Middle Leadership & Their Effects On Student Attainment & Progression Case Study

CHAPTER 1: Introduction Of The Middle Leadership & Their Effects On Student Attainment & Progression

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1.1 Introduction Empowering Middle Leaders: Driving Educational Improvement in Schools

A middle leader is a staff member who gets a salary and plays the role of extra responsibilities in a specific area of school life. The strategies of middle leaders improve organizational development and comprehensive schools; they focus to translate the improvement strategies. It is based on interviews with the middle teachers, leaders, and principals at two schools and preschools. In the middle leading positions, teachers in schools are interested in the improvement of students' attainment all over the world. The middle leader teachers are encouraged by their power in driving change in the practice of education.

1.2 Research background

In the education organization, successful leadership depends on the personnel working. Middle leaders spend specific work of their working time outside the classroom and focus on the discussion of the improvement of the school. Middle leaders for school improvement have focused on the knowledge of conditions for middle leaders, and middle leader roles. This also focused on to effect of several levels within school organization (Ballangrud and Aas, 2022). The micro-processes of translating ideas into activities are to promote school improvement and to adapt the knowledge of improvement strategies to the local school organization. There some different roles can be found that are the strategic role, the staff development role, the supervisory role, and the administrative role. The good operational management of leadership, the teachers needs to understand the ability of their staff, provide useful feedback and promote open communication.

Compared to other leaders like principals and consultants, they are very attached to the classroom and are more skilled in teaching activities, and are more attentive to the teacher culture and deal with the strategy (De Nobile, 2019). On the other hand, there have also some disadvantages in that they have not skilled in teaching activities in the different subjects. There are many various types of job roles that handle the middle leader. Middle leaders always do conversations with the senior leadership team about the school's vision and strategy. The middle leader takes the following responsibilities are:

Middle leaders provide the safeguarding practice through knowledge, display excellent behavior management skills analyze year group data and understand benchmarks, and are responsible for the pastoral care of their pupils. Middle leaders are the head of the department because they are responsible for overseeing administrative duties, responsible for professional development, working with their team, provide advice, guidance, and support to the team (Asera, 2019). Middle leader member leads the safeguarding team, ensuring all child protection plans are updated, regular meetings with the line manager, attend multi-agency meetings and help with social workers and other support agencies.

Middle leaders act as phase leaders. These are middle leaders who manage across the curriculum, contribute to whole-school self-improvement planning and self-evaluation, implement the policies, develop staff CPD and offer support, advice, and guidance to the team. Middle leaders play the role of subject leaders where they balance the curriculum for their subject, identify strengths and areas of their subject development, take an active role in the improvement of the whole school and evaluate learning and teaching (Jamesand Pierre, 2022). The middle leader sends a coordinator who leads, develops, and manages high-quality provision throughout the school, coach and train teachers send pupils to provide high-quality teaching and maintain send records and keep update on paperwork.

Middle leaders help to build up the school smoothly and any school always wants a pathway to the middle leader from SLT to teachers. The purpose of a school is to educate both students and staff (Bryantand Walker, 2022). The middle leaders make some effective ways to be visible leaders in the school. For a successful school, there are two concepts these are curriculum and data.

Data

Data analyze where children come from and where they need to go and ensuring pupil progress is essential for schools. Teachers can adapt their teaching to meet the student's needs from data analysis.

Curriculum

As teachers, middle leaders have the knowledge and understanding the learning and teaching. Middle leaders develop a broad and managed curriculum and translate this into stuff (Ballangrud,. and Aas, 2022). Middle leaders monitor the curriculum to ensure it meets the needs of students' progress.

The middle leader should be friendly in nature because the team follows the leader for support, guidance, and advice and to identify the strengths of the leader's department and the need to develop the target area (Jamesand Pierre, 2022). The reflection is the practice in teaching and urgent in leadership. It helps the leader to develop the skills and benefit the team. For the course, the primary goals are to develop the process leaders of understanding the strength of their capacity in leading change (Zheng and Ye, 2022). To make the current understanding among teachers the course participants use to learn the challenging structures and questions in the learning dialogue.

1.3 Aim and objectives

This study aims to explain the leadership styles and strategies of middle learners and school students in their development

The main aim of the leadership of teaching is to improve both learning and teaching. Not only has that but also tried to improve teaching and learning through learning, seeking cooperation, curricula, and to name just a few. These all methods depend on the motivations of leadership (Wilmot et al., 2022).

The objectives of the study are stated below.

• To understand different types of leadership strategies
• To evaluate the benefit and challenges of leadership strategies used for middle leaders
• To analyse different supportive models of the middle leader strategies
• To recommend further strategies for the effectiveness of middle leaders

1.4 Research questions

• What are the different strategies of leadership that are used by the middle leaders in the schools?
• What are the Benefits and challenges of leadership strategies that are used by middle leaders?
• How different models such as supportive models as well as approaches are used as the middle leader strategies to improve students’ condition?
• What is the impact of middle leaders' translation processes on a local school organization?
• How many types of strategies used for improvement in their own organization?

1.5 Significance of Research

The information observed from the research contributed to growing the school leadership research body. Effective school leaders apply experience and manage the skills to focus their efforts on improving the quality of student learning outcomes. Good middle leadership in schools helps both a positive and motivating pathway for staff for learners (Li and Karanxha, 2022). Good leadership in education is interested in students' curriculum which contributes to both academic success and overall growth in students. Middle leadership of teachers is necessary for the sustainable development of a meaningful institution. Educational leadership is the duty of the community to ensure the taking initiative. Three primary principles such as plan, action, and vision help to create successful teacher leadership (Ydesen et al., 2023). In diverse and collaborative activities middle leaders play an important role in decision making including the learning and teaching process. The study can provide evidence that effective school leadership adds importance to the practice of leadership by principals. On the theoretical value, the study finds that the factors provide greater insight to the managers and administrators of schools. For the course, the primary goals are to develop the process leaders of understanding the strength of their capacity in leading change (Effendi and Sahertian, 2022). To make the current understanding among teachers the course participants use to learn the challenging structures and questions in the learning dialogue.

The study also contributes to the literature on school leadership and provides the implications for future school development, training, helping current school administrators, preparation and expectations. In a democratic style of middle leadership, the group of members is encouraged to participate in the decision-making process. The study contributes to the extension of knowledge about helpful, productive, and successful leadership. Research studies stated that the middle leadership style provides develops consensus, adoption, and guidance to the prevailing condition (Montecinos et al., 2022). The middle leader is to guide and stimulate school improvement in cooperation with principals. Leadership works for the teaching institution such as structure, setting goals, the number of students in each section, instruction to be followed, and the forms of pedagogy among others.

1.6 Research rationale

The middle leadership strategies are to build up for improving the learning processes to reach successful leadership. For successful leadership educational organizations applies to other organizations of different fields. This topic is rational because successful leadership achieves the practices that are setting goals, organizational development, and personal development.

Settings Goals

In the organization, people have shared about the organization. People help to identify and motivate for applying the goals in their work. Within the organization, effective communication helps to improve the organization.

Personal Development

Motivation and encouragement help to move the employees toward their goals. In an organization, the development of the working people contributes to the positivity of work-related motivation to members. Providing support and appropriate models of good practices, intellectual stimulation, and good beliefs are important to the leadership practices of the organization which affects the performance of employees positively.

Organization development

On the motivations of administrators and teachers, leadership depends on the success of student learning. On the other hand, in schools, good conditions will affect performance positively. Successful middle leaders grow their organizations in a way to modify and strengthen the organizational structures to expedite the teachers' and administrators' work.

Leadership is performed through the collaboration of other administrators and employees in the organization. The concept of distributive leadership notices the distribution of tasks in the organization. To a higher standard, a successful leader works to lift the teaching institution at all levels. The leadership collaborates and delegates with other members of the organization in decision-making.

Leadership practices are useful in different cultures. These are direction settings, redesigning the organizations, and people development (Wu and Shen, 2022). The direction setting is to develop an understanding of the schools and their goals and activities. Motivated people are to develop leadership conditions through the direct interaction between employees and leaders. Leaders require gaining knowledge to improve their learning and teaching qualities. Redesigning the organization is a kind of practice where the organizational structure is to make the employee's work easier and help to strengthen and modify the structure of the organization.

1.7 Scope of the research

Strategic leadership is a critical issue for school leaders and the strategy is overlooked within the educational leadership literature. The scope of research on this topic is to provide relevant research on strategic leadership, identify any gaps in the study, and inform future research evidence for practice. Due to a better understanding of the topic of the middle leadership strategies affecting the students' attainment and progress, it is necessary to expand the scope of research into more longitudinal, more complex, and explanatory ways. The concept of strategy in educational management was incomplete and confusing. Over the past decades, most of the empirical and theoretical work on strategic leadership related to scholarship and non-educational settings devoted to some issues in education is still minimal and very limited.

