TY - CPAPER
AU - Mitchell, Alison
PY - 2022
DA - June
TI - Being a headteacher through the Covid-19 pandemic
AB - The first paper in the Symposium on ‘Narratives of Educational Leadership’ focuses on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on headteachers in Scottish schools. Drawing from data collected through life history narrative interviews with headteachers, this paper addresses specifically the question of what it means to be a headteacher in a turbulent and uncertain context. As part of the Future of Headship research programme, life history narrative interviews were conducted with a sample of Scottish headteachers from different sectors, to explore their journey and experiences of headship. However, as these interviews were conducted against the backdrop of the pandemic, a further question was added. Headteachers were asked to compare their experiences of leading a school during the pandemic with their experiences prior to this. In these discussions, headteachers explored the impact that leading the school during this period had on their role and understandings of headship, as well as considering the long term impact of Covid on their schools. The life histories were co-constructed (discussed in paper 4) over a series of meetings between the researcher and the headteacher, working collaboratively to explore the experiences of the headteacher, before analysing the data and reporting on the findings.
PB - British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society
UR - https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/279506/
KW - Coronavirus (COVID-19)
KW - Education
ER