Romuald Normand, professor, university of Strasbourg, France
Leadership: what’s the problem ?

Biography // Romuald Normand focuses on issues of management, leadership, and school organization from an international perspective. He served as a lecturer for ten years at the French Institute of Education (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon), where he conducted action research, transferred results from international research to professionals (trainers, inspectors, school principals) and collaborated with the DGESCO. He undertook several expert missions for the European Commission (DG Education and Culture), participating notably in the activities of the NESSE network (European Network of Researchers in Social Sciences for Education and Training) and EPNsOL (European Network on School Leadership). Since 2013, at the University of Strasbourg, he has been involved in comparative research programs on school leadership. He provides continuing education for education executives in academies. He is an associated expert and a member of the scientific council of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Education and Training (IH2EF). He recently advised the School Evaluation Council on self-evaluation approaches in Europe. More recently, he joined the ENLE network (Educational Leadership Network in Europe) to work for four years with the European Commission and stakeholders on the challenges and transformations of leadership in education.

Abstract // School leadership has been the subject of numerous international research studies, but it is still relatively unknown in France, and even less present in the training programs for school leaders’ teams and educational executives. By introducing the issues of the international conference, this presentation’s goal is to position this international scientific field by demonstrating how it can contribute to the reflection on the transformation of management professions and local governance. While cross-country adaptations must consider historical, cultural, and institutional specificities, international comparative studies conducted for over 30 years reveal certain constants in the effects of leadership on improving student success, pedagogical team performance, and well-being. Leadership, however, is just one solution among others, alongside evaluation, professional development, networking in organizations, and local systems focused on leading change.

Lejf Moos, professor, university of Aarhus-Copenhagen, Denmark
School leadership in complex contexts

Biography // Lejf Moos is Associate Professor Emeritus at the Danish School of Education, Copenhagen, Aarhus University. He has for many years been doing research, teaching and publishing about education, leadership, and governance. Most publication have focused on connections and relations between educational purpose, school leadership and democratic governance in local, national, and transnational contexts. Some research projects have been Danish, some Nordic and some broader internationally, like the ‘International Successful School Principal Project’ (ISSPP) and the ‘European Policy Network on School Leadership’ (EPNSoL). He has over the past thirty years been functioning as president in several international research associations, like the ICSEI (The Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement), NERA (Nordic Educational Research Association), EERA (European Education Research Association) and EASSH (European Alliance for Social Science and Humanities). He has published books, edited volumes, and journal articles internationally. He has edited journals and books and is at present the founder and co-chief editor of the Springer Book Series, Educational Governance Research.

Abstract // Education is often seen as the most important instrument to develop and preserve the national culture. In doing so education depends on the political and governance contexts, in which it operates. So, the modernization of state, economy and policy produces changes to relations between government, regional and local agencies and to leadership of institutions like schools. Contexts have grown much more complex over time. New relations and expectations to school leadership practices are varied and heterogenous as actors on diverse levels of governance have diverse needs and desires, stretching from strong central governance to autonomy in governance. The emergence of several new governance forms will be introduced to strengthen our analyses of relations. Two distinct perspectives will be described : a democratic Bildung’s discourse, that often is seen in welfare states that were established after World War 2, and an outcomes-based discourse, growing over the past fifty years. These discourses will be used to analyze the functions of school leadership that was developed in the research project on ‘International Successful School Principal Project’ (ISSPP) : Leaders should focus on internal relations and teacher teaching, student learning, organizing of school and of resources, and with external relation working with schools’ educational aims and purposed and the stakeholders’ acceptance of schools’ activities.

Mika Risku, professor, Institute of leadership, Jyväskylä, Finland
Leadership and sharing ownership in improving students’ basic skills

Biography // Mika Risku is the Head of the Institute of Educational Leadership, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He has been with the Institute since 1996 and has acted as its head since 2013. The Institute is a full-service house with comprehensive research, education, and social interaction in educational leadership domestically and internationally. Mika Risku’s recent main interests lie in positioning and conceptualising educational leadership. This particularly involves educational policy and governance as well as developing educational organisations and leaders.

