Headteachers’ Perceptions of

Autonomy in Academies

Lucy Crehan

1. Introduction

2. The policy context 2.1. The decline of the public2.2. A brief history of school management2.3. Academies under the coalition

3. Literature review 3.1. Leadership and management3.2. Compliance and resistance 3.3. The coalition and their Academies

4. Conceptual framework 4.1. Conceptions of individual autonomy

4.2. Conceptions of institutional autonomy4.3. An inventory of autonomy

5. Methodology

5.1. Research design5.1.1. Research questions

5.1.2. Theoretical underpinning5.1.3. Strategy of inquiry5.1.4. Methods

5.2. Data collection5.2.1. Contact, practicalities and ethics5.2.2. The headteachers

5.3. Data analysis

6. Case studies 6.1. Mr Naylor6.2. Mr Delmar6.3. Mr Lattimore

6.4. Mr Waite6.5. Mrs Elms

7. Discussion7.1. Institutional autonomy – do they have more of it?7.2. Substantive and procedural freedoms – a useful

distinction?7.3. Operational and educational autonomy – a new

distinction7.4. Philosophical autonomy – the differences between

headteachers

8. Conclusion

IntroductionAcademies are described by the Department for Education

(DfE) as “publicly funded independent schools” (DfE, 2013a)

which have “greater freedoms to innovate and raise

standards”.

There were only 203 Academies when the coalition government

first came to power in 2010, but since then, the number has

risen dramatically, with 3,049 Academy Schools open in

England as of the 1st of July, 2013 (DfE, 2013b). Although

this figure means that only 13% of schools are Academies,

the uptake of secondary schools converting has been much

higher than for primary schools, and Academies make up over

half of the secondary schools in England.

This expansion of the Academies programme was deliberate

government policy, and the rationale given for this in the

Schools White Paper (DfE, 2010) was based around the concept

of autonomy. It reads “Across the world, the case for the

benefits of school autonomy has been established beyond

doubt” (p. 11), and “In this country, the ability of schools

to decide their own ethos and chart their own destiny has

been severely constrained by government guidance,

Ministerial interference and too much bureaucracy” (p. 11).

The intention laid out in the White Paper was therefore to

give schools “greater freedom” through Academy status. These

greater freedoms officially cover four areas; freedom from

local authority control, the ability to set their own pay

and conditions for staff, freedoms around the delivery of

the curriculum, and the ability to change the lengths of

terms and school days.

However, a number of academics (Berry, 2012; Fisher, 2012;

Ranson, 2012) have suggested that the increased autonomy

granted to Academies is a myth, and that actually power is

centralised in the hands of the Secretary of State to a

greater extent than it has been before. They argue that the

new freedoms granted to Academies are meaningless in a

context where Ofsted and performance tables continue to hold

schools accountable to the state based on narrowly defined

outcomes. And before Academies existed, other academics

(Lima & Afonso, 1995; Olsen, 2009; Wright, 2003) argued that

schools and other institutions were operating under reduced

autonomy, not due to the bureaucracy or interfering

authorities that the White Paper accused of reducing

autonomy, but due to external rating agencies and targets.

This research will investigate the perceptions of Academy

headteachers on the subject of school autonomy, and will ask

to what extent they feel the school has greater autonomy

since converting to Academy status. It will limit its scope

to the perceptions of headteachers of Converter Academies

(schools that convert independently) rather than Sponsored

Academies (schools that are managed by a Sponsor), as the

autonomy in question (school autonomy) regards the

relationship between individual schools and the state,

rather than the headteacher autonomy taken or granted to

headteachers by their individual Sponsors. This thesis will

also attempt to establish and test a conceptual framework

for researching autonomy, as the concept is multi-faceted,

and some disagreement may therefore be due to people talking

past one another and understanding different things by the

term.

Given the controversy surrounding the topic of school

autonomy, I think it is also valuable to outline what this

thesis will not do. It will not attempt to evaluate the

success of the Academies programme; it will not attempt to

evaluate the effectiveness of school autonomy in terms of

exam results; and it will not attempt to judge whether or

not school autonomy is a good thing. I will be taking

Hammersley’s (1999) approach to research, which is to

attempt to provide knowledge of what is (the extent to which

Academies have autonomy) without making a judgement on what

should or should not be. I acknowledge that my previous

experience as a teacher in an Academy will affect the way I

interpret information, but I will try as much as possible to

question my assumptions, and to provide an account of

autonomy in Academies which is true to the perceptions of

the headteachers I interview.

The policy context

The expansion of Academies under the coalition government

cannot be seen in isolation from the educational policy that

preceded it or the public policy context that it arose from.

Although historical policy context always has some effect on

what policies are put forward and passed into law, this is

especially the case with the latest version of Academies.

Ranson (2012) goes as far as to suggest that through the

coalition’s schools policy "the regime is completing the

formations of a marketised system unfolding in stages for 25

years" (Ranson, 2012, p. 188).

In this section I will give a brief account of the major

changes to the structure of the public sector over the past

thirty years, as described by prominent social theorists,

before exploring how these changes are demonstrated within

the education sector. I will then outline current policy

context under the coalition government, with a particular

focus on their Academies policy.

The decline of the public

In ‘The Decline of the Public’, Marquand (2004) argues that

the public – the aspect of our social lives in which we act

as citizens and pursue the public interest – has been under

continued attack from governments pushing market solutions

to its problems. Seven years earlier, Ball had similarly

argued that in both the UK and most other Western societies,

there had been “a major transformation in the organising

principles of social provision right across the public

sector” (Ball, 1997, p. 258) over the previous fifteen

years, and that this restructuring was articulated most

clearly in the ideological politics of Thatcherite

neoliberalism. This transformation was the outcome of a

number of processes, which between them dismantled the chain

associating the state with public policy, public services, a

public sector and a public ethos (Newman, 2007).

Throughout the 1980s and since, public services have been

outsourced to commercial organisations, reducing the scale

and reach of public sector organisations. Some services have

remained public, but Clark and Newman (1997) argue that the

culture and ideology of managerialism has introduced

business values even into these remaining public

organisations. One reason that the tone taken by many

theorists is one of concern is the belief that these values

displace others, as argued here by Bottery; “When this

happens, private sector values, primarily those of

efficiency, effectiveness and economy, usually become the

criteria of success, and other values like care, trust and

equity increasingly become second-order" (Bottery, 2006, p.

7). Newman (2007) suggests that the codified ethos of a

common ethic of public service that relies on the latter

values has been eroded by the attack on bureaucracy as an

organisational form. This is attack is explained by Ball as

being due to the view that bureaucratic control systems are

“unwieldy, counter-productive for efficiency and repressive

of the 'enterprising spirit' of all employees” (Ball, 1997,

p. 259).

A new performance culture has also emerged as part of the

neoliberal restructuring, along with a discourse of

transparency, and new policies designed to hold

professionals in the public sector accountable to the public

(Newman, 2007). However, although a neoliberal emphasis on

market values would advocate public sector employees being

held entirely accountable to the public, the public voice is

highly mediated by the government through inspections and

audits; a new technology of state control which (Kickert,

1995) calls ‘steering at a distance’. Newman (2001) has

argued this leads to tensions within organisations, which

have to reconcile community goals with governmental targets

and imperatives.

Finally, both Ball (2001) and Newman (2007) have argued that

a technocratic discourse of ‘what works’ has emerged,

subordinating ethical or values based considerations about

what the purpose or goals of an organisation should be in

favour of government defined goals. This has become a

familiar criticism of education reform in England, and it is

to this area that we now turn.

A brief history of school management

All of the processes outlined above can be seen in the

education sector to a greater or lesser extent (see Ball,

2008 for a discussion of this), and in other Western

industrialised countries too (Bottery, 2006). Here I will

track these changes in just one area of policy – the

management of schools – as it relates to the Academies

programme.

Education was considered central to public policy in the

post-war period, and the 1944 Education Act (also known as

the Butler Act) sought to establish a national education

service (Ranson, 2008). The act divided the responsibility

for education between central government, local education

authorities (LEAs) and schools, and strengthened the role of

central government (creating a minister of education for the

first time) but made the management of schools primarily the

LEA’s responsibility (Chitty, 2009). The LEA could establish

schools, controlled their ‘secular instruction’, decided on

the lengths of the school day and terms and appointed

teachers, but they didn’t have absolute direction over

schools; institutions were granted ‘quasi-autonomous status’

(Ranson, 2008) under the guidance of a governing body.

The next major change in the structure of the education

system (and the structure of the wider public sector as

discussed above) came in the 1980s, when various education

acts under the conservative administration took away some of

the LEA’s responsibility and gave more power to head

teachers and governors. The 1988 Education Reform Act in

particular is believed to be a very significant event in the

history of English education. Barker suggests that this

legislation “inaugurated an era of energetic, large-scale

reform that has lasted for 20 years and continues to pervade

every aspect of education”(Barker, 2008, p. 669), and Ranson

similarly highlights its importance calling it “the most

radical reconstitution of the governance of education since

the Second World War” (Ranson, 2008; 201).

This act gave schools far greater control in what became

known as ‘local management of schools’. Under Margaret

Thatcher, schools were given the power to manage most of the

school budget (determined on the basis of an allocation

formula), and school governors became responsible for the

appointment and dismissal of staff (Chitty, 2009). The act

also put into place incentives and structures that made the

schools system into a quasi-market, increasing the decision

making power of schools, but making them more accountable to

the public (one of the processes described above) by giving

parents more choice, and publishing exam data to create more

transparency.

However, as fits the more general public sector trend as

described by Newman (2007), schools weren’t held accountable

solely by the public; the 1988 Education Act also introduced

a centralised and nationalised curriculum and testing

arrangements. In this way, it has been argued that the 1988

Education Act was designed around an inherent tension

between centralisation and devolution (Bridges &

MacLaughlin, 1994), granting ‘autonomy’ to schools in one

sense, and diminishing it in another.

The act also made provision for the establishment of Grant

Maintained (GM) Schools and City Technology Colleges (CTCs).

GM schools were existing schools that could opt out of Local

Authority control and receive grants directly from central

government, giving them complete financial autonomy (Chitty,

2009). This policy is remarkably similar to the new

Academies policy under the coalition government, and Baker

(2010) has argued that Academies are essentially grant-

maintained schools, rebranded for the new century. CTCs were

also introduced, which were new schools (although sometimes

on the site of an existing, failing school) that were also

directly funded by central government, but received a fifth

of their capital costs from businesses acting as sponsors.

However, only 15 of these CTCs were established.

It is beyond the scope of this essay to consider in any

detail the philosophy behind New Labour’s education reforms.

Nevertheless, there is a general consensus that the neo-

liberal paradigm continued to influence policy, and that the

marketisation of education continued throughout the New

Labour years, (Ball, 2008; Barker, 2008; Ranson, 2003)

albeit with an additional (and perhaps contradictory) strand

focusing on the need for integrated children’s services

(Ranson, 2008).

With regards to school structures, New Labour introduced

City Academies (the ‘city’ was later dropped), announced by

David Blunkett in 2000. These public-private partnerships

were modelled on the Conservative’s CTCs in that businesses

or charities would build and manage them, but the donation

required was smaller (approximately £2 million). The

Academies Commission (2013) helpfully distinguishes between

three models of Academies, as their nature has changed since

their introduction under Labour.

Mark I sponsored Academies were on the site of ‘failing’

schools, which were shut down and re-opened as academies.

Sponsors could rename the school, control the board of

governors and influence the curriculum. In 2006, the nature

of Academies changed (henceforth described as Mark II

sponsored Academies) as it was decided that businesses did

not have to provide as much of a contribution to sponsor a

school (later dropping to no contribution required from

2008), but tighter control was introduced over the

curriculum, target setting and the submission of plans. Mark

III Academies were very different in nature, and were

introduced by the coalition government.

