Sharing responsibility: developing effective distributed leadership within a small Catholic community

Catholic headteachers face many complex challenges in their day to day professional life. This dissertation aims to identify ways in which effective distributed leadership could be developed to support a small Catholic community to achieve excellence whilst remaining rooted in gospel values. To this end, I considered the distinctive nature of Catholic education and appropriate styles of leadership for a Catholic leader. I reflected upon leadership practice that results in effective and successful leadership. Finally I considered the challenges facing today’s Catholic headteachers. I carried out a review of the key literature. I interviewed a sample of ten Catholic headteachers, whose schools were judged to be at least good in terms of overall effectiveness at their most recent Section 48 Inspection. I then analysed the inspection reports from the Section 48 Inspection for these ten schools. The results of the survey and the document analysis were examined in the light of the principles explored in the literature review. Remaining true to the mission of Catholic education, in the face of the increasing demands from the state and the decline in ‘Spiritual Capital’ remains a challenge for the headteachers in the study. Together with the need to encourage able candidates to come forward for headship. I make recommendations based on the evidence of my research for improved gospel practice in the leadership of Catholic schools. These will apply principally to my own school context, but I suggest that some of the recommendations might be of value in other contexts.