Abstract // This presentation looks at its title from two main perspectives. The first one is that of the Finnish Ministry of Education key project KAJO/DAWN. In this project, the Institute of Educational Leadership, University of Jyväskylä, together with the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences designed a holistic national development entity for leadership capability in the field of education. The second one is that of the Educational Leadership Network Europe project ELNE. ELNE focuses on enhancing collaborative school leadership for which effective collaboration and full engagement of all the actors at the institutional level are needed following the objectives of the European Education Area (EEA).

Cindy Poortman,  professor, university of Twente, Netherlands
Leadership for successful collaboration in Professional Learning Networks

Biography // Her research and teaching focus on teacher and school leader professional development in (doing research) in teams and networks. Leadership and sustainability are examples of themes she focuses on within this area. In 2023, her book The Teacher's Guide to Successful Professional Learning Networks: Overcoming Challenges and Improving Student Outcomes with Prof. Chris Brown was published. She is the co-founder and co-convener of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement network of Professional Learning Networks. See the site of the university of twente for more information and publications.

Abstract // Teacher (and school leader) collaboration is one of the most important characteristics for successful professional development. Sharing opinions and ideas is pleasant; however, these do not automatically lead to effective solutions to educational problems. The question is, therefore: what does effective collaboration entail? Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) entail an approach by which teachers (and school leaders) learn to work systematically on goals focused on improving student learning and wellbeing, based on data and literature (Poortman & Brown, 2023). They do so with colleagues from other teams in their school, or from other schools; and possibly even other types of institutions. To make PLNs successful, leadership is crucial. Effective leadership for PLNs does not only refer to the principal. It concerns “all interaction and practice tied to the core work of the school that are designed by staff members to influence the motivation, knowledge, or practices of other staff members” (Van den Boom-Muilenburg et. al., 2023, p.1). How can different staff members contribute to this leadership? And what are the related roles and activities? The first thing that is often mentioned is that “teachers need time” for working in PLNs, which is true, but facilitation in time is certainly not enough. Leaders also need to consider the school’s vision on education in relation to the PLN process, for example, and communication between PLN-members and others in their school(s) about PLN-activities and findings. There is much more to say and do about effective leadership for PLNs, and making this concrete helps PLNs to be successful in achieving their goals for improvement for students.  
References :

• Poortman, C., & Brown, C. (2023). The Teacher's Guide to Successful Professional Learning Networks: Overcoming Challenges and Improving Student Outcomes. McGraw-Hill Education (UK) ;
• Van den Boom-Muilenburg, S. N., Poortman, C. L., Schildkamp, K., de Vries, S., & van Veen, K. (2023). Sustaining data use professional learning communities in schools: The role of leadership practices. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 78, 101273.

Bénédicte Robert, rectrice de l'académie de Poitiers

Biography // Bénédicte Robert was appointed Rector of the the Poitiers educational district ( 300,000 students and 28,000 staff) on September 18, 2019. Bénédicte Robert has an English teaching credential and a Doctorate in Political Science, focusing on education, training and change management. She was appointed Rector after overseeing the creation of the Institute of Higher Education in Education and Training (IH2EF),which is  training the national education leaders. She has also worked as an expert in education for the European Commission.As a specialist in education and training policies, she has a particular interest in the potential of digital technology for education and training, a commitment to the effectiveness of public action and a focus on HR support for organisational change.

Estela Costa, professor, Institute for Education, Lisboa University, Portugal.
Leadership, Pedagogy, and Flexibility in Learning Environments

Biography // Estela Costa holds a Ph.D. in Education, specializing in Education Administration and Policy. She is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Education, University of Lisbon, where she also serves as Deputy Director and researcher at the Research and Development Unit in Education and Training (UIDEF). Her research focuses on school evaluation, school leadership, and international organizations. She coordinates a Master's program in Education, School Management, and Administration, and teaches 'Innovation and School Improvement' in the Master's program in Education Innovation. She leads REDESCOLA (school network), involving education professionals (teachers, principals, teacher training centres, municipalities, etc.) and researchers. She coordinates the IE-ULisboa expert team in the "Educational Territories of Schools in Priority Intervention" (TEIP), in partnership with the Ministry of Education. She has extensive experience in the national training of school directors, teachers, and education inspectors. She has been involved in several European projects, including KnowandPoL, ONTP, Polycentric Inspection, LOOP Project, Tech4Life. Currently, she coordinates the Portuguese team of the Erasmus+ project DIGIESSA on school self-assessment through technologies. She has also coordinated several evaluation studies of pilot projects of the Ministry of Education in public schools. She engages in consultancy activities in Portugal and abroad as an external evaluator and has participated in various peer learning activities of the ET 2020 working group on schools (European Union), including 'Support Policies for Teachers and School Leaders in Developing Schools as Learning Organizations'. Currently, she serves as the Portuguese national expert among independent experts of the European Commission in education and training.

