The New Executives in a Landscape of Change : The Emerging Reality of Plural Controlled Schooling in England

The landscape of leadership of the school system in England is changing. Harris (2012: 537), for example, concludes that the days of ‘local town halls making and implementing policy and shaping and directing the local schools system in furtherance of locally determined priorities seem to be gone’. The institutional basis for a role as an executive head within such a process has similarly receded in England. There are still local authority senior executive officers responsible for school education, but their responsibilities and powers have changed and new executive positions are developing in the emerging system. This chapter explores the unfolding new system and the changing roles within it in terms of their complexities, opportunities and challenges.