Expect the unexpected: The importance of school leaders in university-school partnerships

Abstract

In this article we utilise interview data to explore the roles of school leaders in a university-school partnership. The partnership was established within a pioneer national initiative in Norway to support persistently underperforming municipalities and paired selected schools with university staff with the aim of building capacity for improvement. Our work as advisers and researchers in the partnership afforded us the opportunity to explore how the school leaders we worked with in a co-created action learning process reflected on their experiences, practices and outcomes. The leaders described how instability in staffing and unforeseen pressures hindered their work in leading the action learning process and supporting improvement. Mistrust and disinclination among school staff increased over time. Findings suggest that efforts to co-create understandings and structures throughout the partnership were insufficient to mitigate against unpredictability and uncertainty, leading us to frame these aspects of university-school partnerships as unavoidable and unexceptional. This research provides an opportunity to explore the implications of this through the experiences of school leaders in university-school partnerships. Findings confirm that the abilities of school leaders to navigate the complexities of university-school partnerships are vital to their success, demonstrating a need for greater focus on how school leaders work with such partnerships within their organisations.

Introduction

The practise of partnership between universities and schools is well-established. More than a century ago, Dewey (1915) lectured about how universities and schools might work together. Farrell et al. (2021: iv) describe university-school partnerships as ‘an important part of the educational eco-system’ and as essential to addressing complex challenges and inequalities in education. Lefever-Davis et al. (2007) demonstrate the breadth of existing literature on the importance of egalitarian, mutually beneficial university-school partnerships. A recent anthology edited by Green and Eady (2024) provides a wide range of examples of university-school partnerships, emphasising the ‘multiplicity of partnerships’ which now exist (p. 7).

Partnerships between schools and universities have, in recent years, also become a central aspect of the education sector in Norway, where this research is situated. They are mandated and comprehensively financed by the Norwegian government through a range of decentralised initiatives which are intended to stimulate and support learning and development in both schools and universities. Partnership within these initiatives is defined by the Directorate of Education (Utdanningsdirektoratet [Directorate for Education and Training], 2022: 6) as ‘an egalitarian and mutually binding collaboration. . .which will contribute to improving practice. . .through measures that are research-based, focused on practice and relevant’. Further, the Directorate for Education and Training (2022) stipulates that processes within these partnerships are anchored in local contexts and collective in nature. Due to this expansion of partnership opportunities, there has been an increase in studies on cooperation between universities and schools in Norway, although knowledge remains sparse (Prøitz, 2020). Sandvik et al. (2020: 3) recognise that such partnerships demand new forms of collaboration, underlining the need ‘to establish a shared agreement about roles, rights and responsibilities’. Folkvord and Midthassel (2021) highlight the importance of good relationships, leadership and co-creating in university-school partnerships, recommending a focus on learning and shared understanding.

Background and context

In 2017, the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (UDIR) introduced a national initiative to address variation in educational outcomes between municipalities. Municipalities are selected if they have demonstrated poor results according to a range of indicators over an extended period (Utdanningsdirektoratet [Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training], 2022). Funding is provided for advisory support primarily from universities (and other external agencies where relevant). The intention is for municipalities to develop their capacity and competence to lead improvements in quality (Kunnskapsdepartmentet [Ministry of Education and Research], 2016). Working together with their county governor and advisers from universities, municipalities receive funding for 3 years to investigate the causes of under-performance and identify and implement measures for improvement.

