Key Papers

Sustaining Leadership: Serving Schools and Students investigates the challenges faced by South Australian public school principals through a nationally scoped literature review research study. Particular focus is drawn upon the demands placed upon public school principals and the sustainability of the leadership profession.

The key findings include;

1. Increased accountability is driving public school principal decision-making; significantly contributing to a lack of time for principals to build and sustain a positive school community culture.
2. Extensive responsibilities are overloading and overwhelming public school principals, with substantial energy directed towards data collection, management, and record keeping.
3. Excessive and unrelenting workloads are leading to principal burnout, stress, fatigue, depression, a lack of time to focus on teaching and learning, and decreased autonomy.