Abstract // In Portugal, since the end of the last century, new policies have been implemented based on pilot projects developed by the Ministry of Education, focusing on school management and pedagogy. This allows schools to decide on their programs and educational projects based on the social context and the needs of their students. An example of these projects is the 'Pedagogical Innovation Pilot Project' (PIPP), which took place from 2016 to 2019, involving six school clusters across the country. These clusters benefited from greater autonomy in organizational, pedagogical, and curricular areas. This state initiative aimed to promote student success and combat school dropout, which was successfully achieved.
In this context, models of school administration have emerged, emphasizing community involvement, school autonomy, curricular flexibility, and pedagogical leadership (Costa & Almeida, 2019). Furthermore, the success of the PIPP project has inspired current educational policies, allowing schools to manage a significant portion of the national curriculum (above 25%) based on innovation plans designed by the schools themselves.
In this presentation, she will report on the changes that have occurred in Portuguese schools in terms of curricular reconfiguration (creation of spaces for curricular and transdisciplinary articulation and integration, etc.), student assessment, and various organizational measures that bring new ways of organizing students and teachers. Finally, it is important to highlight the significance of leadership, which emerges as a key factor for school improvement, especially at the pedagogical level, by taking space and time as privileged means to create more favorable conditions for student learning.

France Gravelle, professor, university of Québec at Montréal, Canada.
School Leadership in the Digital live: what challenges?

Biography // France Gravelle holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences, specializing in education, from the University of Paris-Est, a master’s degree in education, and a second-cycle specialized graduate diploma in school administration. As a tenured professor-researcher in the Department of Education and Pedagogy at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), she previously served as a guest professor in leadership, evaluation, programs, and educational policies at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, as well as the director of the University's Centre for University Pedagogy. A specialist in education management and new governance, she also focuses on issues related to the management of digital implementation, online and hybrid teaching, higher education management, as well as the well-being of educational institution leadership. She is also an associate professor at the Institute of Science, Technology, and Advanced Studies in Haiti (ISTEAH), an associated researcher at the Interuniversity Research Centre on Teacher Training and the Teaching Profession (CRIFPE), an associated researcher at the Quebec Centre for Educational Success Transfer (CTREQ), a member of the Interregional Research Group on the Organization of the Work of Educational Institution Leaders in Quebec (GRIDE), the board of directors of the Academy of School Institution Directors, the Association for the Development of Teaching and Research in Educational Administration (ADERAE), the board of directors of the Francophone Distance Education Network (REFAD), the board of directors of AUPTIC-Education, the board of directors of the International Association of University Pedagogy (AIPU), the UQAM Digital Research Network, the Observatory of Digital Technology in Education (ONE), and the International Francophone Association for Scientific Research in Education (AFIRSE). Since 2018, she has collaborated with the Ministry of Education of Quebec (MEQ) to promote the development of pedagogical leadership in educational institution leaders and school administrators. She has recently developed a self-paced training program entitled "Management and Pedagogical Digital Leadership". Before entering academia, she held various positions as a director of educational institutions at the elementary, secondary, collegiate, and university levels. View her professional profile and her website.

Abstract // In the digital age, educational institutions must engage in a pedagogical innovation process to meet the now diversified needs of learners, particularly concerning the enhancement of their digital literacy. It is in this context that the government of Quebec initiated a transformation process in 2018 by adopting its Digital Action Plan in Higher Education (DAP). Regardless of the country, the responsibility for transforming educational systems lies with all stakeholders in the education sector. However, education leaders are specifically tasked with playing a crucial role, ensuring the successful implementation of digital initiatives in educational institutions worldwide. Recent studies by Gravelle et al. (2019, 2020, 2021) have highlighted the importance of pedagogical leadership and transformational leadership as postures that facilitate the successful integration of digital technology. Furthermore, a self-paced training based on these concepts has been developed and is offered free of charge to all education leaders in Quebec by the Ministry of Education of Quebec. This presentation aims to introduce the management strategies that have facilitated the efficient implementation of digital technology in educational institutions, along with the challenges and issues that this pedagogical transformation may represent.