This national initiative for improvement was the reason that we were partnered with a municipality. The premise for our work was to facilitate and support development in the school, rather than to produce research, although we saw from the start that there might also be the opportunity to do so. The co-operation was initially delayed, being impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, eventually, however, we established close contact with one school. With approximately 500 students and more than 60 staff members, this school was the largest in the municipality. Due to the school’s size, it was decided by the leadership team to focus on one age group, and they subsequently facilitated an internal process among the staff to identify teams of teachers who were motivated to work with us. The municipality had already been working on ways to strengthen literacy and numeracy interventions, and the teachers and leaders of the younger year groups were interested in developing classroom practices which could connect with this. As advisers used to working within social constructionist, participatory traditions (Greenwood and Levin, 1998), we wanted to support a co-creative process which had its roots in the interests and everyday challenges of the teachers and leaders. Furthermore, as researchers, we wanted to explore the process as we went, both in terms of the experiences of the teachers and leaders, and our practices as advisers. Together with the school’s leadership team and the teachers from years 1 to 4, we designed an action learning project. The plan was for teachers to work in teams to jointly identify areas of practice they wished to develop and to design teaching and learning strategies to try out. We planned classroom visits followed by reflective conversations between us and the teachers about the teaching and learning as well as professional learning meetings about strategies in early intervention. During the project we also conducted research on our practice as advisers and the teachers’ experiences, which although beyond the specific aims of the project, was an important opportunity to develop knowledge about our practice. In summary, the project was designed with the ‘overarching goal to link inquiry with action’ (Walsh and Backe, 2013: 596).

We became, however, increasingly curious about the ways in which the school leaders worked with the project, both because our backgrounds as researchers and educators within the field of educational leadership afforded us a particular set of analytical lenses, but also because of the challenges that arose during the course of the project. We wanted to learn more about how the leaders participated in the project, responding to and reflecting on issues and opportunities. Whilst the knowledge base relating to university-school partnerships continues to grow, the role of school leaders remains under-explored and ‘under-theorised’ (Clifton and Jordan, 2024: 426). This is rather surprising, given the comprehensive endorsement of the importance of school leaders in bringing about change and improving outcomes (e.g. Leithwood et al., 2020; Robinson and Gray, 2019). We wanted, therefore, to explore how the school leaders we worked with reflected on their experiences and practices. Our research shows the difficulties that leaders faced in our partnership, bringing new insights to the practice of university-school partnerships and specifically how leadership practices within university-school partnerships might be developed. Our research question was therefore:

What can be learned about university-school partnerships by exploring the experiences of school leaders?

Theoretical perspectives

Partnership can be an elusive and imprecise concept (Tomlinson, 2005), since partnerships can have various intentions and structures according to context as well as the organisations and individuals involved. Generally, partnerships have positive implications, largely based on an assumption that more can be achieved through co-operation than by individuals alone (Walsh and Backe, 2013). Partnerships for social change have their roots in pragmatist thinking from the late 1800s; Mead (1914) wrote about the necessity of social reciprocity for empathy, participation and democratic consciousness. Within the education sector, there are long traditions of partnerships between higher education institutions and schools, reinforced in recent years by being mandated in many countries (Bernay, 2020). There exists a considerable body of research about these partnerships in their various forms (e.g. training, developing competence, carrying out research and bringing about improvement), and it is beyond the confines of this paper to provide a comprehensive overview. We choose, therefore, to focus on the ways the practices of partnerships have been conceptualised in the literature relating to partnerships in the public sector, with specific attention to university-school partnerships.

Why partnerships may be positive and for whom is not always clear (Tomlinson, 2005). Gomez et al. (2020: 372) are critical of what they define as ‘partnerisation’; in which the education sector routinely attempts to solve problems by bringing together different actors. There is, however, widespread acceptance that complex problems require a collaborative approach (Gutierrez, 2024), and partnerships between universities and schools are intended to be mutually beneficial, as each part can learn from the other’s expertise and perspective. Key themes in the literature on university-school partnerships are the need for mutual respect and trust, the establishment of shared understandings of intentions and roles, collaborative planning and action, and the importance of appropriate structures (e.g. Billett et al., 2007; Cooper et al., 2020; Lefever et al., 2007; Walsh and Backe, 2013).

There is, however, little sign of a straightforward ‘how to’ approach to partnerships in education. Partnerships are vital for innovation and improvement (Bason, 2018) and, although they have been (and continue to be) associated with performative agendas (Bason, 2018) the emphasis in the literature appears to be on a ‘process perspective’ (Billett et al., 2007: 646) in which actors engage in collective, dynamic interactions to work towards shared intentions. Gutierrez (2024) describes the diverse forces which influence meaning-making processes between actors in partnerships. Partnership is comprised of many voices and is fluid; interactions are not linear, and histories and contexts influence individuals, norms and systems (Gutierrez, 2024). Therefore, argue Walsh and Backe (2013: 601), partnerships should be entered into in the ‘spirit of transparency and flexibility’.