1.8 Summary

The study has summarized that the main themes related to student learning and effective leadership. As a result, decision-making is not only in the hands of the leader it also reduces the channel errors made by one leader. In the organization, decision-making will reduce the risk of wrong decisions. The study can provide evidence that effective school leadership adds importance to the practice of leadership by principals. On the theoretical value, the study finds that the factors provide greater insight to the managers and administrators of schools. Middle leaders always do conversations with the senior leadership team about the school's vision and strategy. Middle leaders play the role of subject leaders where they balance the curriculum for their subject, identify strengths and areas of their subject development, take an active role in the improvement of the whole school and evaluate learning and teaching. Effective school leaders apply experience and manage the skills to focus their efforts on improving the quality of student learning outcomes. Good middle leadership in schools helps both a positive and motivating pathway for staff for learners. Good leadership in education is interested in students' curriculum which contributes to both academic success and overall growth in students. Middle leaders monitor the curriculum to ensure it meets the needs of students' progress. The middle leader teachers are encouraged by their power in driving change in the practice of education.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 The Crucial Role of Middle Leaders in School Management and Student Engagement

Head teachers as well as assistant principals are the part of middle leaders who plays important role in schools. Learning as well as teaching is the two primary sources of attraction for students and influencing students towards school with the help of proper strategies is the central role of middle leaders. School staff, as well as principals, gets adequate support from middle leaders and it helps to improve the learning area for students. Head teachers and assistant principals are part of the executive team and acquire various ideas with the help of local context.

2.2 Conceptual Framework

2.3 Theoretical Analysis

Theory 1: Great man theory

Great man theory is help to understand the main role of a middle leader to maintain a proper culture in the school. The theory says that leadership is one kind of inborn quality and is not made by others. Characteristics, as well as traits of the leaders, are inborn and skills only help to improve the quality. The critical thinking capacity, as well as problem-solving skills, is not adaptable (Mouton, 2019). Great leaders are born with certain traits which help them to rise as leaders. The necessary attributes of leaders are applied by the leaders in various fields that help to improve the condition of any organization. The theory contains various criticisms like various experts are told that leadership can be improved with the help of environment as well as learning capacity. Gathering experiences is the main responsibility of the true leader.

Figure 2.3.1: Great man theory

(Source: Rosenshield, 2020)

The theory contains various traditional approaches but its suggestion help to maintain a proper culture in school. The middle teachers mostly applied the theory to maintain the proper order of the senior executive. Maintain the proper relationship between higher authorities as well as management help to improve the funding system of the school (Girton, 2019). Communication is the main strength of middle leaders because it helps to improve the skill of negotiation. The governmental funds as well as the interest rates of shareholders are properly maintained by the middle leaders. The usage of digital tools and maintenance of proper time is suggested by the middle leaders with the help of the theory.

Theory 2: Transformational Theory

Figure 2.3.2: Transformational Theory

(Source: Inspired by Smagulova and Arynov, 2020

The lack of scientific validity became the main weakness of the theory. The experts suggested transformational theory to improve the skills of leaders. The theory is suggested to provide dedicated work for teammates that help to provide proper influence to the other workers. In the school, the middle leader can do proper strategies for teammates and that help to provide proper dedication to the teammates (Smagulova and Arynov, 2020). The senior managers have supported this kind of attitude in the leader and proper strategies improve the performance quality of the teachers. Call for a meeting, and giving assignments about digital technologies are the part of strategies of the middle leader.

2.4 Factor 1: Different strategies of leadership

The middle leader is the person who can make his team encouraged and can motivate for achieving the goal. A leader is a person who gives continuous importance to his team members and can make them work better by the management of their strengths and weaknesses. Middle leadership needs six kinds of leadership skills and strategies for managing. Those strategies which are needed by middle managers are

Figure 2.4: Different parts off effective leadership skill

(Source: Inspired by Trebesch, 2020)

Having a clear vision:

A clear vision is very important for middle leaders. He should always know at which point his department will be in the particular time frame. He is the person who helps in any way to produce a goal for his department and helps the department to achieve that goal in a specified time period (Trebesch, 2020). He needs to know the vision and according to that he empowers his staff for the completion of certain work and makes the department prioritize achieving the goal. The vision can give the ability to leaders for justification of the future. A good leader should always have a sense of morality.

Knowing the team and supporting:

It is the responsibility of a middle leader to create a type of culture where the motivations are there in people and that which can make a difference by completing the goal that is student-oriented or the team or the groups that are connected. The leaders need to teach and coach the students or the team for professional development and for making it clear about achieving the given goal. The leaders are the persons who can lead the team or the students in a particular way that is goal-oriented. The leaders do every means of work and they invest time in every means for the development of the students.

Being resilient:

The new role is for challenging and the middle leader should know about the requirement and it needs to be clear that the middle leader has to fulfill the fact that is needed by the senior leadership team. Leaders should teach their students about time management and they should also maintain certain timetables (Väyrynen, 2023). They should aware of the fact about setting a boundary and should not mix the time with their home time. A daily to-do timetable needs to be there and they need to manage it for the achievement of the daily work through a priority matrix. The meeting with the students or with the team needs to be preplanned and that should not be like the corridor discussion.

Getting support:

The job is a vast responsibility and it cannot be done single-handedly. If the in-house managers supports the middle leaders it will be best for the completion of the work, or else manager needs to be hired from outside (Leithwood and Hopkins, 2020). The mentors or the managers who are hired for some specific work need to be supportive and this is the person who can help the leaders by making them release their frustrations and can give ideas when it is required. The mentors are the person who can make the job of the leaders easy and helps in guiding them toward a particular goal. This can be anyone like this can be the person with whom the leader has worked before or the person who is the supportive leader or the senior leader and ready to help the middle leader with work.

Holding of values:

Middle leaders should always act smart and need to hold the value and the importance which is needed for the continuation of the job. The4 person needs to have the right ethics and should follow the right way to hold their own values which is needed for the execution of the goal.

Knowing the strength and weaknesses:

The strength and weaknesses of the department need to be known and need to be justified. Middle leaders need to have control over the strength and weaknesses of the team. The strength and weaknesses should be genuine and should have reasons for them (Väyrynen, 2023). The strength of the team should be well maintained and the weakness needs to be cut down as soon as it goes beyond. The weaknesses can only be cut down by the applications of the strengths. The leader should stay honest with his team and should share all strengths and weaknesses that the team has and should be guided by the process of maintaining the strength and weaknesses to certain levels.

Conversations is a key:

Leaders always need a clear conversation with the team and nothing should be hidden. The person should discuss the performances and he should discuss the fact that how a work can be developed. They can address that person in the group who is not fulfilling his capabilities and can do better if guided. Leaders should know the process of motivating their team and can make a job done. Difficult conversations need to be conducted and it is to be confirmed that the leader is guiding the team with all his skills of conversation and control.

The pupils should be known well:

A positive relationship needs to be maintained with the students. Teaching quality lessons in meaningful ways and avoiding random meetings and assignments can make students feel good and it doesn't undermine the lessons. The students shall respect the middle leader for the time that he is giving and this will improve the behavior management of the leader. The relationship between the student-teacher needs to be well maintained and this will make the flow of the work smooth. The leader should maintain interesting lessons and this can make the students feel interested in the work done.

Well-informed and evaluated:

Own performance of the leaders needs to be evaluated and there should be continuous practice for maintaining static improvements. The most successful teams are those that are up to date about the policies and practices for having high-quality education (Leithwood and Hopkins, 2020). Practicing the same work every day makes the leader and the team advance in the required job. The middle leader helps his team in every way for the achievement of the goal and for making smooth work in the field of education and achievements. The people on the team need to be well-informed and this information helps them to make the achievement in the work target.

2.5 Factor 2: Benefits of leadership strategies

The benefits that middle leadership has with respect to their strategies are enormous. There are various benefits that a leader can have by maintaining their strategies. The strategy that the middle leader has is for managing his team through various means. The middle leaders are the types of leaders who communicate both with the teachers and the senior leaders for the improvement of the process and for motivation of the staff which can make a better communication environment. Some of the benefits that can be subjected are:

Formation of the individual relationships:

The main strategic benefit of the middle leader is to keep good relationships. The person maintains good relationships with the staff. By doing this kind of behavior the staff gets motivated and at the same time improving the relations between the departments can lead to focusing on the performance of the job. The leader’s help in the improvement of the conversations and the conversations lead to good relationships and solutions to the objectives. The middle leaders are the person who always tries to make the staff engaged in other work and they always try to keep them busy in the most pleasant way. The feedback is provided by the middle leaders and this feedback supports the individual concern.

The team working is needed:

To develop strong communication and teamwork leaders need to provide a special time for having group sessions. The middle leaders need to arrange a time for the students and the team members for the group work session which is very important as this helps in making face-to-face conversations (Budur, 2020). Teamwork can make many developments as teamwork means doing a job on time with the help of the team members (Maida and Weber, 2022). Teamwork is such work that a person can do for the completion of the objectives that are there for the betterment of the work which is being carried on. The middle leaders try a lot the development of work power and enforcement of the school policy which makes it easier for the implementation of the work or the job that is done for the management of the schools.

