Signalling a shift in accountability procedures: an exploration of the implications for school leaders in Wales

After a period of increased, centralised, accountability pressures on schools in Wales, the Welsh Government has recently signalled to stakeholders that it will be pursuing a different course, ‘relaxing’ the use of key performance indicators for five years, and possibly ‘pausing’ HMI activity for a year. The reasoning given is that schools will not be able to embrace the innovative demands of the new curriculum that is currently being developed under the existing accountability structures. Thus, the Welsh Government is seeking explicitly to licence risk-taking by schools, prioritising longer term curriculum and pedagogical gains over perhaps a shorter term, KPI-influenced strategy.
This presentation will explore the significance of this change of direction through emerging findings of research currently being conducted. This research, into perceptions of trust, accountability and autonomy held by head teachers and systems leaders in Wales, is still in process, but is already indicating a divergence in the ways the implications of this development are being interpreted. Head teachers are optimistically looking forward to new ways of leading their schools. Systems leaders, who in Wales have a key role to play in the current accountability system, are rather more circumspect.