Academies under the coalition

By May 2010 when the current coalition government came to

power, there were 203 Academies. The current education

secretary Michael Gove embraced the Academies programme, and

the 2010 Academies Act broadened its scope. Whereas under

Labour, only failing schools became Academies, and all of

these were sponsored, under the coalition government ‘good’

and ‘outstanding’ schools are also encouraged to become

Academies, with or without a sponsor (Academies Mark III).

This has led to a massive increase in the number of

Academies; as of the 1st July 2013, 3049 Academies were open

in England.

Good or outstanding schools that ‘convert’ to Academy status

are generally known as ‘converter’ Academies. However, this

is a misleading term, as the school doesn’t actually change

its status; it just changes its management. To become an

Academy, the management and ownership of a school is taken

over by a trust, which enters into a contract with the DfE

to run the school. Staff, assets and land are transferred

from the school and LEA to the trust. In the case of

sponsored Academies, this trust is the sponsor (usually a

charity or a business). In the case of converter Academies

which don’t want to be sponsored, the school sets up its own

Academy Trust, which then enters into a contract with the

DfE to run the school.

This has two major implications. It means that the school is

then not in the control of the local authority in any way,

but entirely in the control of the Academy Trust, which is

held directly accountable to the DfE. Academies have freedom

over the curriculum and the length of the school day which

they didn’t have before. It also means the proportion of the

school funds that used to go directly to the local authority

to run services for all the maintained schools in the

borough goes straight to the school, and the school can

decide whether or not to buy back these local authority

services.

Literature review

Before I begin reviewing the literature on school autonomy

and headteachers’ perceptions of it, I must make a short

note on scope. The focus of this thesis is headteachers’

perspectives on school autonomy, not headteacher autonomy.

School autonomy can take can take many forms, and can

encompass many different power distributions within a

school. These range from having a strong governing body that

sets the direction for the school and holds the head teacher

strictly accountable to their vision, to a school in which

all decisions are voted on by the student body (for example,

Summerhill).

There are correspondingly a number of different models of

school leadership, including those that see the headteacher

as being a strong leader that sets a vision and makes

decisions regarding the direction of the school (Heck &

Hallinger, 1999; Leithwood, 1992), and those that do not

(Huber & West, 2002; Bush, 2003; Spillane, 2005). An example

of the latter is the collegial model of educational

leadership (Bush, 2003), which assumes that professionals

within an organisation have a right to share in the wider

decision making process, therefore taking away some of the

decision making responsibility from the headteacher.

However, I will not attempt in this research to investigate

the power structures within schools, as my aim is rather to

explore to what extent there is the space for schools to

have substantive autonomy (in any configuration), and to

what extent external influences mandate certain goals and

preference certain values. My focus is therefore on the

relationship between the school and external influences

rather than on relationships between individuals within the

school.

I have chosen to interview headteachers to get their

perspectives on this, because they are well placed to

comment on the influence of external factors on school

leadership and management, whether or not they themselves

are the main decision makers (although research suggests

that in secondary schools they most commonly are, even in

schools that profess to follow a collegial model, e.g. van

Oord, 2013). There is also evidence to suggest that

headteachers mediate the affects of policy on their staff

and their schools (Thomson, 2008; Hammersley-Fletcher &

Qualter, 2009), making them particularly significant

individuals to hear from in respect to the question of

school autonomy. Bottery (2013) agrees that “the role of

headteacher, even within such a distributed perspective, is

a critical one, and that the thoughts and feelings of people

in this role need to be understood” (p. 44). The literature

review will therefore focus on research and theory that

explores the relationship between schools and external

influences, and in particular research on headteachers’

perspectives on these influences.

Leadership and management

It has been argued that with the increasing centralisation

of power in the education system over the last thirty years,

and the introduction of the New Public Management described

above, there has been a rise of managerialism in schools

(Gewirtz, 2001), and in particular headteacher managerialism

(Hatcher, 2006). At the same time, there has been increased

use of the concept of leadership in the education discourse

(Gunter, 2011), which Hall (2013) suggests is a "strange

turn of events" (p. 3) in the context of New Public

Management, as the term ‘leadership’ implies an agency which

is reduced in such a context. Wright (2001) similarly argues

that although the rhetoric of leadership is very much

present in the official publications, the model of

leadership being described is not really leadership.

Wright (2001) explains the distinction between leadership

and management by comparing them to the distinction between

the North American uses of the terms ‘administration’ and

‘management’. Whereas administration is essentially

philosophical, matters of management are ‘scientific’ or

‘technico-rational’. Whereas ‘administration’ is about ends,

‘management’ is about means. Wright’s accusation is that the

type of leadership propounded in official documentation then

(in 2001) was ‘bastard leadership’ - leadership in name only

- because the “moral and value underpinning for the

direction of schools” (p. 278) was no longer located at the

school level, but at the government level.

According to Clarke and Newman (1997), managerialism

presents what seems like a value-free, rational approach, in

which “competing values are reduced to alternative sets of

options and costs and assessed against their contributions

to the organisation’s performance” (p. 66), and in which

headteachers are to concern themselves with the means to

reach government set targets rather than deciding on ends

and values themselves. Although these concepts and theories

were introduced to describe the culture in the 1990s and

early 2000s, they are useful tools for exploring whether a

similar culture pervades now under the coalition government,

or whether the Academies programme has given schools more

autonomy to set their own goals.

Empirical research on these issues suggests that the matter

was not quite so clear cut, even under the New Labour

administration which was known for “increasing central

steerage of the system” (Whitty, 2010, p. 407). Campbell,

Gold, and Lunt (2003) interviewed six headteachers about

their values and leadership, and reported that these

headteachers remained “committed to their personal,

professional and educational values” (p. 203) despite

external pressures, and Gold (2003) directly challenged

Wright’s (2001) claim that school leaders were forced to

practice ‘bastard leadership’ based on close observations of

ten ‘outstanding’ principals.

Gold (2003) reported that these principals were still deeply

committed to and driven by their values, and that these

values were not managerial and driven by market principles,

but were social democratic in nature. She suggested that the

principals were avoiding doing bastard leadership by

mediating government policy through their own values

systems, and concluded that “a simple shift from welfarism

to new managerialism (Gewirtz & Ball, 2000) was not

apparent” (p. 136). This would suggest that headteachers are

showing true leadership rather than 'bastard leadership'

despite Wright’s (2001) assertion that the context did not

allow this. At a school level though, headteachers have

their own agency, and do not necessarily blindly follow

policies or directives from government.

Compliance and resistance

The debate between Gold and Wright implies that either all

headteachers are showing ‘bastard leadership’ or they’re

not, but it is a mistake to assume that external policies

will affect all schools and all heads in the same way, as

the effects of these policies may depend on individual

personalities and differing school contexts. Bottery (2007)

for example investigated the perceptions of English primary

headteachers about the affects of target setting and

external pressure on schools, and found that contrary to

much of the preceding literature, “it is not sensible to

suggest either that headteachers have considerable

flexibility in how they approach their work, nor that they

are so ground down by legislative imperatives that they can

do little more than be agents of implementation” (p. 89). He

found that there was significant variation in the responses

of the headteachers, dependent on their personality and the

context they worked in.

One factor Bottery (2007) found affected headteachers’

responses to external pressures (specifically Ofsted) was

how long they had been in the job; more experienced

headteachers felt more able to assert themselves and exert a

‘personal steer’. Other factors were the performance and

financial situation of the school; those who ran schools

with poor SATs results felt they were less able to focus on

the main goals of the school, concentrating instead on

paperwork, and those with less money felt they had very

little room for manoeuvre. These headteachers’ came from a

great range of types of primary schools (although none were

Academies), which might explain the range in responses. This

study will focus on a different type of school and a

narrower range (secondary converter Academies) so it remains

to be seen whether this variety in responses will remain, or

whether Academy status gives more autonomy across the board

as promised in the White Paper.

Hammersley-Fletcher and Qualter (2009a) argue that the

impact of neoliberalisation on professional freedom varies

depending on the institution, according to the extent to

which 'neoliberal agendas' reach into them. In their

interviews with eighty-six members of staff from fourteen

schools on just one area of policy change (workforce

remodeling) they found that the effect of the policy on

staff depended on how it was mediated by school leaders

(Hammersley‐Fletcher & Qualter, 2009b), thus leading them to

describe the neoliberal influence as 'lopsided' at the level

of individual schools.

In this case, even those school leaders who ‘mediated’

policy were still implementing required changes, just in a

collegial way. We could therefore accuse them of practicing

‘bastard leadership’ and simply deciding on the means by

which to reach government given goals, but this would be

based on a conception of headteachers potential responses as

a simple dichotomy of compliance or resistance, which

(Thomson, 2008) warns against. Thomson (2008) illustrates

the complexity of headteachers responses to policy with the

example of Holly Tree Primary School in the Midlands, and

their response to Literacy Hour. They refused to conform and

timetable a daily slot called ‘Literacy’, because the

headteacher and most senior staff believed this would

actually decrease time on Literacy. They felt confident that

they could do this without being ‘picked off’ because their

results were good, and because the lead inspector came in

and said they didn’t need to if their results were good.

However, this meant that performance in tests and

inspections were important at Holly Tree, as a failure to do

well on these would threaten school autonomy and bring

unwanted interference. Thomson (2008) concludes

“paradoxically, in order to buck the system, they had to

show that they did not” (p. 91).

Hoyle and Wallace (2007) extend the typology of headteachers

responses to policy initiatives to include compliance, non-

compliance and mediation. Compliance is when a leader

accepts the goals and means of the reform movement, whether

enthusiastically or without positive comment. Non-compliance

encompasses a range of responses from a defiant rejection of

the reforms, to disengagement and a ‘head in the sand

approach’ (ignoring the reforms and hoping they will go

away). Mediation or ‘principled infidelity’ is described as

an antidote to "overwhelming policy initiatives" and the

"excesses of managerialism to which these give rise" (p. 9).

This term captures the attempts to adapt the policy

imperative in their day to day responses to meet the needs

of the pupils in their care. This mediation is called

‘principled infidelity’ by the authors because these

headteachers seek to sustain their professional values, and

at the same time to not ‘slavishly adhere’ to expectations

(though neither do they reject them outright).

However, despite including this third category, Hoyle and

Wallace’s (2007) typology is not nuanced enough to

distinguish between headteachers who adhere to expectations

for different reasons. Both Hoyle and Wallace (2007) and

Thomson (2008) talk about compliance, which covers any

headteacher who does what is expected of them and implements

required policies. What isn’t included in these typologies

is the response of those headteachers who meet the

expectations and implement policies, not because it is

required or expected of them, but because they believe it to

be the right thing. This response is described elsewhere by

Hoyle and Wallace (2005) when school leaders “become so

acculturated to the vision articulated by policy makers that

they are totally committed to achieving it” (p. 68), and it

will be referred to here as identification , while the

original term of compliance from Hoyle and Wallace (2007)

will be reserved for situations where headteachers do what

is required of them despite not believing in it.

The coalition and their Academies

Despite concluding that the principals in her study showed

values based leadership, Gold (2003) did question whether

developments in the English education system (particularly

the emphasis on school outcomes and target setting) would

allow the social democratic values found in the case studies

to continue to flourish. Ten years later, a new

administration is in control of the education system, whose

White Paper claims to “increase freedom and autonomy for all

schools” (DfE, 2010, p. 12). What does the research show

about autonomy in schools since 2010?

Berry (2012) analysed four key coalition texts on education,

and finds that they do not contain any explanation of how

the structural changes to the education system will lead to

greater freedom or autonomy for schools when they’re still

held to account to centralised power. This seems a strange

thing to say when Academies explicitly have freedoms over

curriculum and the school day that they didn’t before, but

it is clear that Berry is conceptualising freedom and

autonomy in a broader sense than these purely procedural

freedoms.

