Headteachers, Collaborative School Cultures and School Improvement: a changing relationship?

The article provides an illustrative example of a headteacher's role in the management of a collaborative school culture and school improvement to achieve radical educational reform in a period prior to the Education Reform Act. It will go to show how this role has changed as a result of the Act. Recent policy and legislation whose stated intention is to facilitate school improvement has, in the case of this one headteacher, had quite contrary effects. It is argued that ignoring the complexity and role conflict inherent in the headteacher's role may inhibit the headteacher's management of collaborative cultures and impede school improvement.