specific examples, how you, in your school,

undertake tasks within each function in relation to the curriculum.

Comments

This is not an easy activity to undertake as the range of tasks you have

identified is probably quite large, but you should have gained a cleareridea as to how every task which you undertake as a school head in the

various areas of operation may be analysed and described in terms of the

broad functions which make up the management cycle. Moreover asnoted in Unit 1, although presented cyclically, management processes

inter-relate. The flow chart depicted in Fig 5 highlights these relations. It

is important that you become analytical about your job, so that you can

make sure you are doing the right things, for the right reason, in the right

way, and at the right time.


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Fig 5 Managing your school

In examining the flow chart you probably thought 'How can I, as a

school head, manage to plan, organise, direct, supervise, and evaluate

programmes, projects and activities in my school?' The answer to this

question lies in the application of the principles of:

physical, programme, project and financial (budgeting) planning

human and public relations

communication and negotiation techniques


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delegation of authority, functions, responsibilities, duties and tasks

decision-making and problem-solving

management of change in relation to the operations in a school,

through action planning.

All of these aspects are discussed in subsequent units and in othermodules of this series.

School heads: Chief Executives or Lead Professionals?Most people recognise the fact that the central role of the school head

should be in managing the teaching and learning which determine the

quality of education. Your attention is therefore drawn to currentconcerns for building the capacity in educational management at three

levels:

in the delivery of education in schools

in policy implementation through district and regional educationoffices

in strategic policy development within the Ministry of Education, theentire government, non-governmental organisations and international

agencies.

These concerns focus on the school as a social institution - an agency

through which the educational needs of the youth can be met. A school

therefore is a means to an end and not the end in itself. This is reflected

in the various roles the head performs. We introduced a number of thesein Unit 1, for example, administrative, leadership, supervisory and

managerial roles. Some people make a useful distinction between thehead as the Chief Executive (CE) and the head as the Lead Professional(LP).

Chief Executive role examplesExamples of activities which illustrate the role of the head as Chief

Executive are given below.

setting out the mission and objectives of the school

allocating duties to staff

co-ordinating and supervising staff activities

evaluating school performance

establishing working relationships between the governing board andthe staff and employers ex officio member of the governing board.

Activity 3.3Make a list of some of the activities which you undertake as a school

head in your Lead Professional role.


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CommentsYou probably found this task quite easy if you usually think of yourself

as a head teacher.

Lead Professional role examplesCheck which of the following items you listed:

personal teaching

professional guidance to teachers as individuals and in the developmentof school programmes

counselling pupils and parents on ethics, norms and values of the

school

spokesperson for the whole school on all educational matters

participation in subject panels, curriculum development and otherexternal professional activities

member of School Heads' Association.

Most jobs, not just that of a school head, involve different, maybeconflicting roles. Achieving a balance between them is very important.

The school head who does not, or perhaps can not, provide professional

leadership will not be a credible person in the eyes of his staff. Yet aschool head who fails in the role of Chief Executive perhaps should have

stayed in the classroom.

Activity 3.4Make a list of all the tasks you carry out as head of your school in a

typical week. Beside each task indicate whether it is your Chief

Executive Role with CE in brackets or whether it is your LeadingProfessional Role with LP in the brackets. Which role, CE or LP, has the

largest number of tasks in your week?

CommentsIn your list of CE tasks you might have included 'signing purchase

orders at 3.20'. In the LP the tasks might have included 'teaching

Mathematics in Grade 4 on Mondays from 08.30 - 09.30' You may havefound separating some tasks between these roles quite difficult. Forexample, when you are chairing meetings, such as a staff meeting, you

have both a Chief Executive and a Lead Professional role. The two roles

both support and conflict with each other. Achieving a balance isimportant, and yet is quite difficult. What is important is that you realise

their existence and work to improve your skills at carrying them out

effectively.


9/16

Indicators of an effective school headInModule 6, Monitoring School Effectiveness, we will be considering

how we may evaluate the effectiveness of a school. Here let us consider

how we might determine whether or not a school head is an effectivemanager.

