School leadership in the age of bureaucracy

With principals, middle leaders and highly accomplished and lead teachers (HALT) faced with growing challenges due to ever-increasing bureaucracy and compliance tasks, Katie Fotheringham explores what it means to be a school leader in 2023.

Managing challenging student behaviour, filling in for absent staff members and ensuring schools comply with complex rules and regulations, our school leader members navigate a complex yet essential maze of tasks daily within their roles.

We’re all too aware of how crucial school leaders are to our school communities, yet research has shown that today’s school leaders are often overwhelmed with high expectations, paperwork and poor work-life balance.

The challenges

Recent research has shown that the increasing bureaucratisation of leadership roles has hindered school leaders’ ability to complete the essential aspects of their jobs.

A Queensland IEU member said they had been working as an assistant principal for just over 12 months, following a period working as an Assistant Principal Religious Education (APRE), and noted that paperwork takes up a significant part of their working week.

“National Consistent Collection of Data (NCDD) and the associated bureaucracy means I am constantly completing paperwork instead of working with teachers and students,” they said.

“The same applies to managing inappropriate behaviour by students – the amount of paperwork and bureaucracy required to defend a teacher’s decision makes discipline an ongoing and tedious process,” they said,

The member said that beyond bureaucracy, managing parent expectations in a post-COVID world was also a major challenge for school leaders.

“Since lock-downs, parents are increasingly forthcoming with their opinions and expectations, particularly on social media platforms and email, where there is a tendency for them to be much more brazen and overly critical than they would be in person,” they said.

“This has greatly increased pressures on leaders to perform and the expectation of solving any and all problems,” they said.

Another Queensland member said they had undertaken curriculum middle leader roles at various schools and agreed that administration tasks had become a significant burden.

“There is an endless stream of paperwork and extra procedures required to do most jobs now,” they said.

“There is never enough time in the day for elements added into curriculum that need to be timetabled, planned for and delivered,” they said.

There is an endless stream of paperwork and extra procedures required to do most jobs now.

Urgent need for support

IEU-QNT Branch Secretary Terry Burke said the summary findings of the 2022 Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey reinforced the extent of the sector’s crisis and urgent interventions by government and school employers were needed.

“Over the past 10 years, school leaders have faced an increasing rate of bullying, physical violence, threats of violence, slander, sexual and verbal harassment,” Burke said.

“We see this in the burnout of our school leaders and the increasing rates of school refusal by students.

“The survey findings were yet another red flag.

“The number of principals looking to retire has tripled in the last three years for the same reasons as our teachers – workload and a lack of time to focus on their core duties as a school leader,” Burke said.

Middle leader standards

Middle leaders such as heads of department, heads of year level, master teachers and heads of special education services all make vital contributions to our school communities.

Unlike teachers and principals however, there is currently no shared definition of middle leadership in Australia.

IEU-QNT Research Officer Adele Schmidt said that Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) has begun a partnership with the Queensland Department of Education to develop and trial national professional standards for middle leaders.

“Middle leaders play a pivotal role in leading teaching, learning and student support; however, there is often a lack of clarity or inconsistency regarding their roles, expectations, titles, levels of support and opportunities for career progression,” Schmidt said.

“A professional standard for middle leaders would sit between the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) and the Australian Professional Standard for Principals (APSP),” she said.

At this stage, middle leader professional standards are still in development; however, Schmidt said they would likely include a variety of professional requirements and professional development (PD) measures that middle leaders would have to comply with to progress in their careers.

“The proposed professional standards could look like PD conversations, planning professional learning experiences and a clearer understanding of what a middle leader’s next career stage might involve,” Schmidt said.

“They could serve as a tool to support career middle leaders or aspirant principals to develop their leadership expertise.

“Having sector-wide clearly defined roles for middle leaders might also clarify specific expectations and responsibilities.

”Our union’s involvement in the reference group and members’ participation in the national survey is crucial.

“A key function of the reference group is to provide advice and feedback on the draft professional standard for middle leaders as AITSL develops it.

“A priority of this process is ensuring that any introduced standards do not exacerbate workload issues and function as a tool to help leaders,” Schmidt said.

The reality for aspirant school leaders

With all the challenges faced by our school leaders, we asked members what advice they would give to aspirant school leaders working in the sector today.

The senior leader member from Queensland advised members to carefully consider progressing as a school leader with the current expectations and requirements.

“My advice would be to think carefully about what is required,” they said.

“There is a significant personal cost to anyone who would like to go into leadership – this cost will also impact the leader’s personal life,” they said.

The curriculum middle leader member from Queensland said knowledge was key when it came to school leadership.

“Be organised, approachable and prepared for the unexpected,” they said.

“Make sure you know not only your curriculum area, but school processes around data, ethos, mission and academic procedures – you’ll be surprised what employers ask in interviews and what you’ll be doing in a leadership role daily.

The member said IEU membership had made a difference in their career as a school leader by providing advice and support when needed.

“It’s always reassuring knowing there is someone impartial to go to who has your back to bounce workload frustrations, expectations and issues off – being a member of our union is always a great idea,” they said.

Fighting for fairer workplaces

Our union is calling for urgent action to address the health and wellbeing of school leaders.

“The Australian education sector is in a workload crisis,” Burke said.

“Our union will continue to advocate and push for changes to address these issues to make school leadership an appealing career path.

“Teaching should be a lifelong vocation with career progression available to those who desire it.

“Meaningful intervention to workload and work intensification is required imminently to allow school leaders to get back to what they are supposed to be doing – supporting staff and students and fostering an inclusive school community,” Burke said.