Berry (2012) quotes Braverman (1974) to explain his

understanding of the freedom schools have under the

coalition’s Academies policy;

“When Braverman talks of workers who ‘have the illusion of

making decisions by choosing among fixed and limited

alternatives designed by a management which deliberately

leaves insignificant matters open to choice’ (Braverman,

1974, p.39) this is a perfect characterisation of the

actions of the Coalition Government: a limited freedom, it

appears, is the reward for doing as you’re told” (Berry,

2012, p282).

Ranson (2012) and Fisher (2012) also argue that the

suggestion that Academies have more autonomy is a myth, and

that actually power is more centralised than ever before.

Ranson points out that the 2010 Academies Act and the 2011

Education Act both granted the Secretary of State new

powers, and he/she now has control over the essential

characteristics of the system, including finance,

institutional form, curriculum, admissions, assessment and

accountability. Berry adds that the existence of Ofsted and

league tables based on narrowly defined outcomes ensure that

schools are still in the control of the state, especially as

there are state enforced consequences to failing at either

of these measures.

However, some accountability for schools is necessary, and

Ranson, Fisher and Berry are silent on the matter of whether

schools offering a poor education should be interfered with.

Autonomy for schools cannot be an unqualified good where

this is a reality or even a possibility, but Ranson also has

a more specific objection than a general railing against

government interference in schools. This is the claim and

the objection that it is the Secretary of State making

decisions about what is to be valued in education, rather

than the members of the school or the local community

(Ranson, 2012).

Fisher (2012) gives a clear example of this in his

discussion of the EBac. This was a new measure introduced

into the school league tables in 2011, which records the

percentage of pupils who get a C or above in Maths, English,

Science, a language and a humanity (where only History or

Geography count). These subjects were chosen to be included

by the DfE without any consultation, and achieving the EBac

does not confer any new qualification or certification on

the pupils that take it. As such, Fisher (2012) argues its

only purpose is to control head teachers and governors. If

the purpose is to inform parents, the DfE’s performance

tables should allow ranking of schools by any combination of

subjects as chosen by parents, but this is not a function on

the website.

So far the articles reviewed have been theoretical rather

than empirical, and the question remains whether head

teachers feel this pressure from the market, or from DfE

initiatives to prioritise centrally defined goals and

values, or whether they feel free from such external

constraint, and able to set and pursue their own goals, or

the goals of the community they serve.

Hall (2013) argues that there has been a 'near seamless

alignment' between the education reform programme in England

and the main features of new public management, which

includes the rise of managerialism in schools. However, the

research described article was carried out in 2009-2010, so

we are unable to see whether this is the case empirically.

Bottery, Ngai, Wong, and Wong (2013) similarly note that

there is little in the educational pronouncements of the

Coalition government to suggest a departure from the New

Labour view that “accountability drives everything” (p. 56),

and seem to think so little of the change in government that

they don’t mention when their headteacher interviews were

carried out, neither do they ask the headteachers about this

change at all.

Most of the research on the Academies programme itself is on

Academies under New Labour (Academies Mark I and II) which

are substantially different from converter Academies under

the Coalition, and it may be that the lack of research on

converter Academies is simply due to the recency of the

reforms and the time it takes to conduct, write up and

publish research. This therefore makes this research

unprecedented in terms of the type of schools being studied,

and so the question of whether headteachers feel they have

autonomy in Academy schools is very much an open one. Before

we address this question however, it is necessary to

consider what is meant by autonomy, and to distinguish

between different conceptions of the concept.

Conceptual framework

The word autonomy has its etymological origins in two

ancient greek words, ‘auto’ and ‘nomos’ meaning ‘self’ and

‘rule’, so its literal meaning is self-rule. However,

although at first glance this translation doesn’t seem too

dissimilar to more modern understandings of the term, on a

closer inspection it is difficult to define because it is

used in many contexts, to mean different things. Dworkin

writes that autonomy is

“used in an exceedingly broad fashion. It is used sometimes

as an equivalent of liberty... sometimes as an equivalent to

self-rule or sovereignty, sometimes as identical to freedom

of the will... it is identified with self-assertion, with

critical reflection, with freedom from obligation, with

absence of external causation, with knowledge of one’s own

interests” (Dworkin, 1988, p. 6)

As such, many have argued that in fact there isn’t a unified

conception of autonomy; rather there are many different

conceptions of one concept (Feinberg, 1986; Lindley, 1986;

Olsen, 2009). What I will attempt to do here is provide a

conceptual framework to use when investigating school

autonomy which takes into account both the important

features of philosophical conceptions of individual autonomy

(those that are relevant when applied to institutions), and

the conceptual distinctions made by others in their

discussions of institutional autonomy.

Conceptions of individual autonomy

For Kant, to be autonomous means to be rational, and free

from influences external to the rational will such as greed,

jealousy and fear. What is particular about Kant’s

understanding of rationality is he believes that reason

alone gives you a reason to act, and that you are only truly

autonomous if you act in the way that reason dictates.

However, this belief that being rational leads to goals or

reasons to act (without any influence of sentiment or

emotion) was challenged by Hume . In a famous quote which

makes the force of his point known, he wrote “Tis not

unreasonable for me to prefer the destruction of the whole

world to the scratching of my finger.” He argues that

conclusions arrived at via the process of reasoning are

meaningless without the context of human interest to give it

purpose. Because of this essential separation between

abstract reasoning and the will, Hume concludes that reason

cannot dictate our will, it can only be used as a tool to

inform our decisions.

If we take Hume’s objection seriously (which I think we

must), then there can be no such thing as an objective goal

or value, which strips away the unique feature of Kant’s

definition of autonomy that made it a different from reason

alone. Reason and autonomy are clearly different concepts,

so to be autonomous must involve more than the capacity for

reason, if it includes it at all.

Two families of conditions often proffered in conceptions of

autonomy which relate to the two separate faculties outlined

by Hume are competency conditions and authenticity

conditions (shown in table 1, below). Competency conditions

include different capacities in different accounts, but

include the capacity for rational thought as suggested by

Kant, as well as the capacity for self-control, the capacity

for self-determination and freedom from debilitating

pathologies and systematic self-deception (Christman, 2011).

Authenticity conditions take into account the emotive

faculty, but require not just the existence of values and

goals, but the capacity to reflect on, identify with and

endorse these values and goals.

According to Castoriadis (1991), an autonomous society is

one in which individuals are able to call into question

their established norms, overcome their own social

conditioning and ask for themselves, ‘what is a good

society?’ To be autonomous, one must deliberate over the

ends of action, not only the means to get there. This is one

formulation of the capacity required to meet authenticity

conditions, and can be contrasted with Kant and Aristotle,

who assumed all humans had the same ends, and that we only

needed the competency to deliberate on how to reach them.

Autonomy

Authenticity

The capability to reflect on, identify with

and endorse values/goals.

Competency

The capability for rational thought and self-

determination allowing one to identify and

pursue the actions required to reach one’s

goals.

Table 1: Philosophical conceptions of autonomy

Conceptions of institutional autonomy

The use of the concept “institutional autonomy” is most

often found in the literature to refer to the autonomy of

universities. As they are educational institutions, this

suits the current purpose of establishing a definition of

autonomy (and distinguishing between different types) which

can be applied to secondary schools.

Institutional and de facto autonomy

Throughout the literature, institutional autonomy in the

context of universities is conceptualised with an emphasis

on ‘freedom from external influence’ which is less often

mentioned in the philosophical literature. For example, in

his discussion of institutional autonomy, Shirley (1984)

contrasts both institutional autonomy and individual

autonomy with government control, identifying institutional

autonomy with basic freedoms such as “the freedom within

general guidelines to define institutional mission, goals,

and strategies” (p. 219).

However, despite this emphasis on freedom, many authors also

recognise the ‘capability’ element of the concept too, and

bring this in by distinguishing between different types of

autonomy. Olsen (2009) makes a distinction between ‘legal

autonomy’ and ‘de facto’ autonomy. He points out that formal

organisation often allows for broad categories of practice,

but that this is not necessarily made use of, whereas de

facto autonomy “involves both the absence of external

interference and the capability of an agency or institution

to exploit available spaces to manoeuvre” (p. 442).

Askling, Bauer and Marton (1999) make a similar distinction

in their research into autonomy in Swedish universities

between institutional autonomy, “the degree of freedom a

university has to steer itself” and realised autonomy, in

which “the actor's autonomy is dependent upon the extent to

which he succeeds in exploiting his space of action and his

capacity for action in order to realise his own preferences”

(p. 181).

If we take these distinctions from the institutional

autonomy literature, and combine them with philosophical

understandings of autonomy, we are left with some useful

distinctions that we can take forward to use in research

into the autonomy of secondary Academies, which are

summarised in table 2. One further distinction must be made

however.

De facto autonomy

Philosophical autonomy (Autonomy as

capability)

Institutional autonomy

Authenticity Competency Freedom from external

control

Table 2: Distinguishing between philosophical and

institutional autonomy

The criticism of ‘selective’ conceptions of autonomy

In their analysis of school autonomy in Portugal, Lima and

Alfonso (1995) lament that autonomy has been the object of

‘semantic redefinition’ in rhetoric. They argue “It is no

longer an autonomy conceptualised in democratic terms and in

the power of decision, but a mitigated 'autonomy', re-

conceptualised in instrumental terms, a type of 'autonomy'

merely of process and of implementation” (p. 171).

Oslen (2009) makes a similar argument in his analysis of

autonomy as understood by New Public Management theory (NPM)

in which he argues that autonomy reforms have “propagated a

selective, and not always consistent, conception of

‘autonomy’ over the last few decades” (p. 443).

He outlines a ‘stylised argument of autonomy reforms’

inspired by NPM and neoliberal economic reform, which goes

like this; institutions in complex, competitive societies

require more flexibility and professional management, and

freedom from the constraints of bureaucracy if they are to

adapt and become more efficient and meet the needs of

society. They should therefore be free to make their own

decisions, and not micro-managed by government.

However, this argument continues that because people are

self-interested, there needs to be accountability and

control mechanisms along with this new ‘autonomy’, and

external quality control is therefore emphasised. The

government sets the output, or the measures by which the

institutions will be judged, and the professionals are then

left to get on with ‘managing’. In Oslen’s words, “arguably,

reformers conceptualise ‘autonomy’ as a management tool for

achieving efficiency” (p. 443).

Lima and Afonso (1995) argue that although institutions are

able to make day to day management decisions, the fact that

their ‘performance’ is measured against indicators that are

chosen externally to the institution means they are not able

to make decisions about their own goals or purpose. They

describe this as “An ‘autonomy' with the only objective of

finding the best means of locally realising the ends of a

(re)centralised educational policy” (p. 171).

This distinction between freedom from interference in

matters of means and ends is an important one, and the basis

for one further carving up of the concept.

Substantive and procedural autonomy

Berdahl’s (1990) distinction between substantive and

procedural autonomy gives a name to the type of ‘mitigated’

autonomy criticized by Olsen (2009) and Lima and Afonso

(1995) above, and the previous ‘un-mitigated’ version with

which it was contrasted.

“Substantive autonomy is the power of the university or

college in its corporate form to determine its own goals and

programmes - if you will, the what of academe. Procedural

autonomy is the power of the university or college in its

corporate form to determine the means by which its goals and

programmes will be pursued - the how of academe.” (Berdahl,

1990, p. 172)

These are similar concepts to ‘criteria power’ and

‘operational power’ (Winstanley, Sorabji, & Dawson, 1995),

with the former being the power to determine the ‘what’ and

‘why’ of service provision, and the latter being the power

to determine only the ‘how’. Lima and Afonso’s (1995)

complaint was that universities had procedural autonomy (or

operational power) but not substantive autonomy, as the

government held the criteria power.

