Student performance linked to school leadership

Schools in Bahrain have been the focus of intense scrutiny in recent years to improve the quality of education in the Kingdom and create more impact on students’ achievements and grades.

What really influences students’ learning in schools? It starts with educational leadership. The most influential educational leaders are the principals, and their leadership is inextricably linked to student performance. It is tempting to get caught up in defining the many adjectives often used to describe leadership in education literature (e.g. participative, instructional) but ultimately these descriptions focus on style, not substance. 

The basic core of successful leadership includes three sets of practices:

1.Setting direction.

2.Developing faculty and staff.

3.Redesigning the organization to achieve its vision and mission.

This article elaborates on the importance of setting direction. The remaining practices will be covered in the following weeks. 

School leaders who have a clear organisational direction have the greatest impact on students’ achievements. The principal must possess passion and aspiration that is contagious! Farsighted principals must set direction (vision) for their team and the school; help to develop among their staff a shared understanding of where the organization is heading (mission), and  share the school’s goals and activities (goal setting and milestones along the way). Staff can then make greater sense of their role at work, have a sense of identity and sense of purpose. Staff will become focused, proud and gain ownership of the schools’ goals. Clearly an investment of time is required to develop a shared understanding; but it is extremely difficult for schools to make progress without something to focus their attention, without any goals to aim for.

Effective principals share their vision of where or what the school should ‘look and be like’ (organisational culture, or the ‘way we do things around here’) and what needs to be achieved in order to reach there. This is achieved through collaboratively crafting the schools’ Mission, Vision and Statement of Beliefs, with the students’ welfare at the centre. These fundamental documents should reflect the current school community’s values and aspirations, be practical in their application and representative of current realities. The Mission has to drive strategic goals and programmatic decisions as well as the day-to-day interaction with and among students, parents, faculty and the community.

In summary, the strongest impact on students’ achievement starts with a visionary leadership who collaboratively identify school’s goals, set direction to achieve these goals and ultimately accomplish the school’s Mission, and to achieve it’s Vision.   

The author is the principal of Al Wisam School, Budaiya Road.