The departmental strategic plan:

The creation of strategic plans for the execution of the work, the development of performances and the right planning of the department needs to be maintained for smooth work. The strategic plan that is needed is for time management for the management of the staff and for evaluation of the capacity that is needed for the maintenance of departments (Ate?, 2020). The plan for the department is generated by the middle leaders and this makes the staff motivated for the development purpose and this makes them work efficiently. The plan for the students is also made and these plans are needed for the achievement of the goal on a long-term basis.

Maintaining the standard and workloads

Middle leaders are the person who has to maintain higher standards of work and also has to do a form of work that is not dependent on class matters. The leaders have to deal with the parental concepts of meeting and he has to make the concepts clear about the performances that the student going through (Kane, 2019). He has to manage all the official work with the completion of the data entry, planning for the future goal, assessments and etc (Abu and Hibi, 2021). He also has to see on the fact that whether the staff is doing the nonteaching task more than their own task of teaching. If this happens then he has to guide them with the right ideas that how they will maintain the class work with the no class work (Fleming, 2019). With the proper strategic planning, the person needs to make maintenance on the workload and he has to make the work done in the most planned way which is only possible in case of the strategic planning. The various department leaders keep an eye on their department and make sure that no emergency issues occur.

Importance of quality Decision making:

Decision-making is another quality that is very important for middle managers to make a compact plan and to have the right decision. The benefits of planning lead to the formation of the decision which can lead to the achievement of the goal and can make the target of the work complete (Müller and Niessen, 2019). The leader has to make decisions for the future goal which needs to be completed. Decision-making is the capability of a leader to have control of the situation. The middle leader is the kind of person who has the ability to make a strong decision whenever it is required and this can change (Chen, 2020). A right decision can make the leader achieve his goal fast and a wrong decision can make it more complicated the achievement of success. A leader who is having the skill of the right decision-making can have control over the situation and the staff.

Obligations:

Good leaders always have a commitment to the success of their departments and for success, the leader can do anything including long-term planning for the achievement of long-term goals. The middle leaders are the person who does not want any setbacks (Bush, 2019). If they found any setbacks then they do their best for the motivation of the staff and make them again do their job smoothly. Leaders are the person who can have the full potential for removing setbacks and for motivating the staff for having the full utilization of their potential.

Growth:

The middle leaders help in every aspect of the growth of the staff and the growth of their team members. He is a person who has all kinds of capabilities for upholding the staff in his team for the maintenance of the goal which is going to achieve (Guo, 2020). The leader is the person who works in a team and has the courage for completing a job with all the team members and the staff who are connected with him. The leader helps the team member and the staff to grow in the position by achieving the desired goal.

Connection and communications:

The important quality of the leader is to have the connections and the right communications with the staff members and the students. Quality is the most important quality as this is the quality that can be maintained for keeping a good relationship and for having the right control over the team members (Harris, 2019). Communication is a key part that has the ability to control anyone if it is done in the right manner. Communication is the part that helps in keeping the right connection with the people and helps in keeping good relationships for the achievement of the goal

Factor 3: Challenges of leadership strategies

Assistant principals and head teachers played an important role to make the future of the student brighter and better. They played both the role of teachers and leaders to assure the attainment and progress of the students in the school (Allensworth et al. 2021). They applied different strategies to bridge a gap between the management of the school and the learning and teaching process. However, it is not an easy task to control different aspects of challenges as a middle leader of the school. The common challenges are workload, time allocation, and self-esteem which have to deal with by the middle leaders. Lack of support, lack of commitment, lack of understanding, lack of incentives, and lack of collaboration and communication affected the teacher's leadership (Arar et al. 2019). Activities in the school and stress or workload of the school affected the mental and physical conditions of the teachers to conduct their work properly.

The most common challenges of middle leaders are providing inspiration to the school students, knowledge development of the students especially weak students, leading change, handling different issues and perspectives, and dealing with imposter syndrome, and managing team collaboration. Apart from that, communication challenges with co-workers and with students can give rise to big issues in the role of leadership (Atasoy, 2020). Thus, the middle leaders have to treat everyone the same, have to stay honest and must celebrate the wins. Making hard decisions on certain sensitive issues, managing learning resources, delegating, record the feedback of the students are the competency challenges faced by the middle leaders in the schools. The internal challenges include a positive staying mentality, wanting to be liked by the students, staying calm, and trust building. As middle leaders, the teachers are more concerned with the challenges which affected the leadership functions.

• Decision-making: The teachers have to be strict in making decisions in difficult situations for the betterment of the student's activities and learning performances. Therefore, not all the decisions taken by the middle leaders are in favor of the students which hurt the students or might create anger for the leaders that give rise to hatred (Davidson and Hughes, 2020). In some cases, assistant principals have to take heartless decisions which might affect the sentiments of their co-workers as well. As a result, the middle leaders lost the support of their co-employees and faced difficulties. They take the decisions related to admission management, attendance automation, discipline system, grades management, and fee collection (Day et al. 2020). In these cases, the middle leaders stayed very strict and determined to make the infrastructure of the school maintain the le warning process. In certain cases, the leaders have to consider the fees of the poor students for their uninterrupted learning.
• Daily task schedule: The middle leaders make the daily schedules or routines of the schools, on the basis of which the daily activities of students and teachers are running. The middle has to face complaints about class schedules, the classes, the students, general non-teaching staff, and other teachers as well (Dimopoulos, 2020). Sometimes, it gives rise to internal conflicts in the school. The structure of the daily task is responsible for the progress of the school activities which is directly related to the progress of the students.
• Teacher recruitment: The middle leaders who are mainly the assistant principal of the schools have to deal with teacher recruitment according to the subject to teach the students. In the present time, the teachers are recruited with the help of a school management system that includes real-time application tracking, online assessment, and an automated ranking system (Grissom et al. 2021). The teachers must assign respectively to their daily activities to give the best learning to school students by the middle leaders.
• Progress and performance analysis: The progress and performance of the students are the central concern of the school leaders to assure their better future and to make them capable to set their future profession. In most cases, the teachers found difficulties to make a bridge between learning context, assessment, and instructions (Gurr, 2019). However, monitoring the daily, weekly, or monthly progress of the students followed by the whole class performance might help to evaluate the progress in the educational performances of the students. The performance analysis of the teachers is also very important and challenging at the same time as their performance is reflected in the overall outcomes of the learning results of the school students (Joo, 2020). In some cases, the performance quality of the students strongly decreases and becomes a poor result due to the lack in the teaching process of the teachers.
• Attendance and discipline: The attendance and discipline of the school are strongly influenced by the activities of the middle leaders. Lack of strict attitude, lack of motivation, and lack of ambition might create indiscipline in the schools (Khan et al. 2020). Therefore, a strict and well manner leader is very much important to go the school activity properly. The poor attendance of the students can affect the learning process, as sometimes the mass of absence needs to repeat the learning topic which creates difficulties for the teachers to complete the syllabus on time. On the other hand, the repetitive absence of the teachers also affected the learning of the students as certain teachers are assigned to the classes (Leithwood et al. 2020). Sometimes it results in missing classes followed by a lacking of learning of the assigned syllabus.
• Curriculum designing and communication: Designing curriculum and syllabus according to the capacity of the students of respective classes is a difficult task. Lack of communication between the students and the teachers can create a gap in the understanding of learning in the schools (Mohmmed et al. 2020). The design of the syllabus and curriculum was also get affected by the communication lacking. Lack of communication between the teachers affected the learning process and also created several internal issues which sometimes extended to the personal levels.
• Student's progress: The middle leaders in the schools mostly concerns with the progress of all students, as the school is the primary root of the learning of the students to make them shine in the future. Increasing violence among the students or the naughty nature of the students affected the performance of the whole class (Olsen and Huang, 2019). However, less improvement leads to a bad reputation for the school along with the teaching staff.

Factor 4: Models related to middle leader strategies

The middle leaders of the schools applied different strategies to create a positive impact on the progress and attainment of students in the schools. There are different models that exist for the middle leaders of the schools to implement educational strategies (Pan and Chen, 2021). Transformational leadership, servant leadership, responsible leadership, and distributive leadership are important models to carry out educational leadership. The 5E model of teaching which includes, engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation helps the leaders to structure their learning system in the school.

The leadership process in school is a dynamic process that comprises responsibilities for the progress of the students through the improvement of internal learning in the school. The middle leaders performed their duties in a structural manner followed by the direction of progress learning, planning the overall structure, and emotions. Strategic leadership in schools involves the structure of the education system inside the school. It sets the direction for the learning system, set up the annual goal for better result for the students of the school, established a target for development, and takes different actions as per the requirement for the improvement of the learning model (Sumintono et al. 2019). It is very important for capable middle leaders to identify the issues related to the implementation of strategic planning and learning models into the dedication system of the school and monitor the progress of established targets and goals.