In their lamentations about centralisation and the

government introducing performance indicators, Olsen (2009)

and Lima and Afonso (1995) are discussing the changing

nature of institutional autonomy, as it is something that

the state can grant or take away.

De facto autonomy

Philosophical autonomy

(Autonomy as capability)

Institutional autonomy

(Freedom from external control)

Authenticity Competency Substantive

freedom

Procedural

freedom

But rather than leaving the distinction as one between the

kinds of freedoms institutions have, it is explained in

terms of what the institutions can and cannot do, mindless

of the distinction between institutional and philosophical

autonomy which takes into account the rational capacity and

self-determination of the institution in question. Having

both procedural and substantive freedom can give you

institutional autonomy, but this is not true autonomy in the

philosophical sense if you don’t also have an authentic

vision, the rationality to see how to achieve it, and the

self-determination to pursue it.

An inventory for autonomy

In conclusion, we can distinguish between two types of

autonomy that between them take into account both

philosophical conceptions of the concept and conceptions

utilised in relation to institutions. Philosophical autonomy

is the disposition or agency to act to fulfil ones goals,

and includes authenticity and competency conditions.

Institutional autonomy is the freedom from external control,

and can be divided into procedural freedom and substantive

freedom.

De facto autonomy

Philosophical autonomy

(Autonomy as capability)

Institutional autonomy

(Freedom from external control)

Authenticity

The capability to

reflect on, identify

with and endorse

values/goals.

Competency

The capability for

rational thought

and self-

determination

allowing one to

identify and pursue

the actions

required to reach

one’s goals.

Substantive

freedom

Freedom from external

influence over the

means to reach goals.

Procedural

freedom

Freedom from external

influence over the ends

which you aim for.

Table 3: An inventory for autonomy based on the literature

Methodology

Research design

Cresswell (2009) suggests that a research design can be

broken down into three components; philosophical worldview,

strategy of enquiry and methods, and describes worldviews as

“a general orientation about the world and the nature of

research that the researcher holds” (p. 6). I will discuss

each of these components in turn, following my research

questions.

Research Questions

My research questions are based on the conceptual framework

laid out above. There is one over-arching question, and two

sub-questions based around the types of autonomy that

Academies have.

What are headteachers’ perceptions of the amount of

autonomy their schools have before and after Academy

conversion?

Institutional autonomy: To what extent do Academies

have freedom from external control?

Philosophical autonomy: How do headteachers respond to

the freedoms available to them or the constraints

remaining?

Theoretical underpinnings

As half of my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, I see

professing a worldview as a significant and meaningful task;

one which I will attempt to do justice to in the limited

space available here. As the other half was in Psychology, I

came to Cambridge with certain ontological and

epistemological assumptions which have been called into

question throughout the course, and I will therefore briefly

track the changes in my thinking.

The majority of the research I had studied before starting

this Masters degree was located in the Postpositivist

tradition. The assumptions behind most experimental

Psychology research are that there is an objective reality

that exists independently of human perception, and that

although we can’t ever claim to find absolute truth, we can

get close to it through objective research. The methods were

therefore mainly quantitative, and researchers sought to

keep variables constant to allow them to control for the

effects of different contexts, and generalise their findings

beyond their original sample.

I’ve been introduced to research on this course that is

based in a very different tradition. At risk of

oversimplifying, this research was more often located in the

traditions of social constructivism and critical research

paradigms that typically take a qualitative approach to

research. What is particularly interesting though is not

just the difference in methods used, but the differences in

underlying ontologies and epistemologies between the

qualitative and quantitative approaches, that are often

pitted against each other in what has been described as

‘paradigm wars’ (Bryman, 2006; Feilzer, 2010). Whereas

positivists and postpositivists believe in an objective

reality to be discovered, social constructionists (to take

one example of the qualitative approach) believe that

meanings are constructed by human beings, and are therefore

varied and multiple (Creswell, 2009). For some qualitative

researchers, this leads to a relativist view that there is

no objective reality; only different meanings constructed in

different contexts.

While I do still believe in an objective reality when it

comes to the material world, this qualitative approach has

highlighted three important issues that I have kept in mind

during my research. These issues are all born from

assumptions which underlie the social constructivist

approach (according to Crotty, 1998), so I locate my

research within the social constructivist paradigm. I agree

that people construct different meanings and understandings

of the social world through their interactions with others,

and this has led me to appreciate the complexity of views

and the differences in opinion, rather than looking only for

themes. I appreciate that these understandings are

contextually and historically specific, so I have treated

each participant as a case study and examined the context of

their school through visiting and reading school literature.

I have also become much more aware of my role as a

researcher, and that my own background and assumptions about

a topic affect the way I interpret what others say, so I

have tried to be reflexive throughout my research.

Reflexivity can have several purposes. It is usually

associated with “a critical reflection on the practice and

process of research and the role of the researcher”

(Lichtman, 2012, p235), but having become aware of their

values and positionalities, different researchers use this

awareness in different ways. Although all qualitative

researchers recognize the crucial role of the researcher as

an instrument for interpreting the data, and recognize the

potential influence of their own values and views on their

interpretation, some accept this and celebrate the role of

the self (e.g. Fook, 1996, cited in Lichtman, 2013) whereas

others try and reduce this bias by recognizing it, in order

to represent the subjects’ perceptions as closely as

possible (e.g. Cresswell, 1997). I have taken the latter

approach, as although I recognize that my own positionality

will inevitably have some influence on my findings, I am

interested in headteachers’ perspectives, and want to see

and report these as clearly as I can.

I have therefore reflected on my own characteristics and

experiences that have shaped my views on the effect of

education policy initiatives in schools, and have kept a

research diary throughout my research, documenting my own

responses to literature and interviews. This desire has

also affected my approach to data collection and analysis,

as I included completely open questions in my interviews,

and coded all of the data so that I was not able to miss

anything that did not fit in with my own opinions or

expectations.

Strategy of inquiry

A multiple case study approach has been chosen to explore

headteachers’ perceptions of autonomy in their Academies.

Yin, (2009) gives several conditions of a study which

suggest a case study design would be appropriate, three of

which apply in this case. The focus of the research is a

‘how’ or ‘why’ question (in this case, how does Academy

status affect headteachers’ perceptions of their schools

autonomy); you can’t manipulate the behaviour of the

participants (I can’t and neither would I want to); and you

want to cover contextual conditions because you believe they

are relevant to the phenomenon under study (this comes from

taking a social constructivist approach).

Baxter and Jack (2008) warn that a common pitfall in

qualitative case studies is for researchers to attempt to

ask a question that is too broad, and suggest placing

boundaries on a case to prevent this from happening. In this

study, the unit of analysis or ‘case’ is the perception of a

headteacher on autonomy in their school following Academy

conversion, and I will be taking a multiple case study

approach and conducting five case studies. However, this

still needs more boundaries, as without these the cases

could range from headteachers of sponsored Academies to

headteachers of converter Academies, and from headteachers

of primary schools to headteachers of secondary schools. As

these would include vastly different issues and be very

difficult to compare, I am narrowing my cases to include

only secondary headteachers of converter Academies.

Yin (2009) and Stake (1995) both distinguish between a

number of types of case studies. Yin (2009) distinguishes

between explanatory, exploratory and descriptive case

studies, and between single, holistic and multiple case

studies, whereas Stake (1995) identifies them as intrinsic,

instrumental or collective. Both distinctions are useful. By

Yin’s (2009) categories, the current study is a descriptive

multiple case study, as I have sought to describe a

phenomenon in the real life contexts in which it has

occurred, rather than to find causal links or to explore an

intervention with no specific focus (I am looking

specifically at autonomy). By Stake’s (1995) categories,

this study is an instrumental one, as I am not intrinsically

interested in the particular headteachers chosen, rather I

am interested in them because they provide an insight into

the issue of the Academies policy in general, and its

effects in different contexts. It is also collective, as I

am examining more than one case.

Methods

The main method of data collection in this study was semi-

structured interviews. Interviews were chosen because the

alternative approaches to getting headteachers’ perspectives

were either limited, inaccurate or unethical. One option

would be to analyse official statements by headteachers’ in

newsletters which mentioned the schools decision to convert

to Academy status, but this would lack depth, and also be

very prone to inaccuracies, as what headteachers declare

publically may not be what they think privately. Interviews

in private with guaranteed anonymity allow considerable

depth, and overcome social desirability bias to a greater

extent (although not completely). The only way to completely

overcome this bias would be to record private conversations,

which would of course be completely unethical. Ethical

matters are discussed in more detail below.

Semi-structured interviews were chosen rather than

unstructured interviews, as the case studies were

descriptive rather than exploratory, so the research

questions required that certain issues were addressed.

However, once these main questions were asked, the

interviews became much less structured, and subsequent

questions were in response to the participants’ comments in

a way that was guided by their output, rather than a pre-

planned schedule. This meant that although all participants

were asked to comment on some of the same things, the rest

of what was discussed varied widely, and a question was

included at the end asking whether there was anything else

they’d like to discuss, to ensure nothing on the topic

remained unsaid for lack of opportunity. The interview

schedule was therefore was most similar to what is described

by Gall, Gall and Borg (2003) as the ‘general interview

guide approach’ in that there was some structure but also

flexibility and adaptability.

Clearly headteacher interviews alone will not provide the

basis to draw conclusions about the extent to which

headteachers behaviour and decision making is affected by

external policy, or how much autonomy schools truly have,

but this was not the intention. The aim here was to get

headteachers perceptions of these pressures and their

affects on the running of the school, and this in itself is

valuable for two reasons; first because it will approximate

to the former questions (hence the case studies being

defined as ‘instrumental) with some caveats, and second

because headteachers perceptions in themselves can determine

behaviour (Bottery, 2007), as you are more likely to take

risks and be innovative if you believe that the school does

have autonomy.

The aforementioned caveats are threefold. One limitation of

using interviews generally is social desirability bias –

participants may be selective or untruthful in their answers

in order to present a desired impression of themselves. This

may have been the case in this study, as headteachers may

have wanted to appear confident with respect to external

pressures, and not admit fear or worries if they had any.

The reason I think this may be a particular possibility in

this study is due to the relationship between the

interviewer and the interviewee; I presented as a former

teacher (hence potential employee), and I am young and

female, whereas four of the five headteachers interviewed

were men. It is therefore possible that gendered behaviours

played a role in their responses.

A second potential limitation with interviews is lack of

truthfulness due to the fear that comments on sensitive

topics may be leaked beyond the interviewer. This is an

important consideration here, as the questions asked were

highly sensitive considering their role as a public figure,

and certain comments if heard by the wrong people could have

negative consequences for the heads or their schools. This

limitation was partly dealt with due to the assurance of

complete anonymity. Nevertheless, there was still some

evidence of headteachers holding back or choosing their

words carefully, for example, “how shall I phrase this…”.

A final caveat is not a limitation to understanding

headteachers’ perceptions (so not a concern for the main

aims of the study), but a limitation to approximating their

actual behaviour from their perceptions. Even if we could be

sure that headteachers were being entirely truthful in the

interviews, it does not follow that we could be sure they

actually act in the way they think they do. Their

perceptions of the interaction between external pressures

and the day to day running of the school are just that, and

an analysis of their actual daily behaviour and decision

making (were that possible) may reveal something different.

As such, I have been cautious in drawing any conclusions

beyond what is warranted by the interviews.

Data collection

Contact, practicalities and ethics

Due to time and financial constraints, I limited the

location of schools in my sample to the greater London area,

and found a list of all converter Academies open in London

from the DfE website. I then took out all the primary

schools, and all of the schools that had converted before

2010 (as these would be Mark II Academies) and after 2012

(as these would still be in the early days of Academy

status). This left me with a list of 114 schools, and as I

didn’t want to limit my case studies by any other factor, I

then randomly emailed a selection of these; ten initially,

and then twenty more a week later. Of those emailed, six

headteachers responded saying they would be happy to be

interviewed, and all six requested that the interview took

place at their school.

