Examining current leadership practices at Velabahleke High School and the effects they have on school academic performance.

Abstract

This study examines the current leadership practices at Velabahleke High School and their effect on school academic performance. The current leadership practices and the current leadership of the school. This team is called the school management team and it is made up of heads of departments (HOD), the deputy principal, principal and grade controllers. This study focussed on this team as well as all the teachers in the same school. The grade 12 results of the school over the past five years are looked into. The observation reveals that the school maintains an excellent pass rate.A quantitative method was used in this research in a form of questionnaires which were sent to the educators at Velabahleke High School. Respondents participated in the study voluntarily and the response was positive Responses were captured manually after questionnaires were handed to the educators at Velabahleke high school. Results were then analysed using descriptive analysis first provided by Google Forms and further analysis were done in Microsoft Excel 2013. The targeted population for this study was all the educators at Velabahleke High School and the school management team. About 45 respondents participated in this study and they did so voluntarily and they were made aware that they can stop their participation. The findings on this study was mainly around the teachers perceptions of the leadership practices applied by the school management team and whether these practices were a contributor to the success of the school. It must be noted that this is the second best performing high school within the entire UmlaziTownship with a constant matric pass rate of not less than 98% over the past 10 years. Therefore there was motivation to study their leadership practices and establish what the educators’ perceptions on these practices are. The findings were also compared to the existing literature in order to establish if there was similarities or differences in the previous studies conducted along the similar education sector.The most dominant recommendation was around a more decentralised power of decision making where the school management team delegates some of the decision making, to be made in a collaborative effort with the entire education team.