In the present Masters's Thesis we discuss the issue of the headmaster’s pedagogical leadership. Zakon o organizaciji in financiranju vzgoje in izobraževanja (The Law of Organization and Financing of Education, 2017) states that the headmaster is both a pedagogical and administrative head of the school and imposes on him professional tasks, including professional support for teachers.
The position and tasks of the headmaster have changed in light of the decentralization of education and modern demands of the environment. He is responsible for the quality of work and the distribution of roles in the school while simultaneously taking in consideration the participation of the employees, students and parents. Among the more important tasks are designing a school development plan, connecting the school with the environment, qualifying and motivating employees and monitoring and evaluating schoolwork. In professional support for teachers, we focus on the field of class observation, because through it the headmaster monitors and contributes to the professional development of teachers and ensures the quality of pedagogical work. Through class observations and appropriate feedback, the headmaster can motivate the teachers to carry out higher-quality work in the classroom.
Based on the theoretical findings in the empirical part we enlighten how the teachers experience the professional support from the headmaster. 175 teachers form Slovenian primary schools participated in the survey. The results showed that the majority of teachers believe that the headmaster is providing quality pedagogical guidance. Teachers also believe that the headmaster’s attitude towards further professional education of employees is positive, that headmaster often encourages them to participate in professional training and are satisfied with the exhibited attitude. They are also satisfied with the headmaster’s support in introducing change and innovation to the classroom. The results showed that the headmasters rarely observe teacher’s classes, that teachers often prepare for those observations but do not carry them out differently, that they think that the class observations are reasonable and that they are satisfied with the feedback after the observations as it motivates them for further work.
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