Every method of approaching participants has its

limitations, and this was no different. As only a proportion

of those contacted responded positively, the final group of

headteachers studied most likely had something in common

that made them different to the others, and made them

inclined to take part. This may have been that they were

less busy (several other headteachers had wished me the best

of luck but declined to participate because they were too

busy), it may have been that they had particularly strong

opinions on the topic that they wanted to share, or that

they were interested to see what other headteachers thought

on the issue (two of the headteachers asked to be able to

read my research when it was completed). This doesn’t affect

the validity of each case study, but it is something to bear

in mind if tentatively drawing conclusions about the

perceptions of headteachers in general from these five

cases.

I had already assured the headteachers of confidentiality

and anonymity in the email, but when I got to each school I

also gave the headteachers a consent form that listed the

purposes of the research, assured them of their anonymity

and gave them the right to withdraw from the interview and

withdraw their data at any time, in accordance with BERA

guidelines. The form which all the headteachers signed

included a section saying that they would be happy for the

interview to be recorded, but I also clarified this verbally

before turning the recorder on.

At the beginning of each interview I introduced myself as a

student and former teacher, and explained that I’d become

interested in the Academies policy while teaching in a

comprehensive in Feltham. I did this to put the headteachers

at ease and indicate that I understood the pressures and

practicalities involved in school life, rather than coming

in and judging as an outsider. Throughout the interview I

maintained a professional and interested demeanour, being

sympathetic where it was appropriate, but attempting to

remain neutral and keep my own opinions and feelings hidden.

All of the interviews took place in the headteachers’

offices, with no other people present or within hearing

distance of the room, which ensured privacy and encouraged

openness.

The headteachers

Despite the random method of contacting headteachers, I was

fortunate to end up with a varied sample of headteachers

with different amounts of experience, from a range of

schools.

Headteacher Mr Naylor Mr Delmar Mr Lattimore Mr Waite Mrs Elms

Years as head 1 4 22 3.5 20

Location Outer London Outer London Outer London Outer London Inner London

SchoolJackfield

School

Aspen School Fairgrove

School

Gladwin

School

Pembroke

School

Size of school Very large Very small Very large Small Medium

% SEN or SA+ Average Average AverageSig above

average

Sig above

average

% EAL 21-30% 21-30% 41-50% 71-80% 51-60%

%FSM Ever6 Below averageAbove average Below averageSig above

average

Sig above

average

%5A*-C 2011Sig above

average

Average Sig above

average

Sig below

average

Sig above

average

%5A*-C 2012 Above averageAbove average Sig above

average

Sig below

average

Sig above

average

Last Ofsted

grade

Outstanding

(2007)

Good (2011) Outstanding

(2012)

Good (2011) Outstanding

(2007)

Table 4: Characteristics of the headteachers in the sample

and their schools1

Data analysis

I transcribed the interviews, and then systematically coded

using the constant comparative method. I coded on three

levels following Roberts (2009); descriptive coding

initially, then topic coding, then analytical coding. The

latter involved coding according to the pre-established

categories laid out in the conceptual framework, and also

1 The table is replicated in Appendix 1, accompanied by an explanation of the measures used.

emerging analytical categories. Some of these emerging

categories were integrated into an existing code where this

made sense, otherwise a new code was created.

I wrote case studies of each headteacher using the emerging

findings, and sent these to the headteachers concerned to

comment on. Four of the five replied, and two had minor

clarifications.

Case studies

Mr Naylor - Jackfield School

Size of

school

% SEN or

SA+

% EAL % FSM

Ever 6

%5A*-C

2011

%5A*-C

2012

Ofsted

Grade

Very

large

Average 21-30 Below

average

Sig.

above

average

Above

average

Outstandi

ng (2011)

Mr Naylor is the headteacher of a very large school in an

outer London borough. At the time of our interview, he had

been headteacher there for just nine months, but had been at

the school for fourteen years, and was involved in the

Academy conversion as a member of the senior leadership

team. The school has had above average GCSE performance in

the past two years, and was rated Outstanding by Ofsted in

2011.

Reasons for conversion

Mr Naylor said that reducing LA interference was not a

significant factor in the decision to convert to Academy

status, as there wasn’t much of a central role for the local

authority even before conversion, with most schools in the

borough being grant maintained. Furthermore, because it is

such a large school (and therefore benefits from economies

of scale), Jackfield could afford to buy in most of its own

services anyway and therefore did not rely on LA services.

The main reason the school converted as a standalone Academy

in 2011 was financial. They felt that because they didn’t

use many LA services, “they were effectively taking our

money, or our kids money, that’s how we saw it, but we were

getting very little back”. Converting to Academy status

meant the money that previously went to the LA came directly

to the school, allowing them to fund new buildings, among

other things. Mr Naylor acknowledged that this may have had

a negative impact on other, smaller schools, and suggested

that the way the system was moving was to schools supporting

each other rather than being supported by the LA.

Does the school have more autonomy since becoming an Academy?

When asked whether the school had more autonomy, Mr Naylor

said “it has and it hasn’t”, and referred to “alleged”

freedoms. He gave three reasons as to why despite the

statutory freedoms, they didn’t have more freedom in

practice than they did before conversion.

Firstly, some of the new freedoms officially allowed them to

do things they’d been doing anyway; “we didn’t comply with

the National Curriculum in certain areas before hand, and we

still don’t, but we don’t have to now”. This suggests that

although they had less statutory autonomy beforehand, they

exercised their philosophical autonomy and mediated

government policy to suit their students (they applied for

permission to disapply certain aspects, and “no-one ever

seemed to bother about that”).

Secondly and more significantly, he felt that although they

could officially do what they wanted in various areas, the

existence of Ofsted and accountability measures meant that

this was difficult; “whilst we’re given more freedom, the

judgements made about the school are on measures which

restrict our freedom”. He demonstrated this with the example

of the new performance related pay policy. Although one

“Academy freedom” is freedom to vary teachers’ pay and

conditions, the government has issued guidance on how

schools can link pay to performance. According to Mr Naylor:

“Now I don't have a problem with that, but we can't not do

that, because when Ofsted come in, they'll want to see our

performance management policy.” This suggests that despite

having more statutory autonomy, the school does not actually

have more institutional autonomy, as Ofsted continue to be

an external influence which dictates what Mr Naylor feels he

can and can’t do.

Finally, he pointed out other external constraints that

affected their autonomy, which were influenced by the

government and based on a vision different to their own; “I

think the government wants to go back to a very academic

curriculum that's very knowledge based, moving away from

skills…. A-levels now could be at the end of two years of

study...and that will suit a certain type of learner.” He

acknowledged that officially they didn’t have to take A-

levels and he could look for a new curriculum, but

practically that was very difficult as it would affect

students wanting to stay at the school, and cost a huge

amount of money to train staff.

Jackfield school has recently produced a strategic plan,

setting out where they want the school to be in five years

time (which Mr Naylor said they would have done whether it

was an Academy or not) and has also gone through a branding

exercise on the values of the school, with the students. He

said they have always had autonomy over the values and goals

of the school, before conversion and since. He summed up the

vision as "individual excellence in a caring community, so

we want every child that comes in here to succeed and do the

very best they can so that when they leave we’ve given then

both academic preparation for qualifications and loads of

other experiences that will enable them to succeed in later

life."

However, despite having a strong vision, Mr Naylor was

keenly aware of why Ofsted’s judgement was so important, and

his position seemed to affect his ability to exercise his

philosophical autonomy and have confidence to move away from

policies or parts of the framework he disagreed with. He

worried that if the school was graded as ‘good’ rather than

‘outstanding’ it would affect the reputation of the school,

they would lose students and funding, and the school would

get into a “vicious downward spiral”. He spoke of this

pressure causing other schools to react to government

changes; “I heard when the EBac came up and they were

pulling kids out of certain subjects to push them through

(the EBac), and actually that's not the best thing for the

child”; and though he said he resists the pressure to do

this at Jackfield, he recognised that if they were graded a

‘good’ rather than ‘outstanding’ “it would be more of a

worry”.

Overall Mr Naylor didn’t feel that becoming an Academy had

made much difference to the school’s autonomy. He summed up;

“very simplistically, we’ve carried on as we did before but

we’ve been getting more money than we would have done

before.”

Mr Delmar – Aspen School

Size of

school

% SEN or

SA+

% EAL % FSM

Ever 6

%5A*-C

2011

%5A*-C

2012

Ofsted

Grade

Very

small

Average 21-30 Above

average

Average Above

average

Good

(2011)

Mr Delmar has been headteacher of Aspen for nearly four

years. Before that he was deputy head at a neighbouring

school, which was federated with Aspen when Aspen had a

budget deficit and a falling roll. Since this difficult time

in Aspen’s history, the school has improved, and was rated

as ‘Good’ by Ofsted in 2011.

Reasons for conversion

The school converted to Academy status as part of an Academy

Trust with its partner school, and they have since brought a

primary school into the Academy Trust too. Mr Delmar said

that converting was ‘the obvious thing for us to do’ as

there was a financial incentive, and also “crystal ball

gazing into the future, this is where it’s heading”, so

pragmatically it was the right move.

Gaining freedom from the Local Authority was “no huge

change” for Aspen, and not a motivating factor, as since it

improved with the help of their partner school, both schools

were “fully self confident and certainly not beholden in any

shape or form to the local authority school improvement

services.”

Does the school have more autonomy since becoming an Academy?

Mr Delmar said the school practically has more autonomy

since becoming an Academy, but the actual impact on the

school is not that significant. Whereas previously they

automatically used LA services, they now have the choice to

buy in services from elsewhere, and so get better value for

money (although they have chosen to remain with the LA

service agreements in some cases). According to Mr Delmar,

if you asked the staff, they “wouldn’t notice any difference

whatsoever”.

Mr Delmar has a generally positive view of Ofsted, and

though he thinks the accountability landscape is “continuing

to tighten”, he thinks this is a good thing, as it is

important to hold schools to account for clear standards so

that schools continue to improve. He finds it helpful for

Aspen to have the Ofsted framework to provide a sharp focus,

and to allow him to hold staff to account, and therefore

doesn’t see this as an external constraint.

However, he also mentioned that the current rhetoric from

the government doesn’t recognise what is going well in

schools, and creates a “counter-productive fear culture”,

which “focuses people on just meeting certain thresholds

rather than opening up into full creativity”. He contrasted

this fear culture with the first ten years of the previous

government, when he felt there was “tough accountability but

within a general climate of professional respect and trust”.

There are some things that he feels schools have to do in

reaction to government policy that he wouldn’t do if given

the choice; “Day to day if the government eased off we’d be

less bothered about hoop jumping in response to changing

government policy (like the EBacc), but you have to respond

to it, unless you have a strong ideological position which

says I’m not going to change this ‘just because’, and I

think that approach is limited in terms of its reality.”

Overall, it appears that institutional autonomy at Aspen

remains unchanged by Academy conversion, as Mr Delmar didn’t

feel constrained by the local authority before conversion

anyway, and the influence of Ofsted and government policy

remains unchanged.

However, one change he has noticed with his school and

others that have converted is a tendency to make the most of

structural opportunities to establish new and different

types of schools, such as studio schools and pupil referral

units. He doesn’t think that this is something that only

Academies are able to do, and says they could have set up a

school with the local authority before conversion, but he

recognises that it is structurally easier to do these things

now, and the Academy shift has been a trigger for a bit more

creativity.

His vision for the school was "

A couple of times Mr Delmar said he’d been ‘conditioned’ to

think a certain way, so I asked him what he meant by this.

