Leadership, Policy, and School Improvement Hub

The purpose of the hub is to support communities of research, teaching and practice related to leadership and policy for the purposes of creating improvement.  Our work focusses on learning for improvement at individual/personal, organisational and system levels.

Our objectives

• Creating and leading research that interrogates important issues and explores possible solutions to complex problems in leadership & policy
• Connecting scholars of leadership and policy across faculties, universities and internationally
• Creating capacity for identifying funding opportunities and writing proposals for leadership and policy research
• Creating a community for postgraduate students studying leadership and policy to develop their learning
• Hosting events and networking to grow connections across disciplines engaged with leadership and policy for improvement

We are academics, researchers and practitioners who are passionate about understanding and supporting ways to be effective in leadership and policy within the education sector.  The focus of our work is on how to bring about improvement at individual, organisational and systemic levels.  We bring a range of approaches to our work including qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research approaches.

Professor Deidre Le Fevre (Hub leader)
Deidre works with leaders and teachers focuses on both the cognitive and affective aspects of learning and educational change that influence the development of professional capability and schooling improvement.  Her recent work focuses on supporting school leaders interpersonal capabilities for building relational trust, understanding perceptions of risk in learning and change, identifying effective professional learning facilitation practices and supporting the development of adaptive expertise in schools.

Dr. Camila Highfield
Camilla is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Education and Social Work. Her research, teaching and supervision focus on leadership and equity. She has a background as a visual arts teacher and leader in secondary schools, Ministry of Education official and director of a large professional development organisation. Her recent research focusses on culturally responsive teaching and leadership to raise outcomes for Māori students and has she also worked on projects investigating intercultural supervision and women and leadership.

Dr. Vivienne Mackisack
Viv is a Professional Teaching Fellow in the School of Learning, Development and Professional Practice.  She brings years of teaching and leadership experience in primary, intermediate and secondary schools to her work.  Her teaching focusses on student teacher professional learning and development and the role of mentoring in learning and professional practice.

Dr Frauke Meyer
Frauke’s academic teaching and research focus on educational leadership and leadership practices. Her current research is concerned with school leadership, interpersonal leadership practices, and school improvement. The immediate focus of her research is the analysis, assessment, and development of interpersonal behaviours that promote relational trust. Another area of research is equity and bias. Her expertise lies in qualitative as well as some quantitative research methodologies and mixed methods designs.

Associate Professor Claire Sinnema
Claire’s research focuses on educational improvement, and deals with five main strands— curriculum, networks, educational leadership, practitioner inquiry and standards. Her research is concerned with understanding how teachers and educational leaders, including system leaders, can improve their practice and the role of policy in improvement efforts. She regularly contributes to advisory bodies and evaluations on education policy and practice initiatives, particularly those related to curriculum and leadership, in New Zealand and multiple international jurisdictions.

Dr Jo Smith
Jo began her education career as an English and ESL teacher at an Islamic secondary school in Melbourne, Australia, where she earned a Graduate Diploma in Education from the University of Melbourne. Jo’s research employs a systems-level theory of education to explore the links between education policy, leadership, and the improvement of schools and school systems.

Dr. Kaye Twyford
Kaye brings many years of experience in schools as a school leader and teacher to her academic teaching and research work, connecting theory and practice. Her research highlights the importance of understanding the role of emotion and the negative impact of uncertainty and vulnerability on learning. She advocates for leading through a complexity- informed lens focussed on improving equitable learner outcomes, reframing teacher resistance to consider perceived risk, and the value of working collaboratively.

Dr. Megan Welton
Megan specialises in school improvement and leadership and how research in these fields can be put to good use in schools to improve outcomes for all students. Megan engages with practitioners through teaching on the Masters of Educational Leadership, consulting and writing. Her research focuses on coherence, particularly how schools muster an organisational response to improvement priorities when pressured by the busyness of schooling and competing demands from many directions. Megan is programme leader for the Masters of Educational Leadership.