Heads of Faculty leading curriculum reform : a case study of post year 10 mandated curriculum reform in a Tasmanian secondary school

Curriculum reform internationally and within Australia has been undergoing dramatic change, and educational leaders are faced with the challenges which reform creates. Tasmania is no exception and it has experienced its own educational reform challenges in schools over the past decade. The curriculum reforms in post compulsory secondary education in Years 11 and 12, Tasmania A State of Learning‚ÄövÑvÆA Strategy for Post Year 10 Education and Training (Department of Education, 2003) created a platform for future mandated reform and was the reform instrument used for the purposes of this study. Despite significant research having been conducted in other countries, contributing to an extensive body of literature about the implementation of mandated curriculum reform by Heads of Faculty and those in middle leadership roles in schools (Jones, 2006; Moore, 2007a), research in an Australian, and, more particularly, in a Tasmanian context, remains limited. The research literature on implementing curriculum reform in schools has focussed largely on the effect of the Principal and Deputy Leaders as leaders in schools (Fullan, 2001a; Hargreaves, 2003) with limited research about those in 'middle' leadership roles such as the Heads of Faculty and their role in implementing reform. Middle leaders are those largely responsible for leading teams of teachers in the implementation of these new reforms, and are the key personnel in all stages of the implementation of the reform process.