He said that everyone is conditioned by their experiences,

and his experience in his last school, and within the

accountability culture that exists, has led to a mindset

when leading the school which he described as “looking at

how my school is going to be judged and how I personally am

going to be judged; what thresholds do I need to achieve,

what things do I need to get right, what targets in my mind

I think would be acceptable in terms of presenting the

impression to an external audience for the school that I

lead, and what is going to impact favourably on the young

people that are here”. This wasn’t the limit of his ambition

for the school, but he described it as a key aspect of his

thinking that had been sharpened by his experiences.

This very honest account shows that he thinks that no-one’s

vision is “authentic” in the sense that it is unaffected by

external influences, but that everyone is a product of their

environment. He also thinks that realistically, you can’t

lead a school and remain unswayed by changes in policy, and

perhaps this way of leading fits in with this belief in the

inevitability of external influence on schools. This means

that in the case of Aspen school, it is not a question of

unwillingly complying with or mediating government policy,

as the general mindset of Ofsted is broadly one he agrees

with, and a good school is "where you've got capable people,

conscientious people doing their very best to enable young

people to develop the knowledge, the skills, the

understanding, the experiences the values that will enable

them to be happy and successful in their adult life".

Returning to the effect of Academy conversion though, he

summed up; “There are some changes, but fundamentally

they’re not making a difference to the day to day provision

in the school.”

Mr Lattimore – Fairgrove School

Size of

school

% SEN or

SA+

% EAL % FSM

Ever 6

%5A*-C

2011

%5A*-C

2012

Ofsted

Grade

Very

large

Average 41-50% Below

average

Sig

above

average

Sig

above

average

Outstandi

ng

(2012)

Mr Lattimore has been headteacher of Fairgrove School for

fourteen years, and was a headteacher elsewhere for another

eight years before that. The school has improved enormously

since he became headteacher, with results improving year on

year, and the range of the school expanding to include a

sixth form (although he doesn’t claim credit for that

success.)

The schools in the borough are “unusually collaborative”,

and some of them decided to convert to Academy status as a

group, including Fairgrove. These schools have since created

a trust, and are planning to set up an alternative provision

free school.

Reasons for conversion

The main reason for converting was to “place the school

strategically for another decade of success”. The money was

also useful, and they’ve done things they wouldn’t have been

able to do without the additional funding. He said it was

good to “get the local authority out of your hair” because

they could be a “time consuming irrelevance”, and he also

acknowledged there are other Academy freedoms “if you want

them”, but he repeated that the main reason for converting

was strategic.

He spoke about there being some resistance to conversion

from a small but vocal group of teachers and parents, who

were concerned that Academies were undemocratic, and would

cause the fragmentation of state schooling. In the response

to the former charge, he made the point that so few people

voted in local elections that it was more locally democratic

to have a governing body made up of elected staff and

parents in control of the school than to be beholden to

local councillors. In response to the latter he was

philosophical; he said they may be right, but “I’m not paid

for my political beliefs”, and he felt it was his job to

position the school strategically.

Does the school have more autonomy since becoming an Academy?

Mr Lattimore mentioned the “oft repeated” freedoms, such as

freedom from the national curriculum, and freedom from

statutory teachers’ pay and conditions. However, he said

they were “very creative” with the curriculum before

conversion anyway, and that they didn’t actually want

freedom from teachers pay and conditions, so these had

little impact on the school’s autonomy.

Whilst some headteachers were concerned that national

accountability arrangements continued to limit their

schools’ freedoms, Mr Lattimore appeared unconcerned by

these. He was very clear that “Ofsted and league tables

don’t drive our agenda at Fairgrove School, we drive our

agenda, we’re in control”, and he wouldn’t change anything

if Ofsted and league tables didn’t exist. However, he is

“not naïve”, and has worked with other headteachers who are

in more challenging circumstances, and recognises that

“they’ve got Ofsted and league tables and… the Academies

unit at the DfE breathing down their necks”.

The difference at Fairgrove seems to be that the school is

in a very strong position (having achieved an ‘Outstanding’

from Ofsted last year), and that Mr Lattimore is an

experienced and confident headteacher. His particular vision

for the school is to be "centre of all round educational

excellence in the community,"

and he is of the view that “frankly, our view was as long as

we could justify what we were doing… and justify with

evidence, real evidence, rigorous evidence, we would do it,

and we would then take the consequences”. This also derives

from a ‘non-cynical’ view that ultimately people want the

best for children in education (“whatever their political

hue”), and if the evidence suggests this is what you’re

doing, then there won’t be a problem.

He therefore hasn’t chased the EBacc percentage by making

EBacc subjects compulsory, but he has shared “that take on

the world” with parents and students so that they are in a

strong position for the years ahead.

In terms of institutional autonomy, becoming an Academy

seems to have made little difference at Fairgrove; not

because these influences still remain, but because Mr

Lattimore did not pay heed to them in the first place.

The main change in terms of autonomy at Fairgrove has been

less tangible. The status and the conversion process brought

with it a sense of liberation;

“there’s been a sense of liberation about converting to an

Academy… it’s sort of been an intangible thing really, but

there’s something about … the whole conversion process where

you feel liberated to be that bit more creative in what you

do”.

However, this momentum and change was less at the level of

“curriculum and teaching and learning” (which he said would

have carried on improving anyway), but at a more operational

level. For Mr Lattimore, a significant benefit of becoming

an Academy has been the ability to work with other schools

to set up a free school, and in addition, the freedom that

comes from having more money to improve the fabric of the

school. He described that taking on more responsibilities as

a school “feeds into your desire to control your own destiny

more”.

Mr Waite – Gladwin School

Size of

school

% SEN or

SA+

% EAL % FSM

Ever 6

%5A*-C

2011

%5A*-C

2012

Ofsted

Grade

Small Sig

above

average

71-80% Sig

above

average

Sig

below

average

Sig

below

average

Good

(2011)

Mr Waite has been headteacher of Gladwin School for three

and a half years.

It is a very diverse school, with fifty-three first

languages spoken by the pupils, and low attainment on entry.

Therefore although the GCSE results are below the national

average, students make progress that is in line with

national averages.

Reasons for conversion

Gladwin School converted to Academy status in 2011 with a

group of other schools in the borough. They formed a ‘loose’

federation, so although they all have their own Academy

trusts and governing bodies, they share some core employees,

and have weekly headteacher meetings.

Mr Waite gave a number of reasons for wanting to convert to

Academy status, the most significant being the desire to be

part of this loose federation of schools, and to have the

status of being an Academy with the other schools. There was

the concern that because the school has a low ability

intake, and because there are rising floor standards, the

school may have at some point been forced to become an

Academy, and they wanted to do it on their own terms. There

was dissatisfaction with core services provided by the

borough, specifically around human resources, and finally

there was the financial incentive.

Does the school have more autonomy since becoming an Academy?

Mr Waite does think that the school has more autonomy now,

from an operational point of view. Although the local

authority was never really controlling of the school, and

they largely did what they wanted anyway, the school does

have more autonomy now around core policies and staffing.

Whereas previously, it was very difficult to let go of

under-performing staff; which was frustrating for

hardworking teachers; it has now become easier. He clarifies

that in terms of the new freedoms, “educationally it’s a

moot point, but from an operational point of view it’s big”.

Accountability mechanisms such as Ofsted and performance

tables don’t seem to influence Mr Waite much, as he said

that if neither of these existed, he wouldn’t change

anything about how he ran the school. This is because “if

you work in a school like this one, I think our most

important job is to allow kids to be successful to move onto

the next stage in life, and if that means helping them get

the best exam results possible then that's the right thing

to do” and “I think the principles behind the Ofsted

framework are pretty sound, I think there's nothing there

you could really disagree with.” This means that Mr Waite is

not often in a position where he would need to comply with,

mediate or resist external policies, as he tends to agree

with them.

Mr Waite’s vision for Gladwin School is to give “every child

the maximum opportunity to be as successful as they can be.

And to get the best outcomes they can.” He defines success

mainly by examination results, and while he recognises the

“softer stuff” is a part of success too, it’s not the most

important thing. He was quite conscious of the fact that

this vision of success was because we live in “the world of

league tables”, and took a very practical approach; it’s

important the students get the exam results, because this is

what will help them move onto the next level of education.

However, there are still some external influences that

negatively affect the school’s capacity to achieve that

vision. Mr Waite said that while the government doesn’t

think that income or status should affect a child’s

education, some of their policies actually make it more

difficult for those young people to be successful, so there

is a tension there. He gave the example of the decision to

move away from modular examinations to linear examinations

(which as a school they don’t have a choice over), which he

said would mitigate against kids who don’t have supportive

families to encourage them to work at home.

This influence remains unchanged after Academy conversion,

and at the educational level, conversion hasn’t made it

easier or harder to work towards the vision. Mr Waite

believes that educational improvement is all about changing

expectations, and having high expectations of students and

of teachers, which becoming an Academy hasn’t affected. By

contrast, becoming an Academy has made it easier to work

toward their vision from an organisational point of view.

They’ve received a “huge amount” of funding, they have more

control over staffing, and Gladwin school is also in the

process of setting up a free school with other schools in

the borough.

Mrs Elms – Pembroke School

Size of

school

% SEN or

SA+

% EAL % FSM

Ever 6

%5A*-C

2011

%5A*-C

2012

Ofsted

Grade

Medium Sig above

average

51-60% Sig above

average

Sig above

average

Sig above

average

Outstandi

ng (2007)

Mrs Elms has been headteacher of Pembroke School for twenty

years. It is a very successful school, which consistently

has a high proportion of its students doing well at GCSE,

despite a high intake of students who have English as an

additional language, and a high proportion of students

eligible for free school meals.

Reasons for conversion

Mrs Elms said that the local authority had long ago devolved

budgets and responsibilities to schools in the area, so she

didn’t convert to gain new freedoms. However, she did want

the school to become a teaching school, and got the

impression that if she wanted to have the bid for Teaching

School Status considered seriously by the Department for

Education, she had to “play the game” and become an Academy.

Does the school have more autonomy since becoming an Academy?

For Pembroke school, the only change since becoming an

Academy has been that they’ve now got a very good finance

director. Mrs Elms believed there weren’t any new freedoms;

partly because they took certain freedoms before conversion

anyway when they didn’t feel that implementing certain

policies would improve the education there, and partly

because there were some limits on their freedom which

existed before conversion and remained afterwards, despite

the official line.

For example, Mrs Elms seemed concerned about the upcoming

new curriculum, despite the fact that officially, Academies

don’t have to follow it. When I questioned her about this,

she said “well, that depends, this thing about more freedom;

no you don’t have to follow it ... but if Ofsted is coming

in, yes you do.” The Ofsted framework was something that

concerned her, despite being a very successful school, and

she described working “like fury” to keep within the Ofsted

framework. This seemed to stem from a distrust of Ofsted, as

she questioned both the reliability of Ofsted judgements

(saying it depended on the lead inspector) and the

impartiality of the organisation (suggesting that it had

become “personalised on individual views”).

She gave the pupil premium as another example of where they

were forced to do something differently, not for the benefit

of the students but for Ofsted. The pupil premium funding

doesn’t replace the money cut elsewhere, but you now have to

demonstrate how you’re using it; “So you’ve actually got to

put a member of staff onto it. Not to do anything

differently, but to use the information you’ve got to your

best advantage to show what you’re doing, it’s silly.”

League tables and the EBacc requirements are another source

of external pressure. She disagrees with the EBacc, as she

feels that it excludes children who can’t reach it (“for the

first time we’ve got this line across curriculum choices

which I loathe. Curriculum choice at KS4 should be totally

inclusive”), but she says that they’d be stupid not to offer

those subjects as a package, because the EBacc is one of the

judgements that goes on your online profile. She initially

fought a battle against it when it was first introduced, but

the parents and the governors were in favour of it, so they

do now persuade those who are capable of getting it to take

the required subjects.

