This paper works within the current literature about school leadership and asks such questions as:

• How can school principals mobilise their staff, students, parents and community interest groups to become proactively engaged in the issues affecting teaching and learning in their schools?

• How can school principals encourage teachers to reflect on their own practice and work collaboratively with them to find the means to enhance teaching practice?

• How can school principals assist stakeholders in their school community to influence policy makers and curriculum decisions to ensure that the highest standards of teaching and learning take place in their schools?

In order to address these questions, we negotiated with an executive group of primary school principals in an independent system to develop a way of tapping the lifeworld perspectives of the principals concerning their work as school leaders, as well as exploring their preferred pathways of professional learning. The purpose of this paper, then is to report WHAT we came to know about their professional development needs within the context of school leadership and HOW we went about finding out. With reference to the HOW, we ask a number of questions which raise some significant issues. It is important to recognize that this paper reports the WHAT and HOW as it relates to ONE group of principals. As such, the paper reports a case study which we believe to be significant in a generative rather than in a generalisable sense.

This paper is a case study of a collaborative process which was initiated by an executive group of primary school principals who represented just over 100 principals in an independent sector. As an executive group, they wanted to inform their thinking as a basis for addressing the three questions about school leadership as noted above. They asked us to undertake a study on their behalf. An important part of this study was the completion of a literature review which addressed aspects of both school leadership and professional development. The review contextualised school leadership within the shift towards more participative approaches and the role that collaborative leadership plays in its achievement. Such a shift requires a principal who is both confident with and competent in a broad range of knowledge, skills and areas of expertise. On the one hand, the principal, as manager, must be able to take responsibility for the efficient use of resources in the running of a school. These may take the form of administrative duties, financial accountabilities and the management of technological systems. On the other hand, the principal must be able to facilitate, encourage participation and generally foster and support the relationships that are vital to leadership and decision-making and school/community leadership. The review also focused on professional development; and came up with the ideas that the professional development needs of principals with respect to the three questions posed above should take account of contextual factors; recognize the knowledge, skills and attitudes that the principals already have; and be addressed through collaborative approaches which may be focused on the individual, a small group, or a large group.

It is the convergence of school leadership perspectives and professional development perspectives which went on the frame the further negotiation and the actual conduct of the case study.

(SOME KEY REFERENCES FOR:

School Leadership

Abraham, 1998; Bates, 1993; Blackmore, 1997; Brooks, 1996; Chapman, 1987; Covey, 1992; Duignan & Macpherson, 1992; Education Queensland, 1997; Serguiovanni, 1999; Smyth, 1994; Thom, 1994

Professional Development

Chapman, 1987; Day, 1993, 1994; Department of Education, 1993; Ehrich, 1997; the authors of this proposal, 1998)

The work proceeded iteratively and collaboratively and moved towards addressing the questions posed above from the elicited lifeworld perspectives of the principals. Addressing the questions in this way provided an inside-out rather than an outside-in view of how to construct appropriate pathways for the professional learning of the principals with reference to their school leadership roles and responsibilities. The data were collected through printed survey to all primary principals in the independent system.

The survey data were analysed; and then used as a basis for iterative discussions with the principals via telephone conversations, site visits and small focus group discussions (where possible). The initial data were grouped into twelve key areas considered significant in terms of professional development. These included, for example, a focus on financial management, a focus on organizational change, new initiatives for public relations, a focus on communication with parents, a focus on their work as curriculum leaders, and a focus on technology. (ALL key areas are included in a separate handout) Principals also indicated their preferred modes of professional learning in relation to these key areas (ALL modes are be elaborated in the separate handout). The wisdom of following the initial analysis of survey data with iterative discussions was demonstrated in the ongoing analysis of these data with the principals. The importance of responsiveness in determining professional learning pathways, for example, was clearly expressed by the principals in these discussions.

It was from these data, and through an iterative and collaborative process involving both both the literature review outcomes and the principals themselves, that a number of principles were elicited as a basis for guiding the executive group's thinking about their school leadership and their professional development needs. Seventeen principles were elicited and these included, for example:

Professional development for Principals should be individual and collaborative

The data reported in this paper, then, come from the surveys, telephone conversations, site visits and small focus groups, involving the principals (just over 100 in total) already described as belonging to an independent system in one region of one Australian state.

The key areas, modes of professional learning, and elicited principles noted above, indicate a complementarity of ideas between the outcomes of the literature review and the data collected from, and analysed by, the Principals in this particular independent system. The outcomes of the study are hardly generalisable; but they do present a picture of what one group of Principals see as their "take" on school leadership and what they identify as their professional development needs. The paper, then, is offered as a platform for continuing the conversation about the roles and responsibilities of Principals with respect to school leadership and about their professional development needs within this context.

Thus far, this paper has addressed the WHAT and the HOW in relation to the case study. Its significance can be defined in terms of the platform for continuing the conversation, as noted above. However, there is another feature of this paper that is also significant; and that is an interrogation of the process in terms of its authenticity, applicability, sustainability, collaborative reconstruction and transformation of thinking and practice. Such interrogation asks these sorts of questions as a means of critiquing the HOW:

Addressing these questions is seen as significant as they seek to inform not only WHAT we have come to know through this case study; but also to critique and reconstruct our working together in ways that are authentic, applicable, sustainable, collaborative and

reconstructive/transformative.

A list of references from the full report is provided in the handout alluded to in the text of the paper.