Monica Mincu, professor, university of Torino, Italie
Can leadership be shared with teachers ?

Biography // Monica Mincu is an associate professor in comparative education with the Department of Philosophy and Education, University of Turin, and a lecturer and deputy programme leader of Applied Educational Leadership in educational leadership with the Institute of Education, University College London. She has acted as a consultant with UNESCO since 2021 and other major Italian NGOs dedicated to school improvement and teacher quality. She contributes to forthcoming the Global Educational Monitoring Report 2024 with a paper on school leadership in low school autonomy countries. She engages with education politics and governance from a social change and equity perspective. 

Abstract // Distributed leadership can be understood as an action of sharing roles and tasks at the intermediate school level or as a bottom up empowerment of resourceful teachers. Leadership enacted at the school and intermediate levels is significant to the quality of teaching overall and thus can lead to improvement in different ways (cognitive, emotional, organisational and cultural) and at different levels (students, classes, schools, communities). More specifically, teacher leadership can be seen on a continuum together with middle and school leadership, and positioned at one end of the pole, closer to actual class practices initiated by individual teachers. Based on the available research, we can formulate some premisses about educational leaders in general and middle leaders in particular. First, Hammersley-Fletcher and Strain (2011) report that two significant factors impact practices and behaviours : "A leader in a leadership role at any level in a school or other organisation acts at points of intersection between their history as a person, and the history of the institution made evident in the school's distinctive 'culture'". Second, leadership practice is filled with several constraints : "Too many people in leadership roles are not leaders, do not expect to be leaders, and do not have the organisational support to be leaders". (Gurr & Drysdale, 2012, p. 62). In this presentation she will focus on enabling and constraining factors of more distributed forms of leadership.

Christopher Day,professor, university of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Building and Sustaining Successful School Leadership: why teacher development counts

Biography // Christopher Day is the founder of the twenty five strong country International Successful School Principalship (ISSPP) research network (2001). He is Professor of Education in the School of Education, University of Nottingham, Professor of Educational Leadership and Management in the University of Sydney, Australia, and Chair Professor, Beijing Normal University, China. Prior to this he worked as a teacher, lecturer, and Schools’ Adviser. His interests, research and publications focus upon teacher professionalism, teachers' work, lives and effectiveness; successful school leadership in high needs communities ; school-university partnerships ; and system change. His current research projects focus on :
i) Successful school leadership ;
ii) System Leadership: policy making and management in disruptive times ;
iii) Chair-principal relationships in new public governance.
Recent book publications include : Why Successful School Leadership’ is more than ‘Effective’: how principals build and sustain teachers’ and students’ academic, social and individual learning, wellbeing, and achievement (2024), Teacher Professionalism during the Pandemic: care, courage and resilience (2024), School-University Partnerships in Action: the promise of Change (2021) Routledge, Successful School Leadership (2020) Education Development Trust, and Teachers' Worlds and Work : understanding complexity, building quality (2017) Routledge.

Abstract // With few exceptions, research on school effectiveness and improvement has found that who school leaders are, what they do, and how and when they do it matters, and makes a significant difference to school culture, teacher motivation, quality, retention, and student learning, achievement, and wellbeing trajectories. A range of research internationally has shown that high quality, successful school leadership is second only to classroom teaching as a direct influence on pupil learning, and that it contributes, albeit mostly indirectly, through establishing key school conditions, and influencing the values, dispositions, aspirations, expectations, and practices of teachers. Because teachers are key contributors to student learning, achievement, and wellbeing, school leadership is most effective when it improves or sustains their curriculum knowledge, classroom skills, commitment, capabilities for change and development, active engagement, and capacity for resilience. This lecture will focus on what research by the International Successful School Principalship Project internationally through research across 25 countries over a period of 20 years has shown about who effective and successful school leaders are, what the similarities and differences between them are, and what they do, and how and why they do it to achieve success. It will focus especially on the part they play in promoting teachers’ continuing professional development.