Activity 3.5The list of items in Fig 6 might be used to help determine whether or not

a school head is an effective manager.

(1) Do you agree with the three items included here? Would you includeanything else?

(2) These items have been written to describe an effective school head.

Now rewrite them for a head who is definitely weak in his or her job.

Notice that they are written in an abbreviated form, without wastingwords.

Fig 6 Indicators of an effective school head

CommentsThe three items included here provide some essential characteristics of
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effectiveness with regards to the work done by a school head. Noticethat the list is not about an effective school, nor is it concerned with

describing the detailed tasks of a school manager, such as planning the

curriculum. We will come back to these again inModule 6. Not only dowe need to explain what effectiveness is, but also what effectiveness is

not. In the same way as we apply grades to the work done by pupils, sowe should be able to describe the work of the school head as excellent,good, fair or below expectation, as appropriate, by using descriptive

criteria such as you have just attempted to write.

SummaryIn this unit we have looked at the main elements in school management.

This has involved identifying the five main functions of a school head:

planning, organising, directing, supervising and evaluating, and some ofthe tasks associated with each function. We have drawn distinctions

between school heads as Chief Executives and as Lead Professionals.

Lastly we have identified how indicators may be written up to producecriteria for evaluating the effectiveness of a school head. One item

concerned human relations, which is the focus of ournext unit.
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The Functions of School Management

Unit 3

Introduction

In this unit, we will look at some of the management functions which you have as a school head,building on concepts introduced in Unit 1.

We look first at a case study on School Mismanagement Fever. We differentiate between the functions

of planning, organising, directing, supervising and evaluating in a school, and we see how they relate to

each other and how together they describe the role of the school manager, or head. Lastly, we

consider some indicators of effective school management.

Individual study time: 3 hours

Learning outcomes

After working through this unit you should be able to: differentiate between the main functions of the head of a school and identify some of the tasks

associated with each function

describe some of the inter-relationships between these functions

identify the key indicators of effective school heads.

Case study

The head of a disorganised school which has considerable problems and is very disorganised is asking

for help.

The school is no longer supported by its Board of Governors. It has an inadequate number of teachers;

the pupil drop-out rate is high; the results in public examinations are poor; the buildings, equipmentand materials are inadequate and poorly maintained; the grounds are untidy and the morale of those

connected with the school is low.

But the main lesson from the case study which is being emphasised is that, if as a head you are ASKing

for help either to prevent further difficulties or to solve existing problems, you are miles ahead of

those who do not recognise that they have a problem at all!

Clearly, you appreciate your role as manager of an organisation, which exists to provide the pupils with

useful knowledge, skills and attitudes for responsible and successful living. To be a successful head you

will need to acquire managerial Attitudes = A, Skills = S and Knowledge = K for running your school.

Thus school managers who are seeking to find a cure for School Mismanagement Fever must recognise

the need to ASK, that is, to involve others in developing solutions, but must also recognise the three

key components: Attitudes, Skills and Knowledge, which they need to acquire. Maybe your S.M. Fever

can be traced to a specific managerial issue which interferes with the processes of instruction and

learning in the school, but, more likely, there are very many issues about which you are concerned.

The successful school head is someone who is able to handle a range of problems or issues, at one

time.


12/16

Activity 3.1

A school management diagnosis

Let us examine or diagnose, by means of a checklist, how well you are doing as a school manager.

Complete the school management diagnosis checklist in below by ticking YES or NO

Indicate which of the following you have worked on, within the last school year, in your school. In each

case you should be able to explain to someone what has been done.

PLANNING

1) Translating national education policies into school-based teaching and learning objectives and

targets.

2) Planning both the long-term acquisition of relevant teaching and learning resources (including

finances).

3) Preparing school syllabuses, schemes of work, timetables and schedules of activities.

4) Preparing schedules for meetings of the Heads of Departments, Level Heads, Parents Teacher

Association, staff, etc.

