The Centre of Principal Development carries out commissioned education primarily aimed at school leaders. We have the responsibility to offer the National School Leadership Training Programme in two regions in Sweden. We also offer other courses.
Within the field of educational leadership, our focus is on how leaders' assessments and priorities shape and guide leadership. We describe and analyse leadership within organisations. We examine how principals lead structures, cultures, functions, and processes in organisations whose mission is constituted by the learning and socialisation of individuals into citizens.
Our programme concerns how organisations are shaped, changed and led within the field of learning and personal development. The point of departure for understanding leadership and organisation is that leadership is viewed as a continuous process in which leaders, followers, and the situation interplay. Knowledge about the individual, the group, the shape of the organisation, and the surrounding environment is of vital importance.
Our educational philosophy is characterised by a model in which learning emerges through the interplay of theory, research findings, policy documents, school leaders’ practice, and diverse contexts and ideologies.
We believe that school leaders who understand and integrate these fields of knowledge are better equipped to lead pedagogical work and steer towards the school’s objectives. The model can be illustrated by this image:
To create meaningful learning, the programme must include elements that use the perspectives in the model above to highlight how different approaches can lead to alternative solutions. This, in turn, requires an understanding that each level in the governance chain analyses and interprets policy documents and relates these documents and interpretations to its own conditions - something that contributes to the complexity of governance.
Studies of national and local strategies - such as recommendations, follow-ups, and reports - combined with research findings can provide valuable insights and ideas about how different governance logics, strategies, and actions influence the internal work of schools.
