School leadership during the pandemic: Managing a global crisis

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on many aspects of life across the World. While health services were most seriously affected, and often overwhelmed, education also experienced signi fi cant challenges. Schools were closed for extended periods in most countries, disrupting children ’ s education and forcing teachers to develop new technical and pedagogic skills. The consequences were particularly serious for disadvantaged families and communities, and learning gaps widened due to uneven access to learning devices and social capital. The effects on school leaders were also serious, as noted in Fiona Longmuir ’ s article on the impact of the pandemic in Melbourne. She reports on her interviews with eight school leaders, conducted at the height of the crisis in 2020. She notes that these leaders engaged in a rapid process of sense-making and change implementation. She stresses the signi fi cance of their community engagement, notably to help stakeholders, including parents, to cope with the ambiguity arising from the pandemic. The author concludes that the eight leaders learned to navigate crisis and disruption through their responses to this signi fi cant unplanned change.