• Transformational leadership: Transformational leadership deals with developing awareness among the team members in the school to make a better education structure. It allows shaping dreams by sacrificing self-interest through fulfilling the fundamental tasks of educational leadership. It includes having a strong educational vision, rendering accountability, involving parents in the different matters of the students, developing the educational objectives and mission by mobilizing the staff, and accumulating the social, economic, and environmental trends according to the needs of the school's practices. The middle leaders of the school give ultimate meaning to the vocation and commitment of the other teachers in the school as middle leaders are the soul of the school. Transformational leadership influences concrete, unique projects that help to develop the goals of the leaders to improve the learning process of the students inside the educational institution.
• Servant leadership: Servant leadership deals with the new morals and principles of the middle leaders of the schools. It brings the only authority that needs the support of the other employees which consciously and freely develops the collaboration between the different human elements of the school. Servant leadership offers the middle leaders a new style to conduct successful leadership by the collaborators, in direct proportion and response to understand the clear and obvious role as a servant of the school (Tohara, 2021). It is based on eliminating the personal interest and desire to serve students. It is related to the authority and power for making the mutual relationship less oppressive from a critical point of view. The success of this model lies in the effectiveness and efficiency of less privileged members of the school and from the educators or teachers to the student community of the school.
• Responsible leadership: Responsible leadership deals with the fulfillment of the duties and responsibilities of middle leaders. It concerns the common values of the teachers and assistant principals to operate the best leadership functions. It gives opportunities, inspiration, and perspectives of great leadership in a desired future by supporting all the members by creating the meaning of responsibilities. "Taking reality charge", "carrying reality", and "taking care of reality" are the three expressions to relate the role of responsible leadership (Tsaiet al. 2019). In order to take proper responsibility and charge of reality understanding of the simplicity of the situation is vital. Caring reality describes assuming and serving a particular situation. Active involvement in building reality is related to taking care of reality. These three concepts of responsible leadership help to develop practical and ethical intelligence in the middle leaders of the schools.
• Distributive leadership: In schools, it is important to understand the effect of middle leaders to distribute the assigned work among the other teachers for the development of the student's learning. The collaboration to execute common goals and services through different models of leadership influences the joint projects to improve the learning process in the schools. Middle leadership is a matter of scales not of elites which increases the effectiveness and efficiency of the functioning of leadership (Shirley et al. 2020). Middle leaders work on transitional educational leadership from a centralized leadership model that is based on order and control to a distributive leadership model which is related to cultivation and coordination. Distributive leadership means the combination, replacement, and transparency followed by opacity, control, trust, commitment orders, and commands along with participation, top-down leadership, focus on the tasks and students, and internal competition through interdepartmental collaboration. This model describes the willingness of the middle leaders in the school to take responsibility and initiative for the projects and commissions for the development of the school.

In school the models of the strategic planning process of education focus on the "basic strategic planning process model" and "organic strategic planning model". This also depends on other major models including "scenario strategic planning model", "issue-based strategic planning model", and "alignment strategic model". The models help to identify the challenges of the middle leaders in the school establish new plans and goals for the future process of learning for the students. The schools need this leader to give assurance to the parents to give their students the best education through continual improvement of daily curriculum activities and the learning process (Shaked and Benoliel, 2020). These models help to develop the skills of the middle leaders to lead the students in a proper direction with the help of different factors. those are continuous effective communication, planning, measurement, strategic thinking, strategic implementation, and management of the efficiency of the whole process.

The leaders in the schools create highly organized structures and frameworks of the education system to influence e the students to set future goals and objectivity of life. With the guidance of the middle leaders in the schools, the students gain knowledge about the different scopes and opportunities to pursue a specific profession in the future. The models help the assistant principals and teachers to guide the students in all possible ways to help them to achieve a successful and brighter future. These models also help the leaders to improve their skills as per the requirement to fulfill the objectives to give better education to the school students for their progress and attainment. It also increases the effectiveness and efficiencies of the middle leaders in the school.

2.7 Factor 5: Approaches are used as the middle leader strategies

Maintain Collegiality

Middle leaders in school help to maintain an amiable environment in the school. Maintaining the proper relationships between managers as well as the main leaders of the school is not very easy to work. The different thought processes can create a big problem in schools and affect the teaching environment. According to Shaked and Schechter, (2019), collegiality helps to make a proper balance between practices as well as culture in their school. A collective learning strategy is mostly applied by the middle leaders to improve the environment of the school. A collaborative culture, as well as collegiality, is the two main manageable factors in the school and the authority maintains a good balance of these two factors to maintain the proper environment for students.

Figure 2.7.1: Contingency Leadership Theory

(Source: Leithwood et al. 2020)

The middle layers are applied to various digital tools to improve relationships between teachers as well as students. The leaders are called for a meeting with all authorities before applying strategies for students. According to Edwards-Groves et al. (2019), good strategies help to attract students' attention towards the teaching process. Understand the true values of collegiality are the main responsibility of middle leaders because the culture of the school is mainly dependent on this factor. Proper communication is help to maintain a proper environment in the school. Contingency theory is help to maintain proper behavior in difficult situations. The middle leaders have to control every difficult situation that can be raised at any time. The theory helps to improve the power of adjustment as well as the skill of critical thinking.

Monitoring, professionalism and accountability

Maintaining traditional understanding between teachers helps to improve the professional culture in the school. According to Bartanen, (2020), the middle leads always want to maintain equality between teachers with the help of a proper monitoring system. On the other hand, Leithwood et al. (2020), say that a strict monitoring system can create major problems to maintain a proper culture in school. Privacy, professional accountability, and peer judgment help to improve equality in the school. Formal accounting is a process by which the middle leaders monitored the whole process. Evaluation and motoring concepts created various challenges for the leaders. Professional accountability helps to overcome the challenging area for middle leaders.

Figure 2.7.2: Cognitive Behavioral Theory

(Source: Shirley, 2020)

Maintaining proper professional status is also an area of challenge for leaders. The middle leads can follow a few ethics to maintain a professional attitude in front of higher authority as well as managers. According to Hargreaves and Shirley, (2020), teaching quality is scrutinized with the help of a proper monitoring process. The leaders used various innovative technologies to monitor the behavior of every teacher towards the students. Challenges related to professionalism as well as monitoring progress are solved with the help of the involvement of middle leaders. The relationship between professional development and collegiality helps to develop accountability between teachers as well as leaders.

Expertise and authority

The middle leaders of the school maintain some formal responsibilities for school work. According to Grissom et al. (2020), the main proper relationship between human beings is the main role of an effective leader. Main faith between colleagues is the important role of the middle leader in the school. Interpersonal skills like negotiation and team management are very important to maintain proper leadership practices. The middle leaders can maintain cognitive behavioral theory to understand the demand of higher authority.

Understand the true nature with the help of behavior is the main responsibility of leaders. Understand the main strengths as well as weaknesses of the team help to improve the performance level of the teachers (Thoyib and Fauzan, 2021). The students can learn various things from teachers with the help of proper strategies. Leaders can demonstrate true empathy to their teammates and try to understand their problems with patience (Ridwan, 2021). Giving proper motivation to the teammate is a major responsibility of the middle leaders. The leaders provide goals to the teammate according to the strength area of each member. The leaders can utilize various theories to understand the main strength area of each teacher.

Influence of responsibilities and practices

Classrooms as well as schools surround the responsibilities, as well as practices of middle leaders. According to Hargreaves and Shirley, (2020), creating a fundamental goal for the school is the main responsibility of every middle leader. The fundamental goal improves education services and helps to make students active towards their studies.

Figure 2.7.3: Responsibilities and Practices of Middle Leaders

(Source: Shirley, 2020)

Teaching, learning, researching, and evaluating are the few main responsibilities of middle leaders. The leaders are charged with their strategy of education according to the condition of society. Society is a big educator for every student as well as a teacher. The leaders help to recognize the main strength area of students with the help of various creative strategies (Tanjung et al. 2019). Utilization of digital tools is the main area of practice for leaders. Digital tools help to attract students' attention towards the study. The leaders provide training to the teachers about the presentation process. The coloring slides about each subject help to improve the memorization process of each student.

Significance of institutional culture

Directive leadership strategies are followed by the middle leaders to maintain a proper culture in the school. The cultural differences between primary as well as secondary are well demonstrated with the help of middle leaders (Hulme et al. 2023). The middle leaders maintain responsibilities according to the order of management as well as the head administrator. According to Huang et al. (2020), the leaders of secondary school are mostly followed professional autonomy to maintain a culture in the school. Senior staff, as well as departmental colleagues, is played a significant role to maintain a proper culture in secondary school.

The secondary school contains various departments and middle leaders have to maintain big responsibilities to maintain a proper culture in every department. The primary school does not contain many departments and for this reason, maintaining a proper relationship with every member is not difficult for middle leaders. According to Jambo and Hongde, (2020), middle leaders resolve the tension between hierarchy as well as collegiality. Senior managers played the role of hierarchy and they ordered middle leaders to maintain a proper structure in the organization (Govindasamy and Mestry, 2022). The subject departments are the main feature of the school structure and the leaders maintain a bureaucratic structure to maintain a proper culture in the school.