Whilst the importance of egalitarianism and mutual respect in partnerships within the education sector has been widely emphasised (Lefever-Davis et al., 2007), there are considerable barriers (Walsh and Backe, 2013). Intentions of innovation may be perceived as getting in the way of ‘real work’ (Bason, 2018: 153) due to the prevalence of understandings of development work and everyday tasks as dichotomous (Jones et al., 2021). Power-sharing is far from unproblematic and simplistic, and we appreciate the attention given by Farrell et al. (2021) to differing conceptions of equality in partnerships, as well as the potential of ensuring representation in processes without challenging established power imbalances. Billett et al. (2007: 638) describe partnership processes as ‘complex and challenging, often contested and requiring new ways of working and in changing circumstances’. Trust-building, they argue, is ‘unlikely ever to be complete or without threat to its erosion’ (Billett et al., 2007: 646).

The endeavours required for successful university-school partnerships are considerable, according to the literature. Walsh and Backe (2013: 595) emphasise ‘sustained commitment’ and ‘significant time and effort’. Cooper et al. (2020) underline the need for ‘concerted efforts’, Clifton and Jordan (2024) point to goodwill as vital, and Blackmore and McNae (2021) argue that change is dependent on the professional and emotional investments of leaders and teachers. Anderson and Korach (2020: 92) state: ‘A critical takeaway. . .is the need for a strong structure consisting of clarity of purpose, roles, communication and process’. They (Anderson and Korach, 2020) highlight the importance of responsive structures, which can be adapted to changing circumstances and needs to account for the dynamic nature of partnerships. Bason (2018), Anderson and Korach (2020), Lipscombe et al. (2019) and Cooper et al. (2020) all suggest that leaders are important in these efforts: they are described in the literature as identifying manageable goals, and motivating, organising and incentivising for partnership. The role of school leaders in university-school partnerships, is, however, lacking (Valli et al., 2018), and where descriptions can be found, they are somewhat imprecise. There is a need for more knowledge.

Emphasis has been placed on leaders as vital to the sustainability of partnerships (Clifton and Jordan, 2024; Lasker and Weiss, 2003), although the specifics of describing or suggesting practices have generally been avoided. For example, Nettleton and Barnett (2016: 27) depict school principals as ‘essential to successful partnerships’, and Cooper et al. (2020: 51) underline their role in ‘cultivating change’. Billett et al. (2007: 651) are less ambiguous, describing school leaders as ‘developing and supporting close relations and communication between partners’ and ‘building trust and communication’.

The literature on university-school partnerships is in broad agreement about the processual aspect of partnerships, which we suggest could be described as partnershipping; diverse and dynamic interactions between partners which cannot be made more predictable through the implementation of specific measures such as shared goals, a co-creative approach or sound structures. Partnershipping emphasises the active nature of ongoing structuring efforts, rather than in structures per se. This entails that responsiveness is not found in structures or plans themselves, but in the continuing activities of organising the work within partnerships in which school leaders have a vital role. It would appear, therefore, that more knowledge is needed about the ways in which school leaders navigate the ongoing and emergent quality of collaboration within university-school partnerships.

Methodology and method

Our experiences as researchers/advisers in the improvement project provided an important foundation for the design of this research. We had experienced first-hand that the process had been far from trouble-free, and we were struggling to make sense of our frustrations, as well as those we witnessed among the school staff. The partnership project was designed as a series of action learning cycles, and interviewing the school leaders was not part of the original research plan. As we neared the end of the project, however, we became increasingly curious about the ways in which the school leaders involved described the project and reflected on the differing roles and outcomes. We wanted to explore whether it was possible to learn more about leading school improvement work within a partnership, especially whilst under challenging circumstances. At the same time, we were optimistically sceptical of how possible this might be, being acutely aware of the ‘generative flux of forces and relations’ (Law, 2004: 7) within the partnership and the project.

