The secondary Head of Department and the achievement of exceptional student outcomes

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the secondary Head of Department (HoD) in leading teams producing exceptional education outcomes in Years 7-10 in New South Wales (NSW, Australia) government schools. Design/methodology/approach - Sites where exceptional educational outcomes were believed to be occurring were selected using a variety of data including performance in standardised tests, public examinations, various value added measures and nominations from various stakeholders. Sites were of two types: subject departments responsible for teaching certain subjects and teams responsible for cross-school programmes in Years 7-10. Sites were selected to be broadly repr..