Democracy: Time for Renewal or Retreat in Educational Leadership: How the leadership style of Sir Alec Clegg could impact educational renewal through retreat today.

The work of Sir Alec Clegg, Chief Education Officer of the West Riding of Yorkshire was grounded in progressive child-centered learning with a heuristic philosophy, his belief of individuals as agents of change, in challenging academic measurements of success through the testing of children together with an underpinning framework of the value of the arts to the curriculum for every child are recognisable as Sir Alec Clegg’s practice. The love of teaching and the transformative power of education for everyone was integral to Sir Alec Clegg’s beliefs, these two core values of love and transformation offer much to underpin educational policy and practice today. (Darvill 2000) (George 1999) (Brighouse 2008) (Newsam 2008) (Brundrett 2008)

Using the narrative of the individual and their social environment whilst taking the stance of Sir Alec Clegg being in an environment of his time and how he shared his narrative and in what ways he did this and what impact it had in his use of narrative leadership construction will be used as the framework to interview individuals who worked for Sir Alec Clegg and who studied in the culture that he created at Bretton Hall College, originally a Teacher Training College for Teachers of the Arts.
Through analysis of these storied life narratives that were influenced by Sir Alec Clegg’s leadership style, using a Labovian approach to determine what aspects of his leadership style were predominant, how they were manifest and how they affected the learning environment will be addressed. Through this reflective retreat it will be asked how their renewal could impact educational leadership today.