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This paper reports on our use of narrative accounts in qualitative research about educational leadership in Western Australia. Data for the research were gathered through semistructured interviews. We wanted to know whether interview data constructed as narrative accounts then analysed would help us understand the phenomenon of leading for sustainability. We had used this approach previously (Wildy & Pepper, 2005; Clarke, Wildy & Pepper, 2007) in our examination of school leadership. Our commitment to an interpretive approach (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Kvale, 1996), to delve into our participants’ understanding of their experiences remains strong. Rich insights into the experiences of participants are revealed in narrative accounts crafted from semistructured interviews. Stories and descriptions of experience are given status when presented as narratives so contribute to participants’ wellbeing and meet the criteria for ‘good educational research’. In this paper we describe collecting data, constructing narratives, confirming quality and conducting analysis to describe the ‘wakefulness’ and transparency we adhere to when using narrative accounts as a research strategy.

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on beginning the principalship by identifying and illustrating key challenges that novice principals encounter in their first year for which they would benefit from improved preparation.

The paper is a synthesis of a decade of research focusing on the principal with the general aim of analysing ways in which principals can work more effectively within the realities of schools as highly complex organizations. Throughout this work, the narrative account has been used as the main approach for depicting principals' understandings of the contexts in which they find themselves and their interpretations of the experiences that confront them in their roles.

A range of findings generated from the research as a whole has been refined into the conceptualisation of four distinct but interrelated challenges facing novice principals in exercising their roles.

The paper proposes a conceptual framework that can be used as a heuristic tool for informing the preparation of principals, especially in the Australian context.

The purpose of this paper is to report innovative research aimed at ascertaining whether standards for school leaders could be applied to the process of selecting senior secondary school principals for appointment. Specifically, psychometrically robust measures of performance are sought that would sufficiently differentiate performance to support judgement about whether or not to appoint candidates in the public educational authority in Western Australia.

Initially, the authors describe previous research in the application of standards to selection in education, followed by a brief review of selection practices undertaken in two international settings and the Western Australian educational setting. The authors then describe the innovative design of performance‐based assessment tasks for the selection process including task and rubric development, rater training and data validation. The Rasch measurement model is used to analyse the datasets gathered during three iterations of selection process for the Western Australian education authority.

The Rasch analysis of each dataset provides evidence of construct validity and a robust measure of reliability. The person and item location distributions indicate the tasks were better targeted for the highest performing candidates in the second and third iterations and that fine‐grained discrimination was evident across the candidate locations.

The paper describes psychometrically robust measures of performance that would sufficiently differentiate performance to support judgement about whether or not to appoint candidates in the public educational authority in Western Australia. Specifically, the paper describes the development of performance‐based tasks over three years and demonstrates the application of Rasch analysis to examine the psychometric properties of the assessment tasks.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the support provided to all three education sectors in one state of Australia to assist school leaders in the analysis and interpretation of their school's performance on state‐wide and subsequent national assessments of Literacy and Numeracy in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9.

This is a case study, presented from the perspective of the chief investigator over a ten‐year period. The approach is an interpretive one, involving reflection on action and some external qualitative evaluation data.

The case study illustrates the need for those involved in large‐scale assessment aimed at school improvement to adopt a long‐term view, understanding that the use of data to inform and change school practices, pedagogical and administrative and cultural, takes time and a great deal of support.

The paper does not purport to provide empirical evidence, nor does it attempt to provide experimental or quasi‐experimental conditions.

The paper aims to provide policy makes and educational authorities with information to assist in understanding the long‐term nature of using data for school improvement.

The paper presents an account of a decade of involvement with a project designed to assist schools to make use of large‐scale assessment data to inform and stimulate school improvement. The paper is original because of the length of engagement in this project, and its broad scope, involving all schools in one state of Australia.