2.8 Literature gap

The pieces of literature of the present study describe the different aspects of the middle leaders who are basically the assistant principal and teachers of the schools. The literature describes the benefits and challenges of strategic middle leadership in schools yet it does not concern the personal experience of the leaders faced during successfully conducting the responsibilities. It describes the different strategies of leadership, although, did not explain the effectiveness of the implementation of those strategies. The literature gives the ideas of the models for middle leaders in school toward the attainment and progress of the students however, it does not specify the most effective model to receive the best results by the leaders. Therefore, the present study fails to identify the relationship of the middle leaders with their co-workers and the issues they experienced during the implementation of the strategic planning for the better future of the students.

2.9 Summary

Middle leadership is the responsibility of school leaders who teach and have leadership roles, and they can feel the gap between learning and teaching and managing the management of the schools. The person has the ability to teach and manage the schools. The person has both types of capabilities. They can teach students and make them learn and they also can manage the rules and regulations of the school for making it run smoothly. Communication has benefits in the motivation of the staff and this is the thing by which a leader can control their staff in every mean for the improvement of the performance and for pushing them to achieve the goal.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Importance of Proper Research Methodology in Investigating the Role of Middle Leaders in Student Attainment

The success of research work is based on the method adopted for collecting data. The adoption of appropriate methods brings proper data before the researcher. The middle leader has the responsibility both inside and outside the classroom. They need to have many qualities as the person needs to have self -awareness, resilience, critical thinking and emotional intelligence. Thus, to gather information regarding the role of middle leaders in student attainment, it is necessary to adopt a proper method. The proper method is helpful in doing proper research, thus, the adoption of the proper method is helpful to design proper research based on the aim and objectives of the research.

It is a logical and systematic way of researching to analyze the research question and recognize the significance of the research. Thus, to get the detail about the research it is necessary to prepare a proper research plan. The research plan is helpful to start the research and proceed successfully. This is supportive to gain reliable data and on the basis of those data, the research goal can be met. Thus, it is necessary to adopt a proper research plan, collect data by applying the proper method of data collection and analyze those data to get adequate results regarding the research. Along with the data collection method, there are research philosophies, approaches, designs and onion that are important for collecting adequate data and analyzing those data successfully. Hence, it is necessary to adopt proper research methods and approaches to gather relevant information regarding the research.

3.2 Research Onion

The development of research and adopting the proper method of research has to go through many issues. Thus the researcher has to take many decisions while processing the research work. It requires maintaining a systematic process for the development of the research work. As per the opinion of Orth and Maçada, (2021), the researcher needs to make the appropriate selection of research types to carry out the research based on the research objectives and meet the requirements of the research questions. The researcher has to select the proper data accumulation procedure to develop the research concepts and hypothesis. As per the opinion of de Oliveira Orth and Maçada, (2020), the research onion goes through some layers like the research philosophy, approach, strategy, and time frame and data collection procedures. The maintenance of all these steps helps to develop the research successfully and within time.

Figure 3.2: Research onion

(Source: Inspired by de Oliveira Orth and Maçada, 2020)

The research onion follows different steps and it goes through the implementation of different strategies for the completion of this research work. The beginning of the research requires the adoption of proper techniques and procedures for the development of the project (Mardiana, 2020). This includes the proper procedure for data collection and analysis of data. It requires preparing a time frame to run the project systematically within the estimated time. As per the opinion of Shirooyehpour and Fazli, (2022), the adoption of a proper research method is necessary to get relevant information regarding the research. It is necessary to adopt a proper research approach, which included the deductive and inductive approaches. Along with that, it needs to have a research philosophy like positivism, realism, interpretivism and pragmatism. All these steps are followed to complete the research successfully and get all relevant information systematically.

This research is done to know about the role of the middle leader on student attainment in the school and their development. The maintenance of proper research methods and preparation of the time frame helped to gather information on time (Orth and Maçada, 2021). Along with these, it is necessary to adopt a proper research approach to gain relevant information. The adoption of proper methods, approaches, philosophy and perpetration of time frame is helpful to gain relevant data (Keyser-Fanick, 2019). Hence it is necessary for the researcher to proceed with the project in a systematic way and completion of the research successfully.

3.3 Research philosophy

The research philosophy deals with the sources, which are taken for study, the nature of that sources and the steps taken for the development of knowledge regarding the research topic. It is a set of principles that states the views from which the research is conducted (Abu-Alhaija, 2019). The research philosophy can be positivism, realism, pragmatism and interpretivism research philosophy to run the research work successfully. The positivist research philosophy assumes that knowledge is independent of the subject, which is being studied. The positivist research philosophy states that the researcher is an objective analyst, who is going to analyze complete data. As per the opinion of Tamminen and Poucher, (2020), the interpretivism research philosophy is just the opposite of positivism as the social world can be interpreted in a subjective manner. The pragmatism research philosophy states that the practical information that is gathered by the researcher is considered as most important. The Realistic research philosophy is based on the assumptions of positivism and interpretivism philosophy.

Figure 3.3: Positivism research practice

(Source: Inspired by Moon et al. 2019)

This research is about the role played by leaders in the development of the students and attainment of the students in the school. The researcher has adopted the positivist research philosophy to gather information regarding this. As stated by Hürlimann and Hürlimann, (2019), the positivist research philosophy is helpful to analyze the collected data and get the result as per the analysis. As per the opinion of Moon et al. (2019), the positivist research philosophy includes the scientific way of research where the researcher adopts the scientific way of data collection. The positivist analyses the facts and finds out the scientific research that helps to get knowledge regarding that. As per positivist philosophy, the data and relevant information are collected and that information is analyzed. The gathered information is justified and from that data, the truth is separated and on the basis of the belief of the researcher the knowledge regarding the research is gained.

The positivist philosophy of secondary data collection method is used, where the journals, books and the research work of different authors are studied and analyzed. Based on the analysis of the secondary data the researcher has to find out the truth of the data and based on the beliefs of the researcher the data is to be justified (Abu-Alhaija, 2019). Hence, by maintaining this procedure the researcher can get their point and get the result regarding the role of middle leaders in the development of the students.

The research took interviews with the teachers, parents and school leaders. The researcher analyzes the opinions of every participant. This helped the researcher to get the views of the participants regarding the issue (Moon et al. 2019). Along with that, it helped to examine the replies of the parents, teachers and the leaders and as per the analysis, the researcher gets to find out the impacts of middle leaders on the development of students' careers and their attainment in the school.

3.4 Research approach

There are two types of research approaches that the researcher adopts to perform successful research and analyze the data collected from the research. The researcher generally uses the deductive and inductive research approaches to gather adequate information. The researcher adopts the deductive research approach of primary and secondary data collection methods to gather information to identify the role of the middle leader.

Figure 3.4: Deductive approach

(Source: Inspired by Opie, 2019)

The deductive research approach follows some specific steps. The researcher uses the secondary qualitative deductive approach. As per that approach, the researcher has studied different journals and got relevant theories. The theories are analyzed to get relevant hypotheses from them. The collected hypothesis is observed and studied carefully to gain accurate data. This is generally a process that shortened the huge data and identifies relevant information from that. The deductive approach of the primary qualitative data collection method is used (Opie, 2019). The views of every participant in the interview are studied and from that huge information, the relevant information is found. Hence this approach helped the researcher to get significant information in a systematic way.

3.5 Research method

The development of research goes through different challenges thus, it is necessary to adopt a proper method for collecting relevant information regarding the research. The adoption of proper research methods leads to gaining liable data in a systematic way. This research is conducted based on the mixed data collection method, as, both primary qualitative and secondary qualitative methods are used (Nurbaeti, 2022). The research is based on the role of leadership strategies in the development of teaching procedures and the overall development of students. The adoption of mixed methods helped to gather information by studying the journals, articles and research work of different authors. As per the opinion of Liu et al. (2021), the qualitative data collection strategy helps to get relevant data based on the research of other researchers. Hence, authentic journals and articles of some researchers were studied and analyzed to gain information regarding the role of middle leaders in the development of students.

The researcher has also adopted the primary qualitative data collection method as the researcher has taken interviews with adult participants. The participants of the interview are, teachers, school leaders and parents. They were given the consent form before the interview and given detail regarding the interview were given to the interview participants (Sulasmi and Akrim, 2019). The answer to interview questions helped to gain data reading the issue. The responses of every participant for every question helped to get many new information regarding the role of middle leaders.

Figure 3.5: Mixed research method

(Source: catalyst.harvard.edu, 2023)

The mixed method led to gathering information regarding the role of middle leaders in the educational sector for the development of the students. As per the opinion of Kalkan et al. (2020), the use of a secondary method helped to gather information from previous works like articles and books. Along with that, the primary method gave recent information based on the opinion of the person who is observing this. As opined by Hartiwi et al. (2020), the utilization of mixed methods helped to analyze the data in the depth and in detail. This helped to analyze the data systematically and acquire relevant data regarding the role that middle leaders play in the development of students (Sulasmi and Akrim, 2019). Hence, as per the systematic research method, the relevant data regarding the role of middle leaders can be analyzed and along with that, their role in the development of the students and their regular progress is analysed.

