Browsing by Author "Senthu Jeyaraj"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- PublicationOpen AccessGreat IDEAS: Revitalisng teaching, learning and student achievement(2004-11)
;Senthu Jeyaraj ;Stott, Kenneth; ;Lee, BerniceLim, Swee PeiMany of us think we know what a really good principal is. We also think we know what student achievement is. But how does a good principal actually influence student achievement? In other words, how does it work? What is in the 'black box' - as Frank Crowther refers to it- between a good principal and student success? IDEAS attempts to explain what is in the 'black box'. Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievements in Schools (IDEAS) is a major contemporary innovation and contribution to school revitalisation and reform. The IDEAS project was conceptually developed and undertaken with extraordinary success in several schools in Australia, starting in the late 1990s. Since then, the project has been extended to some several hundred schools in Australia. In partnership with the Leadership Research Institute in Queensland and three pilot schools in Singapore, we are now exploring how the IDEAS framework can be adapted to the Singapore context. With its focus on parallel leadership and a schoolwide approach to teaching and learning, it has the potential to move our understanding of. student achievement, and indeed reform and revitalisation- to new heights for Singapore schools. In this paper, we provide a basic explanation of the IDEAS framework and give a progress report on the exciting work in the three partner schools.154 116 - PublicationOpen AccessParallel leadership for school improvement in Singapore: a case study on the perceived roles of school principals(2005)
; ;Senthu Jeyaraj ;Lim, Swee Pei ;Lee, Bernice; Chew, Joy Oon AiEducational leadership for the 21st century calls for a new and different working relationship between educators. In addition to well-known approaches to educational leadership such as transformational, strategic, educative and organizational styles, the notion of parallel leadership is receiving much attention with growing evidence from Australian schools that this leadership style facilitates school improvement. Parallel leadership challenges teachers and members of the school management to establish a more collaborative working relationship. Such leadership entails mutualism between administrator leaders and teacher leaders, a sense of shared purpose and an allowance of individual expression and action by respective leaders (Andrews & Crowther, 2002). Nurturing parallel leadership involves a change in the roles and responsibilities of principals – to lead in metastrategic development – and of teachers – to lead in pedagogical development. Such leadership is an impetus for essential processes of schoolwide professional learning, culture building and approach to pedagogy which will enhance and sustain school outcomes, thus giving IDEAS schools a cutting edge. This enables the knowledge-generating capacity of schools to be enhanced and sustained. Based on data obtained from interviews and fieldwork observations we introduce an elaborated version of the’ black box’ (Crowther, Hann & Andrews, 2002) and provide a discussion on how three principals in Singapore schools, as part of the IDEAS project, embrace the role of ‘strategic leaders’ in the context of parallel leadership. As these principals progress with developing parallel leadership, we expect valuable insight to emerge as to how parallel leadership is functioning in these schools, thus enabling us to provide at a later stage, a more conclusive answer as to what a parallel relationship between teachers and principals looks like in the Singapore context.372 288