Managing Complex Educational Change Large Scale Reorganisation of Schools

Michael Wallace discusses ways to manage the process of putting major change into practice in schools. The book draws on the latest thinking from business and education on how to manage change in this chaotic context.

Why is educational change becoming more complex? Are there patterns in this complexity? How may managers cope effectively with complex educational change?This book investigates initiatives to reorganise school systems, involving highly emotive closures and mergers. It reveals how reorganisation was a complex change to manage because it was large-scale, componential, systematic, differentially impacting and context dependent. These characteristics affected management tasks, generating ambiguity in the change process that limited managers' capacity to control it. The authors offer four management themes as realistic strategies for coping with complex educational change:*orchestration*flexible planning and coordination*culture building and communication*differentiated supportManaging Complex Educational Change is essential reading for all concerned with educational change - managers in schools and colleges, students on advanced courses, trainers, local and regional administrators, academics and policy makers. The research has general implications for the theory and practice of managing complex change.

1. Change gets Complicated 2. Unpacking Complexity 3. Complex Change in Perspective: A Free for All (within Limits) 4. Reoganisation Initiatives: Origins and Outline 5. Everything to Play For: Managing Initiation 6. Working to a Deadline: Managing Implementation 7. Establishing the New Order: Managing Institutionalisation 8. Get Real! Coping with Complex Educational Change

Mike Wallace is Professor of Education at the University of Bath., Keith Pocklington is Co-Director of CREATE Consultants.