Our chapter examines the ways national developments in Australia and New Zealand over the past two decades reflect distinctively antipodean understandings of educational leadership and management. Our interest is twofold. We are concerned about the extent to which these understandings are reflected in strategies designed to enhance the quality of school leadership. We are also concerned about the extent to which these strategies represent progress towards achieving ‘sustainable’ school leadership. We define sustainable leadership in terms of both building leadership capacity within the organisation and embedding lasting organisational change (Fink & Brayman, 2006; Hargreaves & Fink, 2006; Spillane, 2006). The concept used here implies both models of distributed or shared leadership and leadership succession.

School principals have difficulty embracing the competing demands of school restructuring. These demands include being accountable for the outcomes of other decision‐making groups within, or external to, the school community; having strong views while making decisions collaboratively; and using group processes without wasting the time, commitment, motivation and goodwill of those involved. The three sets of tensions were named the accountability, autonomy, and efficiency dilemmas, respectively. This paper outlines the development of an instrument to determine the saliency of particular domains of decision making in which these dilemmas are experienced by school principals. The instrument was trialled in Australia and New Zealand using Rasch analysis to check the fit of items. The instrument is currently being applied in The Netherlands, Australia and Taiwan, with other countries to follow.

There is increasing support for the importance of the principal′s instructional leadership in school effectiveness. However, there is uncertainty over the extent to which principals actually engage in instructional leadership tasks. Investigates the perceptions held by principals and teachers of principals′ instructional leadership in a sample of Western Australian government primary and secondary schools using the Instructional Leadership Questionnaire. Instructional leadership was found to be a shared responsibility. Principals were perceived to be least involved in “managing the curriculum” and “evaluating and providing feedback”. Primary school principals were perceived to be more responsible for instructional leadership than their secondary counterparts. Principals of very small primary schools (less than 100 students) were most involved in tasks and those of middlesized primary schools (300 to 500 students) were least involved. “Providing rewards and recognition for high quality teaching” was the only instructional leadership task perceived not to be performed by either principals or teachers in both primary and secondary schools. Principals perceived themselves to be more involved in instructional leadership tasks than their staff perceived them to be.

This chapter examines the intricacies of researching the initial preparation of school principals. First, the case is made for the importance of researching this formative stage in a principal's career trajectory. Second, an alignment is described between theory, research, and practice for informing fruitful approaches to preparation for the principalship. Third, a framework is articulated comprising four focal points portraying the complexities of principals' work. It is suggested that this framework could be used as a heuristic tool for connecting with the realities of the principal's world and the professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are required to perform the role effectively.

This paper aims to highlight what principals consider their most severe challenges in the first three years of appointment and the extent to which they believe they were adequately prepared to meet these challenges.

The paper reports on the initial Western Australian findings of a survey developed for Phase Three of the International Study of Principal Preparation (ISPP). The survey was designed as a common instrument across international contexts to investigate those aspects of principals' work perceived to be most challenging in the early years in the position and the extent to which principals believe they were prepared for these challenges. The survey was administered to 45 novice principals in Western Australia.

The preliminary results of the survey have yielded some insights that draw attention to what principals regard as their main challenges and the extent to which they felt prepared to deal with them.

The sample size is a little small for some of the analyses and results need to be treated with caution.

The insights derived from responses to the survey have clear implications for the efficacy of role preparation and development.

The paper helps to clarify those aspects of the work of novice primary principals which they find most problematic, relative to other aspects and the extent to which they felt prepared to deal with them.

This paper aims to report an investigation of how education for sustainability is conceptualised, incorporated across the curriculum and led in three Western Australian Government secondary schools. It also reports on processes to enable education for sustainability to become embedded into these schools.

Data for the research were gathered through semi‐structured interviews with teachers who were reputedly leading education for sustainability.

With the exception of one participant, the concept of education for sustainability is not widely embraced in the schools of this study. Instead participants focus only on the environmental aspect of sustainability. Again, with the exception of one participant, education for sustainability remains fragmented and vulnerable to changing school conditions. Leadership of education for sustainability occurs whimsically and with little vision for the future across this study with little evidence of alliance building or collaboration among colleagues.

The paper concludes that leading for sustainability requires a combination of a deep knowledge of sustainability; forward thinking and the ability to imagine a different future; the interpersonal and networking skills to build strong relationships; and the energy and capability of taking action to achieve the imagined different future.