Entrepreneurial Competences for School Leadership Teams Erasmus Project

Project Title

Entrepreneurial Competences for School Leadership Teams

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

This project brought together six partners from five countries to address the professional development and changing roles and pressures facing school leaders as identified in OECD and European Network on School Leadership (EPNoSL) reports. It explored what makes successful entrepreneurs in business, shared practice in leading organisations working with school leaders and identified the synergies between business and education in order to create firstly a generic set of entrepreneurial competences and then a set of training resources to enable current and future leaders to lead effectively in challenging circumstances. The project addressed the Erasmus+ Priorities of improving the leadership and management of schools and developing new training resources. Throughout the project there was a focus on the methodology of in-school ‘professional enquiry’, so that the outcomes of any training were specific to the needs of individual schools.

The overall objectives of the project were to:

• develop new and innovative approaches to the training of school leaders and supporting the dissemination of best practice
• enhance the professional development of school leaders by increasing the quality and range of initial and continuing training, including new pedagogies.
• improve the capacities of schools in the areas of strategic development, organisational management and leadership.
• promote entrepreneurship in education
• support future learning and career paths for current and future school leaders in line with their personal and professional development
• explore the possibility of accrediting the modules through a joint Masters programme

The partnership consisted of six partners from five countries. Four were University education departments, with responsibility for the training of school leaders, one was a consultancy and the other was a European network.

P1 was the North Leadership Centre, (NLC) of Newcastle University in the UK, which has been delivering Leadership and Management training to organisations including business, the public sector and schools for over 12 years.

P2, edEUcation is a consultancy on European education programmes. This partner has expertise as an assessor of LLP and Erasmus+ programmes. Additionally P2 has expertise of successful school leadership and teacher and leadership training.

P3, University of Jyväskylä – Institute of Educational Leadership is a member of EPNoSL and has been at the forefront of developing research and university-based training in educational administration and leadership in Finland for ten years.

P4 . The Faculty of Education, University of Primorska, Slovenia is responsible for Teacher Training and Education Science and is a member of EPNoSL. The faculty offers quality study programmes and research work on teaching and international education.

P5. Bucharest University of Economic Studies (BUES) is one of the top economic and administrative sciences universities in Central and Eastern Europe. It has participated strategic projects in the field of entrepreneurship and runs training courses for business and school leaders.

P6 ESHA, the European School Heads Association, is the leading network for European school leaders. Members of ESHA are national associations for school heads and deputy school heads within primary, secondary and vocational education and represent 85,000 school leaders in Europe. ESHA is a member of EPNoSL.

The main activities were:

• undertaking an analysis of existing practice in leadership training and a literature review
• identifying common entrepreneurial competences in business and education
• developing and trialing a draft set of training modules
• finalizing the modules
• running formal leadership training sessions using the modules
• undertaking a research strand
• disseminating locally and internationally
• undertaking a feasibility study into a joint masters module
• providing policy feedback to EPNOSL

All of the intended intellectual outputs were achieved and the training modules are now freely available on the project website, http://www.ec4slt.com

The impact in the trials was evaluated as significant by the schools involved, with the professional enquiry strategy linking into their individual needs. Given that this strategy is aimed at longer term improvements, it is too early to collect data on pupil achievement or improvements in quality, but the objective of empowering schools to use this strategy to improve themselves has been achieved.

The project modules will continue to be promoted through the ESHA networks and will be shared at the next major ESHA conference. The policy recommendations have been shared with the EPNoSL network and are an exemplification of the practical implementation of their earlier policy recommendations. The outcomes of the project research strand will be shared at future education and academic conferences.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 277110,42 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE & Country: UK

Project Partners

• ACADEMIA DE STUDII ECONOMICE DIN BUCURESTI
• edEUcation ltd
• UNIVERZA NA PRIMORSKEM UNIVERSITA DEL LITORALE
• EUROPEAN SCHOOL HEADS ASSOCIATION
• JYVASKYLAN YLIOPISTO