3.6 Research design

The methodology is a part on which the other topic this completely based on. Taking the right methods is very important for the study to describe the process of the study (Borgianni and Maccioni, 2020). It is also conducted that what the result would be in that period of time. On the basis of that it becomes very important for the study to know how the research will happen in this study and also what this would be the approach of this research. In this process, it is actually essential to know about the research approach and the methodological part to extend the effectiveness of this study (Asenahabi, 2019). For this study, it become very clear that the research approach this study conducted the other research processes. Research design is also a part of the methodology (Curtis et al. 2022). In this part, it becomes very important to maintain a research design to include other parts of the methodology. Taking care of this study is very effective to enhance the project and explain all the processes in this part (Borusyak et al. 2021). Research design indicates that point in which the study shows many important factors about methodology.

On the basis of the research approach, it is very clear that the research design is also very broadly explained and because of that the research approach will be descriptive. In this part of the study, it becomes very important to elaborate on all the methodological parts. The research design is also included in this part (Turale, 2020). Because this study's research method has been conducted as primary and the research approach of this study is qualitative then the research design has to be descriptive. This research design also affects the factors of how the research is going to happen and what would be the proper result of this study. Connecting with people, communicating with them, taking interviews, and gathering many data from secondary resources will be in the section of descriptive research design (Christie et al. 2019). This descriptive method will help to understand all the processes of the study and it can also explain all the factors which are included in the study. Because of the research design, this study will elaborate on every single factor which is included in this study (Tomaszewski et al. 2021). The descriptive research helps this study to enrich the study with all the study material. It takes time to explain all the factors to elaborate.

3.7 Summary

This research is done to identify the role of middle leaders in the development of student's performance in school and their attainment in the school. The researcher has followed the research onion to proceed with the project as the researcher has followed the proper research approach, method and philosophy for the development of the project. It is found that the researcher has followed the systematic way of data collection and adopted the proper method of data collection. The use of a mixed research method is observed hence, the researcher has adopted both primary and secondary data collection methods. The interview of some teachers, parents and leaders are taken, where they are asked about the role of middle leaders. On the basis of the replies of participants of the interview, the researcher has found out the role. As per the secondary qualitative method of data collection, the relevant work of different authors is studied and the researcher to gain information regarding the research reads many authentic sources. The researcher analyzes the data collected by the primary qualitative and the secondary qualitative method. The researcher took the relevant information from the complete analysis and interpreted the result to conclude.

The researcher has prepared the proper plan for the research work, which included a time frame. This helped the researcher to get maintain rules and regulations for the research and complete the activity within the time. This helped the researcher to get relevant data regarding the role played by the middle leader in the development of the student. Along with that, it has also been discussed about the role played by the leader to enhance the school attainment of the students. Hence the researcher has adopted a proper procedure to develop the research and based on the findings it brought a result before everyone.

CHAPTER 4: DATA FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

4.1 Exploring Middle Leaders' Strategies for Enhancing Students' Career Development

In chapter 4, data findings and analysis are discussed with the help of the primary qualitative method and secondary thematic analysis method. An interview helps to provide good quality results about middle leaders and students. This study aims to collect the proper data on leadership strategies that help to improve students' careers. Some middle leaders take many strategies that help to improve students' careers. Here, four different types of themes are discussed for getting more information about middle leaders' characters. A data analysis section provides some authentic information because all information takes an interview. In a school, head teachers and assistant principals are the middle leaders and they play an important role in this place. Every organization has some qualified people who have maintained all work and influence others employees. In the same way, many students follow middle leaders' strategies and these are so important to grow the future career of students. Basically, Students are going to school for improving their knowledge and skills. Teachers are providing many skills for their career building. Decision-making is the power of middle leaders and it is an effective area that provides good results. In theme 1, how much important decision-making power, is known and provides a clear understanding. Chapter 2, is about the role of middle leaders in a school that is known from this chapter. Therefore, in chapter 3, will get a clear understanding of the middle leader's power and in chapter 4, it will be known which strategies are followed by middle leaders for students' careers.

4.2 The decision-making power of professional communities

According to Ballangrud and Aas, (2023), Decision-making is a power of a leader that helps to grow a career of a person. The study aims to understand the leadership strategies of middle leaders that help to grow students' attainment. Here, some leadership strategies are discussed that help students progress in school. In a school, students are learning many new skills and pieces of knowledge that are so important for growing a student's future. In a school, the head teacher and assistant teachers are the middle leaders and they play a crucial role in a school. They play a direct role in teaching and learning (Shields and Hesbol, 2020). Team management and student influence are other parts that are managed by middle leaders. In a professional area, many leaders have managed all work and influenced others.

In a school, students are knowledgeable with the help of teachers. Head teachers and principals build a proper community of a school and always try to encourage students. A strong community is built with the help of qualified leaders. Middle Leaders are applied many strategies that are improving students' future (Lucas et al. 2021). Every assistant teacher and student are following some rules and regulations. Some rules of a school set head teachers of this school and they take many responsibilities to improve the school's position. Middle leaders have some extra power that helps to improve student careers. Many teachers have engaged in schools and all teachers are so different-minded that they lead students and help to develop students' careers. Decision-making power helps to take some important decisions that help to develop schools' position and build community.

Figure 4.2: Decision making power

(Source: researchgate.net, 2023)

• Build community: In a school, middle leaders take on many responsibilities and managed all work. Therefore, middle leaders with the help of their decision-making power and other qualities build a community. Most students want good quality teachers who are helping their career-building facilities (Tonich, 2021). Proper guidance built a community that helps to build a good position in the school. Students are so knowledgeable and grow their future with the help of a strong community in a school. Middle leaders for improving the school’s position provide many strategic decisions. In the classroom, teachers are helping to solve students' queries and lead students.
• Create social capital: Middle leaders help to build social capital in a school. Decision-making power is working to develop schools' position and students' improvement. As a result, social people are trusted which helps to improve the school. Good quality middle leaders are providing their ability and building a good community (Grissom et al. 2021). They built a good relationship with middle leaders that helps to improve social capital. Assistant teachers are respected head teachers and middle leaders accept all types of decisions.

In professional areas, many employees are working with the following of their leaders. Therefore, leaders should be some qualities that provide good results for this organisation. In the same way, students are following many rules and regulations for maintaining school structure and their career growth.

4.3 Impact of middle leaders' practices on students' progress

According to Aljazmaty, (2022), Middle leaders play an important role in a school that helps to progress students' careers. A school has some teachers and students and a higher authority. The head teacher of a school takes on many responsibilities to improve the school's position. Middle leaders have so many qualities that help to develop any school and built a position in the market (Khalifa et al. 2019). Headteachers should keep many qualities that are most important to expand the business. Head teachers for students’ growth provide many types of opportunities. Middle leaders offered to take some assistant teachers who are qualified. They are identified to see their qualities and all are fixed with the help of their decision-making power (Ezzani and Brooks, 2019). They are building students' careers with the help of many skills and knowledge and they provide many things that are so effective for improvement.

• Provides training and monitoring: Middle leaders take many responsibilities for improving student careers and their future development. Students are going to school because of learning new things that help to improve students' personal skills (Khalifa, 2020). Many skills are improved with the help of teachers' guidance. Teachers are providing good learning and skills and students are following their rules.

Figure 4.3: Value of middle leaders

(Source: semanticscholar.org, 2023)

Focus on their direction: Every student is learning because of their future growth. Therefore, leaders are providing good pieces of knowledge and skills that help to build a good career for students. Students are not fixed on their decisions and lack pieces of knowledge so leaders help them to build a bright future (Canl? and Demirta?, 2022). Students can take their future decisions with the help of some unique skills and qualities that are adopted by leaders' guidance.

• Set a powerful organization: Middle leaders take many responsibilities for controlling many rules and regulations in a school. Headteachers and principle are applied some unique strategies to maintain school rules and regulations. A good leader has some qualities that are very much effective for improving the school's position (Admiraal et al. 2021). They build a good community with the help of their qualities, and as a result, some effective results get this school. Middle leaders are building a good community with their skills and developing students' futures. Therefore, middle leaders build a good community and good relationships are increasing student engagement. Every guardian and social peoples is satisfied to get good quality learning.
• Give life data: Middle leaders have collected students' qualities with the help of examinations and many processes. Data analysis helps to know students' qualities and provides results. Many potential practices are helping to build students' careers and future development (Bottiani et al. 2019). Parents are satisfied to see students' qualities in few times that help to build their career. Proper practices are providing good quality results.
• Ensure students' vision: Effective leaders are providing good qualities skills and pieces of knowledge that help to improve students' vision and action. Actually, which steps are important and which are providing good results all are fixed by students with the help of leaders (Netolicky, 2020). They provide the actual ways that help to improve students' vision.