Data collection

We decided upon unstructured interviews as a means of creating opportunities for the school leaders to share their deliberations. Approval for conducting interviews at the school had previously been given by Sikt, the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. The interviews were conducted, and the data stored and processed according to the necessary data protection requirements. In keeping with the dynamic nature of the project and our understanding of and approach to partnership, we wanted to both recognise and allow for intersubjectivity between the researcher and the school leaders. We avoided imposing a pre-determined structure on the conversations, allowing for interview participants to discuss experiences based on what they felt to be important (Mulcahy et al., 2021). Subscribing to a social constructionist paradigm (Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Gergen, 2014), in which knowledge creation is interactional, negotiated, emergent and dialogic, our intention was to facilitate for the interview participants (we define both the researcher and school leaders as such) to co-construct ideas during the interviews.

Face-to-face individual unstructured interviews with the five school leaders who had been involved in the project were thus conducted and recorded during June 2023, which was at the end of the project period. The interviews were planned to last approximately 30 minutes; the interviews varied in length (from 25 to 53 minutes) according to the flow of the conversation. We invited a researcher who was new to this specific partnership to conduct the interviews. This researcher had been involved in the improvement initiative at regional level and was therefore familiar with the background and intentions of the partnership and the project but had not been part of the work at the school. This was advantageous both in terms of being able to bring understandings of the context to the discussions, but also in being able to have a genuinely inquiring approach due to having no prior involvement. Furthermore, the school leaders were potentially able to talk more openly about their experiences of our work as advisers than if we had been present. Both parties brought their perspectives to the conversation (Brundrett and Rhodes, 2014), although the researcher’s contributions were primarily focused on inquiring and clarifying and the school leaders spoke most.

Conversations in the interviews went in a variety of directions depending on the differing roles of the various leaders during the project. For example, three of the school leaders chose to talk extensively about what might happen after the project, whilst two of the leaders focused more on the experiences of the teachers during the project. One school leader was interested in talking about the wider context of the project, whilst two others were more concerned about the daily interactions in the project. Despite these differences, all the leaders discussed the process broadly chronologically. These descriptions of the project were both informative and provided opportunity for meaning making. For example, descriptions of how the project was initially developed provided necessary background information as well as insight into how the leaders reflected on the process and their roles.

Validity

We assess our research design as valid in terms of social constructionist understandings: validity being itself a constructed concept (Kvale, 1994). Our reflexive approach to this research has involved careful consideration of our intentions, the complexity of the phenomenon studied, the appropriateness of the chosen method and the potential ambiguity of the data produced (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2017). The perspectives presented in this paper have validity for those who were part of producing them during the research process (Kvale, 1994). We include ourselves in this process, and our reflexivity in itself offers ‘a form of quality control’ (Braun et al., 2023: 22). Our positions as advisers/researchers/partners and co-creators of the project demand attention: we have particular insights and knowledge which are inseparable from the interview data since we have been part of the actions explored by the participants in the interviews.

Following the completion of the interviews, the recorded conversations were transcribed, anonymised and translated from Norwegian into English by ourselves. We recognise the limitations of this in terms of accuracy and reporting in another language, whilst also maintaining that interacting with the data in various ways creates opportunities for us to develop insights which may otherwise not have become apparent.

The school leaders (SL) are referred to in the findings as SLA, SLB, SLC, SLD and SLE. The leaders had changing roles in the project and differing levels of involvement, both in terms of time and engagement. To avoid compromising their anonymity, we decided not to detail the profiles and specific roles of each of the school leaders. Suffice to say that two of the leaders interviewed were directly involved with leading the development of practice in the classroom, whilst the other three leaders had more overarching responsibilities. This variation seemed to enrich the range of perspectives evident in the data. Although the contributions of the researcher conducting the interviews were part of shaping the conversations, they were somewhat limited in practice and we have chosen to focus on the findings from the school leaders’ inputs.