ORGANISING

1) Preparing up-to-date job descriptions for all employed staff, and assigning roles, responsibilities and

duties to staff and pupils.

2) Arranging for the appointment of new staff and the selection and appointment of all staff and

students holding responsibility posts.

COMMUNICATION

1) Inducting new teachers, pupils and parents.

2) Communicating regularly and fully, by the most appropriate means, to all those with an interest in

the school, about school programmes and activities

3) Holding formal and informal discussions with individuals and groups, including staff and students,

and those outside the school, about all aspects of school life.

MONITORING AND SUPERVISION

1) Ensuring that classes are held, and that pupils' work is marked and assessed

2) Monitoring standards of learning and teaching in the classroom

3) Checking the schemes of work and lesson plans of the teachers.

4) Ensuring attendance and punctuality of both staff and pupils.

5) Conducting a full and fair appraisal of all staff, including observations, discussions and in written

reports.

6) Taking stock and physically checking the resources and equipment of the school

EVALUATING

1) Preparing the Annual Report of the school.

2) Analysing examinations results and making recommendations for raising standards

3) Reviewing the performance of all aspects of the school

4) Setting new targets for individuals, departments and the school.


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5) Presenting financial statements and reports to the appropriate authority

Comments

If your 'Yes' scores exceed 15 / 20, you are doing well.

However, if your 'No' scores exceed 10/20, then you will need to consider seriously your role as a schoolhead and take appropriate steps to develop your skills.

The list indicates the five main management functions of school heads: planning, organising, directing,

monitoring and supervision and evaluating all aspects of school life. Although they occur in sequence,

in fact each function is a continuous process. As the list shows each may be broken down into several

tasks.

Thus the work of a head is both complex and never complete!

The modules presented in this series for the training and support of school heads should guide you in

improving your management capabilities.

Relating leadership functionsThe functions and tasks identified in the checklist may be put in the form

of a flow chart.

Plan

Involve all stakeholders, especially Teachers, Parents, Pupils

Translation of national education policies into school level programmes, projects and activities

Organise

Yourself, Teachers and other staff, Parents

Teaching and learning activities

Direct

Yourself, Teachers and other staff,

Parents and Community

Communicate, discuss, motivate for support and active participation in the teaching and learning

activities organised by the school

Monitor

yourself and others to achieve set standards in the quality of teaching and learning, using role models,

exemplary behaviour and peer group support for setting targets to be achieved by individuals and

groups in the school

Evaluate

The results of the monitoring of learning and teaching to inform development in the process at each

stage

Activity 3.2


14/16

Take one of the main areas of life in your school, such as the curriculum. Use the diagram from Unit 1

in which we presented the five main functions or processes of school heads within a management cycle

and demonstrate through specific examples, how you, in your school, undertake tasks within each

function in relation to the curriculum.

CommentsThis is not an easy activity to undertake as the range of tasks you have identified is probably quite

large, but you should have gained a clearer idea as to how every task which you undertake as a school

head in the various areas of operation may be analysed and described in terms of the broad functions

which make up the management cycle. Moreover as noted in Unit 1, although presented cyclically,

management processes inter-relate. The flow chart depicted in Fig 4 highlights these relations. It is

important that you become analytical about your job, so that you can make sure you are doing the

right things, for the right reason, in the right way, and at the right time.

In examining the flow chart you probably thought 'How can I, as a school head, manage to plan,

organise, direct, monitor, supervise and evaluate programmes, projects and activities in my school.

The answer to this question lies in the application of the principles of: physical, programme, project and financial (budgeting) planning

human and public relations

communication and negotiation techniques

delegation of authority, functions, responsibilities, duties and tasks

decision making and problem solving

management of change in relation to the operations in a school, through action planning.

School heads - Chief executives or lead professionals?

The central role of the school head is to manage the teaching and learning which determine the quality

of education. Your attention is therefore drawn to current concerns for building the capacity in

educational leadership at three levels:

in the delivery of education in schools

in policy implementation through regional education offices

in strategic policy development within the Ministry of Education, the entire government,

non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international agencies.