Olivier Perrenoud, professor, Haute école pédagogique, Lausanne, Switzerland
The key practices of professional support for teachers by school leadership teams

Biography // Olivier Perrenoud is a professor at the Haute école pédagogique du canton de Vaud in Switzerland. With a professional background as a teacher, middle manager, and teacher trainer, he is currently a professor and head of the LEAD department, the first department of expertise specifically dedicated to education and training executives. LEAD focuses on supporting the professional development of members of school management teams. He is a member of the management team of the FORDIF Consortium (training in the management of training institutions), responsible for certified training for management teams throughout French-speaking Switzerland, and contributes to these same training programs. Committed to promoting innovation at all levels, he is also a member of the scientific committee of the governance and leadership days in education, which is aimed at educational leaders, and a member of the board of the proEdu association, which aims to promote innovative practices within Swiss schools.
His research and intervention areas include school governance, pedagogical management of educational institutions, work organization, team management, and the development of innovative practices.

Abstract // Despite sociological theories of organizations or principles drawn from management theories, it still seems challenging to know how to evolve human systems such as schools. While it is recognized that to improve the services provided in a school, leadership plays an active role in supporting the professional development of teachers and fostering collective practices, research and interventions in the professional environment increasingly show that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to human resource development valid for all schools. In a school, the manager-leader fulfils their mission in large part thanks to the work of others. They must engage to recruit and involve teaching staff, catalyse individual and collective energies to bring out the best in each. Based on coaching experiences in French-speaking Switzerland, the intervention will attempt to identify approaches that can be adopted to effectively support actors in the institution and the development of collective practices. We will highlight key factors on which efforts can be focused to have a greater chance of exerting influence. We will explore how a proactive leadership team can impact student success and the importance of creating a collaborative work environment that encourages exchanges between teachers and a climate conducive to pedagogical innovations.

Rozenn Décret-Rouillard, associate professor, Rennes university, France
Collaborative leadership or distributed leadership with teachers: What do deputy principals do ?

Biography // Rozenn Décret-Rouillard is an associate professor at the University of Rennes 2 and at the Centre for Research on Education, Learning, and Didactics, EA3875. She is an international researcher at GRIDE (Interregional Research Group on the Organization of Work in School Management in Quebec). Since 2021, she has been conducting several research projects on the role of assistant school principals (public and private) in collaboration with Simon Mallard and Gwénola Réto (LIRFE, UCO), and GRIDE. Four scientific articles and numerous conference presentations have emerged from these research endeavours. Her works and publications also delve into the effects of schooling in public or private secondary schools, the division of labour in educational institutions, key actors in secondary education (school principals, Chief Education Officers, teachers) and the schooling and socialization of adolescents (relationship to secondary school, academic paths, digital practices, gender).

Abstract // In a school, the primary leader is the principal. Therefore, what role does the assistant principal play ? The challenge of sharing authority arises for principals (Mallard, Réto, and Décret-Rouillard, 2022). Our intervention aims to examine the leadership style of deputy principals, who are not extensively covered in current scientific literature. We also seek to explore how assistant principals exercise leadership based on the school context and the expectations of both the principal and teachers. Our insights are drawn from a qualitative survey conducted in 2021 involving 23 deputy secondary school principals (Décret-Rouillard, Mallard, and Réto, 2022), as well as a quantitative survey carried out in winter 2023 with 1880 principals.

Nora Revai, analyst in the Innovative teaching for effective learning project, OECD.
The role of school leadership in teachers’ knowledge dynamics

Biography // Nóra Révai is leading the OECD’s Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project and is an analyst in the Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Skills project. Nóra played a key role in developing the OECD’s Teacher Knowledge Survey. Before joining the OECD, she managed EU-funded international projects on school leadership at the Hungarian national agency for European Co-operation Programs in Education. She also worked as a secondary school teacher. Nóra holds a Master of Science in Mathematics and a Bachelor of Arts in English Teaching from Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, as well as a PhD in Sociology from the University of Strasbourg, France.

Abstract // The presentation will focus on the key role of school leadership on teachers’ knowledge dynamics. It will highlight OECD data on school leaders’ influence on teachers’ professional development and collaboration, as well as their engagement with research evidence. It will also draw on research conducted in the Poitiers region, and demonstrate how teachers mobilize, diffuse and construct knowledge through social processes, highlighting the role of leadership. Finally, it will put in evidence local and systemic drivers and barriers of knowledge dynamics in teacher communities.