Mrs Elms said her vision would be closing the gap (between

the exam results of children on free school meals and their

peers) and getting more students into Oxbridge. She’d also

like to see more vocational subjects, and bring back the

BTEC to offer a genuine alternative to the EBacc for those

who can’t achieve it. However, she doesn’t have the freedom

to do the latter as the money isn’t available.

She seems to resist government policy she doesn’t agree with

so long as it’s in the best interests of the school, and

won’t put the school at risk of dropping from Outstanding to

Good. Even before the school became an Academy she said she

didn’t do what the government said if she didn’t think it

was best for the students, unless it was statutory, “And

even when it was statutory we'd only do the bits that suited

us.” For example, Pembroke School openly didn’t follow the

national strategies under the last government, as they felt

that spending more time on Maths, English and Science would

actually make the results go down. They spent more time on

Performing Arts, and their results increased further.

She didn’t attribute any new freedoms to being an Academy,

but she did say that Pembroke was now a teaching school, and

was putting in a bid with a few other schools to open a free

school. Neither of these things require Academy status, but

Mrs Elms was of the opinion that becoming an Academy made it

more likely the DfE would grant these requests.

Her views on the freedoms offered by Academy status are best

summed up here;

“Most of the things, despite the freedoms, you can’t opt out

of, because somewhere down the line, someone’s going to test

you. Or the wonderful Ofsted is going to come in and ask you

where it is.”

Discussion

Institutional autonomy – do they have more of it?

During the interviews the headteachers spoke of freedoms and

external influences in general, and when they did

distinguish between different types of freedoms, these

freedoms did not correspond to the substantive/procedural

distinction outlined in the conceptual framework. I will

therefore start by discussing the headteachers’ perceptions

of the effect of Academy conversion on institutional

autonomy in general, before introducing a new distinction

used by the headteachers themselves.

As mentioned previously, the DfE cites four freedoms that

Academies have in addition to the freedoms of maintained

schools; freedom from local authority control, freedoms

around delivery of the curriculum, the ability to set their

own pay and conditions for staff and the ability to change

the lengths of terms and school days. With such statutory

freedoms, it seems self-evident that Academies would have

more institutional autonomy – or freedom from external

constraint – than they did before converting. However, the

perceptions of the headteachers interviewed for this

research suggest that it is not so straightforward.

Four of the five headteachers interviewed brought up their

independence from the local authority before conversion,

commenting that the local authority “had very little input”,

“didn’t really interfere that much”, and that the school was

“not beholden” and “had very little input from the local

authority”. Mr Lattimore said they had become a “time

consuming irrelevance”, but only Mr Waite referred to the

local authority as one of his reasons for conversion, saying

he wanted more freedom over Human Resources, and he too said

the local authority “was never really controlling”. This is

the first reason that despite new statutory freedoms,

Academy conversion had little effect on the schools’

institutional autonomy; the schools had some of these

freedoms already.

The same was the case for freedoms around the delivery of

the curriculum. Before Academy conversion, schools had some

flexibility within the curriculum, and could also opt to

disapply aspects of the national curriculum for time limited

periods. Mr Lattimore spoke of being “quite creative with

disapplication” before conversion if he needed to be, and

similarly Mr Naylor said “we modified the curriculum and we

applied for permission to disapply certain aspects, and no-

one seemed to bother about that”. However, Mr Naylor went on

to explain that they still had to follow the rules of the

exam boards, “so there’s a lot of constraints we’re affected

by”. This is the second reason that Academy conversion had

little effect on the schools’ institutional autonomy; the

most significant constraints that limited their autonomy

remained after conversion.

Mrs Ash explained this succinctly; “this thing about more

freedom; no, you don’t have to follow it (the National

Curriculum)…, but if Ofsted is coming in, yes you do”. For

schools that felt constrained by Ofsted or by league table

measures, giving them statutory freedoms over curriculum and

teachers pay made no difference to their perceived autonomy,

as the previous statutory constraints had not been the

factor limiting their autonomy in the first place. Mr Naylor

made the same point regarding the new performance pay

policy; “Now I don't have a problem with that, but we can't

not do that, because when Ofsted come in, they'll want to

see our performance management policy.”

It may appear that the opinion of Ofsted is not as

significant a constraint as something being a legal

requirement, until that is you compare the consequences of

falling on the wrong side of each. Mr Lattimore described

being headteacher of a school in 1995, when it was statutory

to offer modern languages and technology at GCSE. He decided

not to, as he couldn’t find the appropriate staff to teach

them, and he didn’t think they were appropriate for all

students. His attitude at the time was “What’s the worst

they can do, you know, put me in jail? Very unlikely”. Mrs

Ash also openly refused to follow a statutory policy before

conversion, arguing that introducing the National Strategies

would actually make their results go down. Neither

experienced any sanction, and both continued in their

careers to be very successful headteachers.

This can be contrasted with the perceived consequences of

falling foul of Ofsted in 2013. Mr Atkins described Ofsted

as perpetuating a counter-productive “fear culture”, Mrs

Elms thinks they are setting out “to show that schools are

not good”, and Mr Waite said one reason for converting when

they did was that they might be “vulnerable to being forced

to become an Academy” rather than doing it themselves. Mr

Naylor explained that if Ofsted found them to be ‘Good’

rather than ‘Outstanding’, students might go elsewhere,

meaning the school would get less money and it would create

a “vicious downward spiral”. These perceptions could well be

perceptions only, but it is perceptions that affect

headteachers’ decision-making in schools.

A similar logic forces some headteachers to be intensely

aware of their league table results. Four of the heads spoke

about the English Baccalaureate , with opinions ranging from

disagreement about the narrow focus to ambivalence, and

though none made it compulsory, all four felt the need to

share the information about the measure with the students

they felt could achieve it. Mr Lattimore relayed his concern

about other schools changing students’ subjects in year 10

and even mid-course in year 11 to maximise the number of

students getting the EBacc grade when the measure was first

introduced, though fortunately none of the headteachers

interviewed took this route.

To conclude; whereas some statutory constraints have been

removed, the perception of all the headteachers interviewed

was that this made little difference to their freedom from

external constraint (institutional autonomy), with the one

exception of Mr Waite’s new freedom from LA interference in

HR matters. One reason for this was that headteachers felt

largely autonomous in some areas, even before conversion. In

other areas, the constraints felt by headteachers before

conversion remained afterwards. This is not to say that none

of the headteachers felt they had any more autonomy, it is

just that this autonomy did not come from being freed from

external influences over educational matters.

In his discussion of autonomy, Olsen (2009) argued that New

Public Management reformers use the term autonomy to

describe “a transfer from one set of external dependencies

(political, legal, bureaucratic) to another (markets,

managers, stakeholders, external rating and ranking

agencies)” (p. 443) rather than freedom from all external

influence. In the case of schools converting to Academies,

the latter set of dependencies already existed. The

conversion to Academy status appears to have removed the

former, statutory dependencies only, which has made little

difference to the schools’ institutional autonomy with the

continued presence of Ofsted and performance tables. What

differences there are do fall under a particular type of

institutional autonomy, but this type is neither procedural

or substantive.

Substantive and procedural freedoms – a useful

distinction?

In our conceptual framework, freedom from markets, managers,

stakeholders, external rating and ranking agencies was

described as substantive freedom, as those influences

(henceforth ‘substantive influences’) were perceived as

constraining a school’s ability to set their own goals.

Freedom from political, legal and bureaucratic influences

was described as procedural autonomy, as these (henceforth

‘procedural influences’) were thought to constrain a schools

ability to decide on the means to reach these goals.

This same distinction was made by several authors (Berdahl,

1990; Lima & Afonso, 1995; Olsen, 2009; Wright, 2001), but

referred to by a number of terms, such as leadership and

‘bastard leadership’, autonomy and selective/mitigated

autonomy and criteria power and operational power. All made

the argument that under new managerialism, there has been a

decrease in procedural influences but an increase in

substantive influences, and therefore schools no longer have

control over the goals of the institution, only the means of

achieving externally defined goals.

Analysing the responses of the headteachers has revealed two

errors in the logic of this argument. The first mistake is

to assume that freedom from external influence captures the

whole concept of autonomy. To assume that the existence of

external ratings agencies or performance tables necessarily

strips schools of the possibility of having and pursuing

their own vision is to deny the agency of the headteacher

and governors. This was highlighted by the fact that all

five headteachers had a vision for the school that was

broader than Ofsted ratings or exam performance; even those

who felt constrained to some degree. This finding was

anticipated by the philosophical literature, and was

accounted for in the conceptual framework by the

incorporation of philosophical autonomy.

The second error was unanticipated; even if we accept that

procedural and substantive freedoms are types of

institutional autonomy and don’t together make up ‘de facto’

autonomy, the concepts are still of limited use. The

assumption is that there will be a direct correspondence

between a ‘substantive influence’ (external ratings, etc)

and a loss of substantive freedom, and a similar

correspondence between a procedural influence and a loss of

procedural freedom. Whereas the distinction clearly

demarcates different types of influence, its application

becomes ambiguous once you try and apply it to the decision

making of headteachers; the effects of ‘substantive

influences’ can have a procedural impact at the level of the

school, and vise versa.

For example, Ofsted sets a standard by which schools are

judged, but this standard is often regarding how things are

done, such as how schools spend and account for the pupil

premium. On the other hand, the changes to how teachers pay

should be decided is a procedural influence, affecting how

things are done, but might also directly affect the goals

and values of a school, if one of those goals is to create a

collaborative and non-competitive environment. Even if we

put aside the type of influence and begin at the school

level, it is not easy to sort areas of headteacher control

or otherwise into the ‘what’ and the ‘how’; assessment for

example could be considered an end in itself (it is what a

school is aiming at) or simply a means to let the teachers

know how students are getting on.

The difficulty stems from the impossibility of practically

distinguishing between means and ends, when even day to day

decisions can be value-laden. The substantive/ procedural

distinction is therefore not useful for describing school

autonomy, but only for describing types of potential

influence. However, a new distinction emerged from the

interviews which shone more light on the kind of

institutional autonomy that headteachers did or did not

have.

Operational and educational autonomy – a new

distinction

Throughout the conversations, two distinct types of goal

emerged. The first was most often expounded by the

headteachers when they were asked about their vision, and

involved descriptions of what they wanted for every child at

their school (such as all children being successful and

enjoying learning). The second was brought up when

headteachers talked about their reasons for converting, and

was sometimes referred to as a strategic plan. This type of

goal was at the level of the school, and outlined what they

wanted for the school in one, five or ten year’s time. This

included school partnerships, buildings and status.

The headteachers seemed to be thinking and planning on two

different levels; the level of the individual child and the

level of the school as an institution. The differences in

autonomy brought about by Academy status fell squarely into

the latter camp. Mr Waite referred to these as educational

and operational levels, and when asked whether converting to

Academy status had affected the school’s autonomy, he said

“educationally it’s a moot point, but from an operational

point of view it’s big”.

Other headteachers agreed with him. Mr Delmar contrasted

“structural opportunities” that came about from being an

Academy with day to day provision, and said “it’s not that

different in terms of teaching and learning or educating in

classrooms and getting outcomes” and “I think if you asked

the staff they wouldn’t notice any difference whatsoever.”

Mr Naylor described the main change as “it’s more like

running a business now” and Mrs Elms converted because she

wanted her school to become a teaching school (a school

level goal).

Mr Lattimore emphasised that it was not the structure that

mattered but the culture, and though Academy conversion

could change the former it didn’t change the latter.

However, that is not to diminish the importance of

operational autonomy. Having more autonomy over finances,

buildings and human resources undoubtedly affects the

education of the children too. Mr Lattimore also said

becoming an Academy gave him a sense of liberation, and that

taking on more responsibilities as a governing body fed into

their desire to control their own destiny more.