Analysis

The nature of the unstructured interview is conversational, and as such the data produced is unpredictable (Brundrett and Rhodes, 2014). Whilst the general topic of the interviews was predetermined, the questions were not designed in advance, and the conversations were intentionally dynamic. Therefore, a reflexive thematic approach to analysing the data produced from the interviews was deemed necessary, in terms of handling complex data and also to ensure coherence with our research design. Braun et al. (2023: 27) describe reflexive thematic analysis as a means to ‘capture patterns of shared meaning’ by ‘using a theoretically informed analytic lens with the data’. The themes listed in Table 1 are those generated following coding of the transcripts. Our coding work, in line with reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2023), involved reading and rereading the transcripts separately and collaboratively. The process of coding involved organically and collaboratively identifying and discussing labels which we decided best captured meaningful aspects of the data, importance being related both to what the participants said and our theoretical perspectives. Coding, therefore, in this research was not an attempt to summarise or quantify certain aspects of the conversation, but rather to identify interpretations and meanings (Braun and Clarke, 2023).

Table 1.

Themes developed from the data (in no particular order).

Understanding (shared and individual)	Leading improvement	Uncertainty	Time
External forces	Reflecting	Willingness/unwillingness	Continuity
Relevance of structures	Motivation	Prioritising	Planning
Co-creating	Opportunity	Action learning	Expectations
Sustainable improvement	Staff changes	Differences	Commitment
Communication	Patience/impatience	Internal/external actors

We recognise that the themes identified in the data could have taken us in a number of directions, but we were struck by two particularly prevalent themes: Understanding and Continuity. Understanding as a theme encapsulates how the leaders reflected on individual and shared understandings within the leadership team of the partnership and the improvement project and how the leaders understood their roles in leading the development of understanding among the teachers and improvement work during and after the improvement project. Continuity as a theme captures reflections from the leaders on the impact of staff turnover and other unexpected pressures on continued understanding of and motivation for the project, as well as the role of structures connected to continuity.

Findings

The school leaders described how difficulties with instability in staffing and unexpected additional pressures hindered their work in leading the action learning process and supporting improvement. Perceived lack of success in school improvement work was attributed by the leaders to unexpected occurrences outside the scope of control of the school leaders. Findings indicate that despite efforts to co-create understandings and structures throughout the partnership, unpredictability could not be mitigated for, and was negatively affected the project. The findings are organised in two sections, which build on the central themes we identified in the data: Shifting understandings of the partnership among teachers and school leaders and Challenges of continuity in the partnership and the role of structures.

Shifting understandings of the partnership among teachers and school leaders

Participants discussed how the nature of the partnership and the design of the improvement project necessitated work on the part of the leaders to produce understandings; both individual and shared. These understandings appeared to be shaky at the start of the partnership for several reasons. The participants described a lack of information about the national improvement initiative and the reasons for selection. SLB shared: ‘I’d never heard the name of the initiative and I didn’t know what it meant. . .which meant that the teachers were also uncertain’. SLC agreed, saying that the initiative felt ‘woolly’ at the beginning. It was understood that that being selected for the national improvement initiative was based on underperformance, which produced feelings of confusion, alarm and inadequacy. SLA said: ‘I remember that I didn’t understand what the national initiative was about. . .but it was clear that we hadn’t done well enough’. SLC explained that this was difficult to make sense of: ‘We asked ourselves the question: how have we got poor results, when we feel that we are good at leading school improvement?’. SLB explained that they had felt nervous about the prospect of being evaluated, about ‘having to show your cards’, and SLE described the teachers as being ‘a bit frightened and uncertain’. Creating an understanding of the partnership and developing an improvement project at school level was also hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic, which impacted communication and direction. SLE reported that: ‘There was quite a long period in the beginning when nothing happened, there was a vacuum. We had challenges with Covid and difficulties at municipality-level’.

Although clearly frustrating for the school leaders, these hindrances had also produced a need for action. The school leaders worked deliberately to produce a positive response among staff to the partnership, framing it as opportunity rather than admonishment. SLC described:

There wasn’t any point digging us into a defensive position. We needed to think about what we can get out of this experience. And we as leaders went out and talked about it in that way. That this maybe isn’t so fun, but that it’s great that we can work together with advisers from the university, we can get a lot of positive out of that. If there were staff who thought differently, then they didn’t say it out loud.

