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Faith, hope and spirituality in school leadership, thesis Alan Flintham
25 januari 2011

By Alan Flintham, research fellow of Liverpool Hope University. Flintham is a former Headteacher in Nottinghamshire. The Liverpool Hope University hosts also the Centre for Christian Education (CfCE), look here for more info

In his inspiring thesis Flintham uses the metaphor of reservoirs of hope to create community values in schools, especially those schools with lots of at risk children, from familiy's who feel themselved excluded from society. The thesis is a result of a study under different head teachers with different beliefs on schools facing social deprivation.

An internal reservoir of hope is the calm centre at the heart of the individual leader from which their values and vision flow and which makes effective interpersonal engagement possible no matter what the external pressures. The external reservoir of hope is where the
head acts as the wellspring of self-belief and directional focus for the school. Twenty-three of the 25 heads interviewed found the metaphor of ‘reservoirs of hope’ unarguably of value in thinking about their role in spiritual and moral leadership. See here for an earlier insight in his findings for a practitioner report.  

Thesis: Faith, hope and spirituality in school leadership

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