4.4 Power of Middle leaders in a college for students' growth

Role of middle leaders: Middle leaders are players' main role to maintain proper culture as well as structure in the school. Various works in the administration like the finance and budget of the school are well maintained with the help of middle leaders. Assistant teachers as well as vice principals are maintained the role of middle leaders in the school. According to Asera, (2019), middle leaders are part of salaried members who maintain a few extra responsibilities in a few particular areas. Leaders are played an important role to make improvements in school.

The role of the middle leaders is different in primary as well as secondary school. According to Atkinson, (2020), the middle leaders are played as head of the curriculum co-coordinator in secondary school. On the other hand Atibuni, (2019), subject leader as well as send coordinator is the main role of middle leaders in primary school. The middle leaders are played various different roles in the school and they are experts in multitasking. Maintaining a proper relationship between principles as well as a senior manager is the main vision of the middle leader. Senior managers are first discussed with middle leaders about infrastructural improvement.

Figure 4.4.1: Behavioral Theory

Source: Asera, (2019)

Behavioral Theory: The middle leaders are followed behavioral theory to improve their own skills that help to manage the huge responsibility in school. The team of senior leadership or SLT is made with the proper cooperation of the middle leader in the school. Making a proper conversation with the team of senior, management and finding solutions to administrative problems is the main mission of the middle leaders. Infrastructure as well as the culture of the classroom is well maintained with the help of the leaders. According to Oreg and Berson, (2019), administrative duties, professional development of teachers, and performance management are the main responsibilities of leaders. The leaders are takes help from a few models as well as digital tools to improve the performance level of the teachers. The leaders are calling for a meeting by which they convey the significance of E-learning in school.

The teachers maintain the pathway of leadership to improve their teaching skills. The middle leader has followed a few ethics as well as theories to improve their leadership skills. Most leaders are followed behavioral theory to manage their actions and traits according to ethics. According to Taguinod, (2020), maintaining proper ethics in life helps to influence other teachers to follow the same path. The culture of the school is well managed just because of the good leadership skills. The theory helps to improve individual learning capacity and it helps to fix a few ethics for life. Critical thinking capacity is well adapted with the help of this theory. The critical thinking capacity helps to find out the solution to every problem in a difficult situation (MacLeod, 2020). A huge responsibility of school-like administration, the classroom is well managed by middle leaders with proper skills and strategies.

4.5 Leadership Strategies of Middle leaders in an excellent school

Main strategies of middle leaders: Authoritarian as well as coercive leadership helps to maintain proper harmony between team members in the school. Famous researcher Goleman identified six leadership strategies that help to maintain a proper culture in the organization. According to Goleman, Pacesetting, affinitive, democratic, coaching, coercive and authoritarian are the six strategies of leadership. The middle leader of the school can maintain the strategies to maintain proper harmony between senior managers as well as teaching staff. According to Gunawan et al. (2020), the development and creation of a support network can be the main strategy of middle leaders to maintain a proper culture in school. On the other hand Day et al. (2020), the middle leader can deliver a curriculum that helps to improve the relationship between students as well as teachers. Professional development and proper motoring process are the main strategies of the leaders. Maintaining proper consistency during the time of the session is another important strategy followed by the middle leader in the school.

Figure 4.5.1: Strategies Followed by Middle Leaders

(Source: Brunzell et al. 2020)

The assistant teachers as well as the vice principal of the school are followed a particular goal to maintain the proper relationships between every staff of different departments. The teachers lose their confidence and teaching quality is completely demolished during that time (Haiyan and Allan, 2021). The leaders help to improve their confidence level with the help of providing various models. According to Netolicky, (2020), Smart learning models like the utilization of presentation, and E-learning are part of their assignments. The middle leaders are provided assignments about the digital processes to the teachers. The process helps to catch the attention of the students towards the study. The digital process helps to increase the confidence level of teachers. Calls room management and understand the demand of teachers are the main strategy of middle leaders.

Skills of Middle leaders: Sharing resources with teachers is the main strategy of a middle leader. According to Biddanda et al. (2019), the leaders suggested various new as well as innovative resources to improve each department. The vice principal has to accrue pieces of knowledge in each subject to improve every department of the school. The leaders have to influence the teachers to use the resources for departmental development. The leaders can be followed trait theory to improve the personality of the middle leaders.

Communication, as well as problem sailing skills, are easily improved with the help of this theory. The theory helps leaders to fix one goal in life. Proper ethics of life is well maintained with the help of this theory. According to Tohara, (2021), the leaders delivered a few curricula to maintain every demand of the students. The scale room of the students, the infrastructure of the school is the main discussable part of managing with the middle leaders. The leaders are arranged proper training processes for the professional development of every teacher (Novawan and Aisyiyah, 2020). The leaders have divided learning objectives for the students and it helps to make a proper lesson plan for the students.

4.6 Findings and analysis of data collected from interviews

By analysis of the collected data, it is very important for the study to elaborate on all data and findings in this study. On the basis of that it is also very important to show the reaction of the parents, teachers, and school leaders. This interview questionnaire and its details will show the reaction to the topic How do the leadership\strategies of middle leaders affect students’ attainment and progress in schools?

Question 1:What are the challenges the school students faced in school in attainment and progress?

Teacher	Teacher	School leader	Parent
Every student are not having the same capability to get better in their study. The capacity of students pulls them back from progress in their studies.	The students are not that much serious about their studies, on the other hand, the parents of the student are giving lack attention to their children.	The students are not giving that much attentiveness to the classes. Not putting the effort to enhance the learning process and for that reason, the students are not getting that much progress in the study.	There is much lack in the learning process and on the other side, the teachers are not giving their best effort to encourage the students towards study. It will affect the students in attainment and progress.

Teacher	Teacher	School leader	Parent
To mitigate the problem teachers are arranging more classes to give the student a proper education and help their attainment and progress.	Making the school more attractive so that the student wants to come to school and enhance their capacity toward their study. If the school does not feel like a cage then that would be very easy for the students to cope with the environment of the student.	It is very important for the guardians and also for the teachers to take responsibility for the students who are not having any progress graph in their studies and it is also become very important to give the best thing to the students from the school to encourage them in their study.	Maintaining hygiene in school is very important to schools. Many times there is a problematic area shown in the schools. On the basis of that there is a point in which a viral disease has to break out in the schools and for that reason, many students cannot come to school, so in that case the school has to maintain the hygiene of the students.

Question 3:How do the strategies affect your studies?

Teacher	Teacher	School leader	Parent
The technological part. affects the most in the study. It also give a fruitful impact on the students and also affects the teaching quality of a teacher. For every school, it is very important to introduce the technologies the school to attract more students toward the school.	Taking care of the students is also a different level of strategy to attract the students toward achievements. On the basis of that it would be great if the students get to know the attraction of progress and attainment. Then that would be very easy to handle the students.	Technology nowadays is very important to motivate others, and at present time technology is everything to grab the attention of everyone. On the basis of that it becomes more important to get progress in life. To progress in the study it is very important to know also the technology in a good way.

Question 4: What according to you required improving the strategies for student attainment and progress?

Teacher	Teacher	School leader	Parent
Giving digital learning process, a Team-based learning process will help the students. On the other hand, it is also become very important for the schools and also for the student to cooperate with the schools.	The learning process is not the only thing to decide the strategies, there are also many strategies which are not directly related to the study but in future, the students are having progress in life. The case-based learning process will also help the students to grab the study material very easily.	Not only the technologies but also the caring factor of the teachers and the parents will help the students in attainment and progress in their studies. On the basis of that it would be very grateful to the students if students have the capacity to take the achievement by progressing in their life.	Taking responsibility is the main factor of the study. if the strategies are made by the teachers then that has to put some effort to maintain the process of working and it will also give a push to the students back.

Question 5: Which leadership style is the most suitable for your studies and for better results?

Teacher	Teacher	School leader	Parent
The best leadership style for students in attainment and progress in the study is the transformational leadership style it will help the student and also help the teachers to create new things and gather new information. It is very important for organizations to put an effect on the students to get a more enthusiastic reputation from students.	The transformational style will help the students to provide energy to the students and to the educational organization.	It is very important for the student to put more focus on their study and get a good professional graph in their life and using the instructional style of leadership will help this process to achieve.	The schools have to follow the coaching style leadership style. by using this style the students get that opportunity in the future and also get a strong base to progress in their future.

Question 6: Does the implemented strategy are helpful in creating a productive environment within the school?

Teacher	Teacher	School leader	Parent
Technology implementation gives the best feedback from the student. by using this strategy the students are getting more attracted to the school to learn more about their studies.	Technology helps students to learn more about their studies but on the other side, it becomes very important to take responsibility for the students.	Technology will help the student to improve in their study and also help them to maintain the process of attending school and focusing on their study.	Not only technology it is also very important for the organization to take care of every student in the school.

Question 7: How do the strategies help in gaining the best results in the school curriculum?