As the project took shape at school level, the school leaders recollected positive engagement and a shared sense of purpose among those directly involved, describing how they created links to existing projects and saw opportunities for transfer of knowledge to other areas of the school. SLB remembered: ‘We were a good team in the start, we had time and interest, we really wanted to show that we could improve. . . We were able to strengthen the project because we could connect it with other projects’. SLA recalled: ‘It was really enjoyable to have the first visits from the advisers. They were in the classrooms and had lots of different meetings with us’.

There was considerable positivity towards the co-creative design of the partnership. SLE described:

In this project we’ve done it together, it hasn’t been the university who came with an answer, and we didn’t have the answer either, but we have found it out together along the way. And that there has been continuity in the advisers who came, and a structure’. SLA recalled: ‘They [the advisers] were interested in how we thought and what we wanted to do. It was good to be part of deciding the direction of the project.

This approach was not, in itself, enough to ensure success in the project. As time went on and teachers came and went creating shared understandings of the project became more challenging for the school leaders. Distance widened between the advisers and the teachers and motivation waned as everyone’s sense of the project’s purpose was harder to identify.

SLA reflected:

The process was better in the beginning and the middle. In recent months it has been negatively affected by resources and people who have left for different reasons. . . When new people join, and we have to explain what has happened, the essence of what has happened. It isn’t easy to transfer these experiences.

SLD observed that teachers’ previous fears about being evaluated resurfaced:

Some of the teachers have said that they feel like they have to show what they can do, and then get evaluated. We have work to do to help the teachers to understand that the project is more about reflecting on their own practice. . .that you aren’t supposed to show what you can do, but be able to understand yourself more, with help from outsiders.

The school leaders interviewed were not in agreement about the significance of the teachers’ concerns. Three of the leaders seemed to see their understanding of the project from a leadership perspective as more important; they were thinking about the future and emphasised their responsibility to lead action learning processes in other areas of the school. SLC explained:

I’ve been most fascinated by how we can lead improvement through action learning, and how learning can be co-created. The ways in which we can work with our teams through action learning, and I hope we can spread this throughout the school.

Two other leaders were more concerned about the response of the teachers, feeling that a lack of understanding about the need for change had limited the impact of the project and expressing uncertainty about how this might be addressed going forward. SLB said:

We’re in agreement that we want to improve and make things better for the students. But not all the teachers want to improve their practice, maybe some of them think that they’ve been teaching for twenty years, and they know what I’m doing. . .I’m not sure that everyone thinks it’s useful or interesting to get advice from external advisers, or be checked up on, in a way.

Although the school leaders interviewed talked about building further on the project, there seemed to be varying understandings of what this might look like. SLE was most definitive: ‘We’ve organised a mini conference where teachers can share what they’ve done, and the other teachers can learn and hopefully some plans will be made for how we can continue to work with action learning elsewhere in the school’. SLA reflected that: ‘The project has been understood by the leaders and the teachers as something that we are going to continue with, that it isn’t going to finish’. SLB seemed somewhat less certain: ‘Maybe as a leader, I need to point out what we have succeeded with and how we can build further on what we have done. . .but maybe we need to learn to develop our teaching, that we need to learn new things’. SLC recognised that: ‘We as leaders need to come together as a new team’; SLD agreed: ‘We need to set aside time to talk about the project in the leadership team. How we can continue to work in this way. There’s a gap between us, I hear that when we have met recently and talked about the project’.

The intentional dynamic nature of the conversations during the interviews led to divergence in the data, however, issues relating to understandings of the partnership were prevalent. These included confusion about the purpose of and need for the partnership project and widening gaps in understandings of change and improvement between leaders and teachers. The strong presence of differing perspectives and understandings among the leaders themselves is also a finding. It suggests that the leadership team had not collectively processed their experiences of the project nor agreed on how they might build further on the project. SLE wondered: ‘How can we transfer this knowledge and practice to other parts of the school?’. The leaders clearly wanted to further the work with action learning and reflection about teaching and learning practices, however, they seemed less certain of their roles in how this might be brought about. This ambiguity connects with the next section.