These concerns focus on the school as a social institution - an agency through which the educational

needs of the youth can be met. A school therefore is a means to an end and not the end in itself. This

is reflected in the various roles the head performs. We introduced a number of these in Unit 1, for

example, leadership, supervisory, managerial and administrative roles. Some people make a useful

distinction between the head as the Chief Executive (CE) and the head as the Lead Professional (LP).

Chief Executive role examples

Examples of activities which illustrate the role of the head as Chief Executive are given below.

setting out the mission and objectives of the school

allocating duties to staff

co-ordinating and supervising staff activities


15/16

evaluating school performance

establishing working relationships between the Regional Education Office and the staff.

ex officio member of the governing board (where there is one only certain schools in Guyana)

Consider some of the activities which you undertake as a school head in your Lead Professional role.

Lead Professional role examples

Check which of the following items you listed:

personal teaching

professional guidance to teachers as individuals and in the development of school programmes

counselling pupils and parents on ethics, norms and values of the school

spokesperson for the whole school on all educational matters

participation in subject panels, curriculum development and other external professional activities

Most jobs, not just that of a school head, involve different, maybe conflicting roles. Achieving a

balance between them is very important. The school head who does not, or perhaps cannot, provide

professional leadership will not be a credible person in the eyes of his or her staff. Yet a school head

who fails in the role of Chief Executive perhaps should have stayed in the classroom.

Activity 3.3

Make a list of all the tasks you carry out as head of your school in a typical week. Beside each task

indicate whether it is your Chief Executive Role with CE in brackets or whether it is your Leading

Professional Role with LP in the brackets. Which role, CE or LP, has the largest number of tasks in your

week? Are there any other tasks which you feel do not fit into either of these categories?

Comments

In your list of CE tasks you might have included 'signing purchase orders. In the LP the tasks might have

included 'teaching Mathematics in Grade 4. You may have found separating some tasks between these

roles quite difficult. For example, when you are chairing meetings, such as a staff meeting, you have

both a Chief Executive and a Lead Professional role. The two roles both support and conflict with each

other. Some countries have decided to separate the role totally and provide two separate people for

these posts. Achieving a balance is important, and yet is quite difficult. What is important is that you

realise their existence and work to improve your skills at carrying them out effectively.

Indicators of an effective school head

In Module 6, Monitoring School Effectiveness, we will be considering how we may evaluate the

effectiveness of a school. Here let us consider how we might determine whether or not a school head is

an effective leader.

An effective head demonstrates

Professional competence

has wide-ranging and up-to-date knowledge and skills, including the ability to initiate, direct,

communicate and delegate

Good relations and a concern for teamwork

has good relations with pupils, staff and parents

works for the development of the school through teamwork


16/16

communications within the school are clear and on time

Leadership

Creates confidence and inspires others

Effectively evaluates the qualities and contributions of staff

Can take difficult decisions

Activity 3.3

The list of items in above might be used to determine whether or not a school head is an effective

school leader.

Do you agree with the three items listed here?

Can you think of anything else to add to each area?

Can you think of any other categories?

Comments

The three items included here provide some essential characteristics of effectiveness with regard to

the work done by a school head. Notice that the list is not about an effective school, nor is itconcerned with describing the detailed tasks of a school manager, such as planning the curriculum. We

will come back to these again in Module 6. Not only do we need to explain what effectiveness is, but

also what effectiveness is not. In the same way as we apply grades to the work done by pupils, so we

should be able to describe the work of the school head as excellent, good, fair or below expectation,

as appropriate, by using descriptive criteria such as you have just attempted to write.

Summary

In this unit we have looked at the main elements in school leadership. This has involved identifying the

five main functions of a school head: planning, organising, directing, monitoring and evaluating, and

some of the tasks associated with each function. We have drawn distinctions between school heads as

Chief Executives and as Lead Professionals. Lastly we have identified how indicators may be written up

to produce criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of a school head. One item concerned human

relations, which is the focus of our next unit.

Documents

Better Schools