Looking beyond the level of the individual school, the

schools’ operational autonomy became even clearer. All five

headteachers were involved in some way in collaborating with

other schools, and some were in the process of setting up

new free schools in partnership with others. Although Mr

Delmar (who is involved in setting up a University Technical

College) said that they could have done so before

conversion, all of the headteachers I spoke to had become

involved since converting. Whether this is something to do

with being an Academy, or because the free schools movement

has coincided with the expansion of the Academies programme,

or simply because the government is more likely to grant

free school or teaching school applications from Academies

(as Mrs Elms believes) is beyond the scope of this research.

Although most headteachers felt they had increased

operational autonomy, none of them felt they had more

control over educational matters for the reasons given in

the discussion of institutional autonomy above. However, all

the headteachers had visions at the educational level which

they pursued before and after Academy conversion, alongside

and in some cases despite the external influences of Ofsted

and league tables, thereby putting to bed Wright’s (2001)

conception of ‘bastard leadership’ in which headteachers

simply managed the school and guided it towards a government

sanctioned goal. This is because freedom from external

influence is only part of what it means to have autonomy.

Philosophical autonomy – the differences between

headteachers.

Two reasons were given above for Academy conversion not

having an impact on institutional autonomy, and these two

reasons did not both apply uniformly to all headteachers

interviewed. Some headteachers felt they already had minimal

external constraints, before and after conversion, whereas

some felt burdened by the Ofsted framework and government

initiatives. This is despite the fact that all of the

schools were subject to the same Ofsted framework, the same

accountability structures and the same central government

policies (the only difference being the LA, which only one

headteacher felt affected by). Why then did the headteachers

have such different responses to these external influences?

One way of making sense of the factors that led to these

differences in perception is to return to the literature on

different types of autonomy, and approach the matter

conceptually. As discussed above, autonomy can be conceived

of as freedom from external influence alone, but to do so is

to ignore an important part of what makes an institution or

individual autonomous. Olsen (2009) and Askling et al.,

(1999) suggest that the institutions capability to exploit

the space for manoeuvre is important to ensure autonomy is

de facto, rather than autonomy in law alone. Philosophical

literature on autonomy is mainly based around this concept

of capability or disposition, which can be roughly divided

into authenticity conditions (for being autonomous) and

competency conditions.

It would be conceited to judge headteachers’ authenticity

and competency on the basis of an interview, and I won’t do

that here. However, the concepts are still fruitful.

Authenticity conditions include the capability to reflect

on, identify with and endorse values or goals, and a related

question that is both useful for our purposes and value-

neutral is to ask the extent to which headteachers’ values

and goals for the school align with the Ofsted framework and

performance measures (as these were the external influences

identified by headteachers). Competency conditions include

the capability for self-determination allowing one to pursue

the actions required to reach one’s goals. If we incorporate

Askling (1999) and Olsen’s (2009) emphasis on ‘exploiting

the space’, it makes sense to ask how headteachers respond

to perceived external constraints; whether they comply with

them, mediate them or reject them outright.

Authenticity conditions – to what extent do they identify with external influences?

With regards to the first question, headteachers had a range

of opinions on the Ofsted framework and league tables. Mr

Delmar and Mr Waite were happy with both, and therefore did

not see them as being external constraints. They had similar

views of Ofsted as being “pretty sound” (Mr Waite) and “not

perfect…but I think there’s sufficient objectivity that it’s

not going to be a million miles out” (Mr Delmar), and both

thought it was important to focus on getting students the

best possible exam results (as part of a broader vision for

their students). Mr Delmar also described Ofsted as being a

catalyst for system wide change, and described how it was

useful for him as a headteacher to have a sharp focus and

clear outcome criteria.

Both reflected on their own values and goals during the

interviews, and both spoke about their goals being affected

by the culture they worked in, with Mr Delmar describing

being ‘conditioned’ by the local and national education

culture, and Mr Waite saying “unfortunately in the world of

league tables you almost end up defining success by the

examination outcomes and results”. Both therefore seem to be

taking a pragmatic approach given the political and cultural

context, which Mr Delmar contrasted with being

‘ideologically driven’; a position he wasn’t critical of,

but that he believed was limited in terms of the reality of

running a school this way.

Mr Lattimore took a similar pragmatic approach, and implied

that it wasn’t a headteachers’ job to be ideological; “I’m

not paid for my political beliefs, I’m paid to be the

headteacher of the school”. With regards to Ofsted and

league tables, he didn’t see them as being an external

constraint either, but unlike Mr Delmar and Mr Waite, this

wasn’t because he agreed with them per se, but because they

didn’t drive his agenda at Fairgrove.

As outlined in the discussion of institutional autonomy

above, Mrs Elms and Mr Naylor did see certain aspects of

Ofsted, league tables and government policy as being

constraining. This is because they disagreed with some of it

(rather than broadly agreeing with it like Mr Delmar and Mr

Waite) but felt that they had to follow it to a certain

extent.

Competency conditions – to what extent do they act despite external influences?

For Mr Waite and Mr Delmar, there is no need to resist or

mediate government policy, because they broadly agree with

it. However, this does not mean that they are ‘complying’,

which has negative connotations and suggests weakness,

rather their response is one of identification – taking on

and incorporating the goals defined by Ofsted and

performance tables into their own belief systems.

As discussed, Mr Lattimore was very clear that Ofsted and

league tables did not drive the agenda at Fairgrove, and

although he didn’t go as far as to say they were irrelevant,

he seemed unconcerned by them. His explanation for this was

“non-cynical”; he believed that ultimately, everyone wants

the best for children in education, and therefore so long as

you can back up what you are doing with rigorous evidence,

you can do what you want to do (the implication being that

occasionally this goes against the grain). This echoes

Bottery’s (2007) finding that more experienced headteachers

felt more able to give a ‘personal steer’ to the school, Mr

Lattimore having been a headteacher for twenty-two years. In

contrast, Mr Delmar had been a headteacher for less than a

year at the time of the interview, and although he resisted

the pressure to push children towards the EBacc, he was more

aware of potential Ofsted judgements in his decision making.

Having been a headteacher for twenty years, Mrs Elms seems

at first to contradict Bottery’s conclusion, as she still

works very hard to stay within the Ofsted framework.

However, she still gives a very strong personal steer, doing

in all cases what she thinks is best for the students, and

her concern with the league tables can perhaps be explained

using the same logic as in the case of Holly Tree Primary

school, reported by Thomson (2008). Mrs Elms has spoken her

mind publicly and openly resisted government policy in the

past, and continues to challenge policies she disagrees

with. She has ample credibility to do so, because she runs a

very successful school with very high exam results, despite

having a high intake of students on free school meals. It

may be that she therefore has to concern herself with league

tables and Ofsted rankings in order to maintain this

credibility, so that she can continue to exert this personal

steer without reprisal - especially as she sees elements of

Ofsted as being vindictive and closely linked to the

government.

Conclusion

If we take into account the distinction felt most keenly by

the headteachers, and adopt the educational/operational

distinction as a more useful tool than the

substantive/procedural one at the level of in-school

research, the conceptual framework looks like this.

De facto autonomy

Philosophical autonomy

(Autonomy as capability)

Institutional autonomy

(Freedom from external control)

Authenticity

The capability

to reflect on,

identify

with and

endorse

values/goals.

Competency

The capability

for rational

thought and

self-

determination

allowing one

to identify

and pursue the

actions

required to

reach one’s

goals.

Educational

freedom

Freedom from

influences that

affect

educational

decisions.

Operational

freedom

Freedom from

influences that

affect

operational

decisions.

Headteachers decisions do not fall discretely into

educational and operational decisions, as some (like the

hiring of teachers) fall between the two, so decisions can

be thought of as falling on a scale from operational to

educational, where freedom from influences on decisions at

the educational end of the scale can be characterised as

educational autonomy, and likewise for operational matters.

From the reflections of these headteachers, it appears that

Academy conversion gives secondary schools that convert

independently more operational autonomy, but not more

educational autonomy. However, methodological limitations

guard against the assumption that these perceptions are

typical. Although headteachers were randomly selected to be

contacted, the low response rate meant that it was in effect

a volunteer sample, meaning that those who responded may

have been more confident and self-assured about their

leadership than is typical of headteachers in London. In

addition, only a small number of headteachers were

interviewed, and only one of them was female, which may also

affect the typicality of the findings.

Another potential limitation is that these headteachers may

not have spoken their minds openly, due to the “fear

culture” referred to. However, there is reason to believe

that they did to a great extent, as all five volunteered to

be interviewed, and were reassured that the findings of the

research would be completely confidential, and that they

would see the write up before it was distributed elsewhere.

For these five then, the freedoms associated with becoming

Academies were exclusively operational in nature, covering

financial, staffing and school partnership decisions, and

making the headteachers’ role “more like running a business”

for those who felt any difference at all. The reason given

for granting schools more autonomy in the Schools White

Paper was that “devolving as much decision-making to school

level as possible ensures that decisions are being made by

the professionals best able to make good choices for the

children and young people they serve” (DfE, 2010, p. 51).

This decision-making is aptly described as being devolved to

the ‘school level’ rather than to the classroom level, and

this research suggests that the decisions devolved to the

professionals are not in the realm that teachers and

headteachers are traditionally professionals of, but in the

realm of project management or business. Perhaps this is why

the government is also confident that businesses, charities

and trusts can take a leading role in running schools

through the Sponsorship role (DfE, 2013), as the

responsibilities they are given are operational rather than

educational.

However, this area of sponsors and school chains was clearly

a concern for the headteachers interviewed, as four of the

five raised the issue without being asked about it. All four

had negative perceptions of Sponsored chains , describing

them as “gobbling up school after school” and “Nazifying”

education, and saying that “it doesn’t appeal to me as a

headteacher” and “we would never get involved with one of

these chains unless we were spectacularly poor and on our

knees begging for support”. This negative perception seemed

to be because the headteachers believed that chains had “a

different view of what makes a good education”, or a

“corporate approach to running schools” and that

headteachers might be “controlled” or “micro-managed”.

Whether these perceptions are shared by the headteachers of

schools in chains would therefore be an interesting area for

future research, especially as one headteacher described

chains as “the great challenge to education”, and a couple

described them as the new “middle tier”, replacing LAs.

Another important area for future research is whether

primary school headteachers have the same perceptions of the

effects of Academy conversion. A far smaller number of

primary schools have made the decision to convert to Academy

status, and there is reason to believe their experience

would be different from that of secondary schools, as they

are typically smaller size (meaning they do not benefit from

the economies of scale) and because statutory assessment

arrangements remain even after Academy conversion, unlike in

the secondary sector.

Finally, to fully answer the question of whether there is

space for alternative conceptions of what makes a good

education, further research needs to be carried out with

schools that have more ‘alternative’ philosophies. Evidence

from the headteachers interviewed suggests that if you have

the confidence and the credibility, you can get on with

leading the school towards an educational vision, largely

(although not totally) unconcerned by external

accountability arrangements and other government policies.

However, even with confidence and credibility these can

restrict your freedom to some extent if your vision does not

prioritise academic exam success for all pupils, let alone

if you are less experienced or less confident (a matter of

philosophical autonomy). Researching headteachers’

perceptions in schools with more alternative visions would

clarify whether these arrangements restrict schools’ freedom

to a greater extent if the educational vision is more

divergent from the goals or standards of Ofsted and

performance tables than the visions of the headteachers

interviewed for this research.

For this future research on autonomy in schools with more

divergent philosophies, autonomy in schools in chains, and

autonomy in primaries, it is hoped that the conceptual

framework developed here will be of use in delineating the

kinds of autonomy that schools do and do not have.

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