Introduction to rapid response papers’ special issue: school leadership and the pandemic

Abstract

We are delighted to introduce the first in our occasional series of rapid response papers on the highly topical issue of school leadership and the Covid 19 pandemic. We warmly thank the contributors of these papers for being willing to provide this ‘taster’ for readers and potential contributors of what we envisage for these collections. As noted in our editorial to this issue, the aim of this series to ‘to rapidly engage with highly topical issues that are in the public arena and may have substantial impacts on policy and practice in the field of educational leadership, management, and administration’ (Heffernan and Wilkinson, this issue). As editors, we felt that the impact of Covid 19 on school leaders across contexts was indeed a highly topical issue with substantial impacts and necessitated a rapid response. The first paper by Pat Thomson, Toby Greany and Nicholas Martindale speaks to many of the impacts on wellbeing that school leaders are experiencing as they bear the brunt of government initiatives to deal with the pandemic while keeping schools functioning. Drawing on a national survey of school leaders which examined the impact of the pandemic on their stress levels and career plans, the paper makes for sobering reading. It documents the main sources of stress that have led to a significant erosion of trust in government and intentions of a third of school leaders surveyed to exit the profession early (Thomson et al. 2021, this issue). If these intentions are followed through, the medium to long-term implications for English schooling are dire. The paper concludes with important recommendations for how this trust deficit can be addressed. The second paper by Ben Arnold and Mark Rahimi examines the impact of the pandemic on Australian principals’ health, well being and work roles in 2020. The survey data draws from the Australian Principal Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey (APHSWS), an annual survey of principals which has been running for ten years. The paper identifies which aspects of school leaders’ work have changed in 2020, compared with survey data from 2011 to 2019. It finds that key aspects of their work had changed a great deal in 2020, included job demands, interpersonal relations and role, values at work and social support and work-life balance. What was striking was that some key aspects such as workloads had slightly decreased, admittedly off a very high base of working hours, whilst other areas such as workplace justice had deteriorated. The implications of these findings remain to be teased out further, but they provide an important snapshot of the very challenging environments in which Australian principals continue to grapple. Both papers draw on survey data which provides a compelling picture of general trends of the impact on school leaders during the pandemic. However, as Thomson, Greany and Martindale observe in their first paper, what is less clear are the impacts of Covid on leaders serving particular types of schools, such as highly vulnerable populations, small and rural schools etcetera. We look forward to more insights from other contributors who