Teacher	Teacher	School leader	Parent
Students do not come to school only the study they also come to school to take more from the school like extra curriculum activities. Taking this technological strategy, not only helps the student to enhance the process of the study, but it also helps the student to enhance the curriculum activity of the students.	Technology that cannot be helpful for the student on the basis of extra curriculum activities.	Extra curriculum activities it the best thing for every student, but on the other hand it can be possible that by implementing the technology it is getting very hard to do extra curriculum for the students.	It becomes very important to take the decision on the basis of the study. but on the other side, it is also very important for the student to take the decision on the behalf of extra curriculum activity.

The interview is a process on which the study is completely based. after taking the interview it is very clear that the student's parents, school leaders, and teachers are a very important role in the educational system. On the basis of that it is also very important to show the process, and how the teachers and parents are not satisfied with the students. On the behalf of that, it becomes very important what strategy has to follow in the educational sector to improve the learning process and improve the leadership style (Zeinabadi et al. 2020). Which leadership the teachers are getting the perfect feedback and which method is the best for every individual are also included in this interview.

Some teachers said that only technology can give progress and push the student, but there are also many teachers who thought that not only technology help the student in progress there are also some responsibilities of teachers and also the parents to take care of the children. Getting a clear vision of the parents will also show their concern through this interview section. Taking the decisions of the educational organization will help to improve the technological factors in the schools and help the student to get more attracted to their study but on the other side, there is also a problem to get addicted to the technologies and also getting diverted from the extra curriculum activities.

In the interview, the section provides many types of information that are improving this research study. Basically, this research study provides different types of information about middle leaders. In this interview, there are two teachers and a school leader and a Parent and they are providing their experiences about students' challenges (Woo and Law, 2020). Students have faced so many challenges when they are trying to build their careers in school. In this interview section, the researcher asked seven questions, the first question is providing much information. Teachers said that all of the students did have not the same qualities so they faced challenges in their examinations (Smith et al. 2019). Teachers also said that all guardians are not caring for their children so students get many advantages for losing their learning.

In spite of these, school leaders said that students are not providing their attention in the classroom and did not give effort to their studies, so they did not get good results. Parents said that the learning process is not good and teachers are not communicating with their students (Cansoy, 2019). Students did not get the encouragement of their teachers so they are affected to see teachers' abilities. This result has been derived from this first question.

In the second question of this interview, students follow many unique strategies to mitigate their problems. Therefore, Teachers said that they are arranging some extra classes for improving their careers and they try to mitigate all challenges that are faced by students (Hermawati et al. 2020). Many good quality education methods are applying teachers that are very helpful for students' improvement. Another teacher said that students want to come to school because school is not a cage, this feeling is provided by teachers for students' engagement in school. As a result, school students are increasing their knowledge and all over the environment are so good if schools are developed their skills and knowledge. School leaders said that it is very important to see students' growth and it is the responsibility of guardians and teachers (Shengnan and Hallinger, 2021). Students are encouraged to get good support from their teachers. Parents said that many viral diseases are expanding for lacking hygiene. As a result, this affects many students. Therefore, the school authority maintains school areas.

In question 3, many different types of information get from this question, Teachers said that many technical studies are so attractive for students and various technologies is used by the teachers because of more attractive. Teaching quality is too good if they are used this method and students are attracted to see this (Gjerde and Alvesson, 2020). Different level studies are so effective for their future career. School leaders said that technology is a unique strategy that is motivated students for their studies. More attention provides by school students to good quality technology. Parents said that different types of strategies are working effectively for their career improvement.

4.7 Summary

This chapter is providing much information about middle leaders in a school. There are four themes that have been discussed and these are providing many types of information about middle leaders. According to some writers, middle leaders play an effective role in schools. Head teachers and assistant principals are the middle leaders of schools and they provide much knowledge for improving students' careers. Therefore, many students are going to school for improving their qualities in the future. This chapter provides many themes that are providing some clear knowledge about middle leaders. Some unique leadership skills are so important for any organizational growth. In a school, middle leaders play an important role to improve students' future. Data findings and analysis are the important part that helps to get much information about the students. An interview provides some authentic data that are so effective for this research study.

These four themes are providing different types of information about middle leaders and they play an important role in building schools' position. They did not take proper decisions about their life decision but middle leaders helped to improve their careers. Many leaders build a good organization with the help of some qualities. Leaders are built good relationships with employees and others, in the same way, middle leaders applied many strategies to build good relationships. Good relationships help students in their future improvement.

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Conclusion

It can be concluded that middle leaders are an integral part of school administration. The leaders are played the role of teachers as well as managers in the school. Management of schooling, as well as learning practices, is well maintained by middle leaders. Maintaining proper culture in the school is the main responsibility of the leaders. The leaders take the responsibility to maintain proper structure in the school. Understanding the problem of the teacher and sharing resources according to their problems is the main responsibility of vice principals as well as assistant teachers.

The experience of the vice principal helps to improve the difficult conditions in the school. The leaders are fooled by various theories to mountain proper ethics in life. Proper goals as well as ethics of the leaders help to inspire other teachers to follow the same path. Respecting the thought process of every staff and providing independence to demonstrate their own thoughts are other responsibilities of the leaders. The different thought processes help to provide a unique idea that helps to improve the condition of the school. The learning process of students can be improved with the help of proper initiatives of the middle leaders.

5.2 Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Recommended to improve negotiation skills

The middle leaders can follow a few negotiation skills to improve the condition of the school. Self-regulation, self-awareness, and relationship management are the few strategies maintained by leaders. Understand the actual motive of the managers with the behavior (Husni, 2020). Maintaining a flexible attitude with senior managers can help to solve infrastructure-related problems in school. The leaders understand the main lack of teachers and they provided training processes according to it. A flexible attitude helps to make a proper relationship with teammates and the main source of solutions is well detected with the help of good relationships.

Recommendation 2: Recommended improves communication skills

Development in communication skills helps to resolve various problems related to leadership. The main role of the leader is to provide proper inspiration to their teammates. The teammates are not always respected by the leader but a proper approach can resolve this problem (Lofthouse, 2019). Communication helps to demonstrate future strategies in front of management. The executive department can provide a better plan for infrastructure with the help of good communication skills. The problem of budget and all types of miscommunication is easily solved with the help of communication skills.

Recommendation 3: Recommended improve the decision-making process

The decision-making process with the help of critical thinking can help to solve problems related to management. The middle leaders make a good relationship between principals as well as management. The leaders solve the issue related to the manager and make impactful strategies that help to improve the relationship between the two main departments (Podolsky et al. 2020). The good decision helps to inspire others to follow the same ethics as leaders. The leaders can follow a few theories to make impactful decisions for the school.

5.3 Linking with objectives

5.3.1 Strategies applied by middle leaders

The leaders applied various strategies to improve the condition of the school. The strategies help to improve the professional skills of the teachers. The leaders are followed various strategies to improve the education style of the students. Negotiation skills, emotional balance, and critical thinking are a few skills of leaders (Tohara, 2021). Giving proper support to other teachers is a part of the leadership strategy. Adaptation of resilient power is another important strategy of leaders. The leaders maintained proper values to influence their team members.

5.3.2 Significance of the role of middle leaders

Maintaining proper team bonding as well as strategic planning in the department is the main work of middle leaders. The leaders have maintained a standard workload in school that provides a healthy environment for staff. Maintaining proper relationships with management as well as shareholders is the main responsibility of leaders. Setting a proper objective in the classroom and giving proper instruction to maintain the objective is the responsibility of the leaders (Kohli, 2019). Making a proper decision and executing a plan according to the decision is the responsibility of the leader. The middle leaders handle the executive as well as learning departments of the school.

5.3.3 Difficulties faced by middle leaders

The leaders have to make a daily schedule of tasks for the staff. Any type of mistake in task-making can create major problems in school. Recruitment of teachers is another challenge for leaders (Leath et al. 2020). The leaders are followed cognitive behavioral theory to understand the actual mentality of the teacher. The professional attitude of the teacher is the area of development and leaders mainly help them in this part. The leaders make a good relationship with teachers and the main lack of the teachers is well detected with this process. The leaders are provided training and arranged for assignments to improve the lacking area.

5.3.4 Suitable models for middle leaders

The leaders are followed various theories to improve their behaviors as well as attitudes. Middle leaders hugely follow transformational leadership to improve the condition of leadership (Lumby, 2019). The leadership helps to think about otters and make strategies according to it. This theory helps to fix a few ethics and servant leadership can be followed by leaders to improve their skills. Development in attitude is the main responsibility of leaders and they have to create a flexible attitude for others. Maintain flexibility in leadership help to create a proper organizational culture in the school.

5.4 Research Limitations

The data collection method is based on the interview method and it is a very time-consuming process. The process is very costly and unethical behaviors are a major disadvantage of the interview. The process is not fully reliable because authentic data may not come out of this process.

5.5 Future scope

The research helps to understand the main role of the middle leaders in the school. The significance of theory in maintaining proper leadership will help the future generation about the importance of theory. Utilization of digital tools will help to improve digital tools in future.

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