Kim Schidkamp, professor, university of Twente, Netherlands
Leadership for data-informed school improvement

Biography // Prof. Dr. Kim Schildkamp is a full professor in the Faculty of Behavioral, Management, and Social Sciences of the University of Twente in the Netherlands. She is the chair of the Department for Teacher Development. Her research focusses on data-informed decision making for learning and development, which includes the use of data and AI in education. Kim is the past president of ICSEI (International Congress on School Effectiveness and Improvement). She has also been the chair of the "Facilitating Professional Development of Lecturers" zone of the Dutch national "Acceleration Plan Educational Innovation with IT". She has published widely on the use of (assessment) data. She has received numerous of grants from NWO/NRO, the EU (Erasmus plus, Comenius), The Spencer Foundation, the Ministry of Education, STW (Science and Technology fund, the Netherlands), and several school boards. For more information, see the presentation of Kim Schildkamp on the university of Twente site.

Abstract // The presentation will focus on the key role of school leadership on teachers’ knowledge dynamics. It will highlight OECD data on school leaders’ influence on teachers’ professional development and collaboration, as well as their engagement with research evidence. It will also draw on research conducted in the Poitiers region, and demonstrate how teachers mobilize, diffuse and construct knowledge through social processes, highlighting the role of leadership. Finally, it will put in evidence local and systemic drivers and barriers of knowledge dynamics in teacher communities.

Herbert Altrichter,J  professor emeritus at Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria
School leadership with data from external evaluation and self-evaluation

Biography // Herbert Altrichter is Professor emeritus at the Linz School of Education at Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria. He was born and educated in Vienna and completed his Ph.D. at Vienna University. After research and teaching positions at universities in Klagenfurt and Innsbruck (Austria) and visiting scholarships at Cambridge Institute of Education and Deakin University (Australia), he became Full Professor of Education and Educational Psychology at Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria, in 1996. He was founding Director of Linz School of Education and retired from this position in 2020. In 2021, he was appointed Senior Professor by Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. Herbert Altrichter was the founding president of Austrian Educational Research Association (ÖFEB), Executive Committee member of European Educational Research Association (EERA) and founding editor of German-language learned journals (e.g., Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung; Journal für Schulentwicklung, Journal für LehrerInnenbildung). His research interests include educational governance studies (school development and system reform), teacher education, evaluation, action research, and qualitative research methodology, and he has published widely in these field both in English and German (https://scholar.google.at/citations?user=3LwWYsEAAAAJ&hl=de) His books include Teachers investigate their work: An introduction to action research across the professions (London & New York, 3rd edition), Lehrerinnen und Lehrer erforschen ihren Unterricht (Bad Heilbrunn, 5th edition; Greek and Chinese translations), Images of Educational Change (Buckingham), Handbuch Neue Steuerung im Schulsystem (Wiesbaden, 2nd edition), Educational Governance als Forschungsperspektive (Wiesbaden, 2nd edition), and Educational Governance – Handlungskoordination und Steuerung im Bildungssystem (Wiesbaden).

Abstract // In many European countries, there is a growing trend in education policy towards evidence-based decision-making in both system-level and individual school development. Various tools, including new school inspections, pupil performance surveys, and school development plans, are being introduced or revamped to support data-driven decision-making. However, research highlights the challenges associated with effectively implementing external evaluative information within existing educational systems. E.g., in high-stakes systems, there are tendencies to circumvent or manipulate the system, while in low-stakes systems, ignorance and proactive adaptation are observed. Although the political shift towards external evaluation stemmed in part from criticism of subjectivity, arbitrariness, and lack of rigor in internal school evaluations, it is now assumed that the effective use of external evaluation information requires to cultivate evaluative competencies, ‘data literacy’, and an 'evaluation culture' at individual schools, which can also be strengthened through school self-evaluation. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that the ability to "use and encourage the use of data effectively" is highlighted as a ‘core leadership practice’ (e.g., in the Ontario Leadership Framework). School leaders must not only use data themselves but also foster a culture of evaluation and provide guidance for acquiring data literacy among staff and for data utilization in school improvement processes. Therefore, the presentation explores conditions and characteristics of effective and critical practices for school leaders in utilizing internal and external data for school development.

Jeffrey Hall, professor, Oslo university, Norway
Inspection, leadership and support.

Stephan Huber, professor, Johannes Kepler university of Linz, Austria
Scientific conclusion to the conference.