New school structures and leadership styles: Their impacts on teaching and learning

In the late 1990s, the New South Wales Minister of Education undertook school structural reforms resulting in new school structures that the Minister codenamed 'The Collegiate Model' (DET, 1999). The management of these schools has led to the emergence of new leadership styles practised by the principals charged with the responsibility of running them. The essence of the model was to restructure several neighbouring secondary (years 7-12) schools that were underperforming into middle schools (years 7-10) and then create one senior campus into which the amalgamated middle schools would feed their year 10 graduates. This created educative partnerships intended to be the basis for providing secondary schooling in a new way. Improved outcomes in secondary schooling were regarded as an essential means of improving the public image of secondary schooling in NSW (DET, 1998) and to this end, the new partnerships would enjoy collegial collaboration and economies of scale resulting in improved students' outcomes and overall schooling improvement and effectiveness.