Leadership for Safe Schools: A Community‐based Approach

Citation

Atherton, B. (2001), "Leadership for Safe Schools: A Community‐based Approach", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 15 No. 7, pp. 359-362. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem.2001.15.7.359.3

It is perhaps one of the most pressing problems facing school leaders. How do we create safe learning environments in which students and staff work and learn? I have visited the USA and am well aware of the serious difficulties they face with gangs and guns. Most UK schools, especially primary, remind me very much of the “forts” that I was based in while serving in Northern Ireland. Isolated from the community, patrols ventured out of them desperate only to return to their comparative safety. In UK innercity schools the carrying and use of knives to solve conflicts, and violence between different ethnic groups and gangs is now common. I was saddened to realize when reading this book just how easy it was for me to list the tragedies that have taken place in recent years.

However, these problems are not confined to poor socio‐economic areas. The recent bomb outrage by an estranged 15‐year‐old who was apparently angry about his grades and teachers was perpetrated in the leafy green suburbs of Braintree in Essex, where property is probably the most expensive in the UK outside Chelsea and Knightsbridge.

Therefore, a book of this nature is very relevant, especially given the lack of such texts in the UK. Calabrese not only outlines with great clarity the process by which a safe school plan can be developed, with a number of functional “how to” chapters. More importantly, he supports his view with a detailed psychological analysis supporting the need for schools to implement such procedures, drawing mainly on the humanist psychological tradition.

He also argues the point that this initiative has to be rooted in genuine liaison with the communities that schools are a part of. While in the UK effective school research has given in general a token relevance to the role of school environments, and the present government has cited the importance of local communities, we have yet to see policies and procedures that authentically involve communities.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Calabrese’s book is the feel for democracy that runs through his writing. It was my colleague Professor Doyle who initially some years ago brought my attention to this author, expressing his admiration for the freshness of his writing and thinking. And indeed it is these qualities in Calabrese’s scholarship that elevate this book above the mediocre level of most books on leadership.

This book should be read by all those committed to creating safe school environments, and who are interested in ensuring that democracy is the guiding principle in education.