Challenges of continuity in the partnership and the role of structures

There was little doubt among the leaders of the importance of continuity in school improvement work. All five school leaders talked about continuity, or lack thereof, as an issue in the project. Discussions of continuity related mostly to the impact of staff turnover and to the significance of structures. The data seems to indicate the significance of being aware that what might be a good idea in the beginning of a project, may not necessarily seem equally important later on. In the case of this project, those involved at the beginning experienced being part of an inclusive, meaningful, co-creative process, but this appeared difficult to maintain. Structures were useful for predictability in the project but did not ensure continuity merely by their existence. As SLA reflected: ‘Structures can be there, and we can tell the new people what has happened before. But anyway it is new – because they are new in the process’.

Changing in staffing was, for the leaders, the most obvious challenge to continuity. During the project teachers came and went due to a sickness, parental leave and new positions; four of the five leaders we interviewed changed position and one had taken partial leave. The school leaders described how these changes negatively affected progress in the project. SLC explained: ‘there have been so many changes, and this has meant that we’ve needed to take two steps back. . .what’s been done before hasn’t been taken forward. . .continuity has been difficult’. SLB agreed: ‘Several of those staff members who were positive in the beginning and helped to drive the process aren’t here, for various reasons. We notice that’. Furthermore, the leaders described how staff shortages created a feeling of increased workload among the teachers. SLB reflected: ‘I think it has something to do with feeling tired and overworked. . .Those who had most ownership aren’t here anymore. The teachers who are left feel that they have too much other work to do’. SLE explained how workload affected teachers’ engagement with the project: ‘Maybe you have a classroom with demanding students, or there is sickness in the team which creates more work for teachers. There are several things like that which take teachers’ attention away’. SLC reflected on the impact of pressure: ‘That our motivation hasn’t always been there, I think that’s a sign that there have been so many other things’. The leaders said little about how they had responded to these difficulties. SLB felt at somewhat of a loss:

The project has been really prioritised by the leaders; the school has really tried to keep it going. I’m not really sure what we could have done differently. Maybe if the ones who were enthusiastic were still here, then we wouldn’t have needed to use so much time on those who were negative.

The leaders did, however, provide several examples of structures which they felt had been useful for continuity. Plans and the establishment of a routine for the action learning cycles were deemed important, as was the use of meeting time. SLB described: ‘The advisers made a suggestion for a plan, and then they sent it to us, and we developed in further, especially with what we would do in between their visits. Both by ourselves and also with them’. SLA said: ‘It’s important to maintain structures for meetings and cooperation, even when it’s really difficult. Sometimes I’ve felt like it hasn’t been possible, but I’ve tried anyway, because I see how important continuity is’. SLC talked about meetings:

To develop new practices, we need to have some structures as a foundation. Like how we organise our teams, when we have meetings, how we share and talk about practices. We need to create time for sharing, and we need to plan time for it. Suddenly other things crop up, which get in the way.

Setting up meetings did not, however, secure continuity in the project. SLE described how teachers questioned the value of the meetings, and sometimes asked if they needed to attend or could prioritise other things.

It would seem, therefore, that the impact of staff turnover on continuity in the project could not be mitigated against by the maintenance of processual structures, nor by the project being co-created, rather than imposed. The project seemed to flounder in the face of unexpected changes and pressures. Despite some efforts by the leadership team to prioritise the project, understandings of its purpose and benefits varied, negatively affecting motivation and impact. The structures were useful only when those involved understood their purpose. The potential implications of these findings for the organisation and leading of university-school partnerships will now be discussed.

Discussion and implications

Partners having shared intentions is comprehensively described in the literature as a defining feature of successful university-partnerships (e.g. Cooper et al., 2020; Farrell et al., 2021; Walsh and Backe, 2013), and leaders have already been shown to have an essential role (Clifton and Jordan, 2024). Potential issues surrounding this are, however, less thoroughly explored. Are shared intentions possible, and by whom are they shared? There may be agreement, for example, as in this case, that a university-school partnership centres around improving educational outcomes for school students, however, how this intention is understood by the individuals involved is likely to vary. Complexity is a defining feature of partnerships (Billett et al., 2007). Those involved in partnerships have their experiences and ‘rules-of-play’ relating to their varying organisational contexts; university staff have requirements to fulfil which differ from the demands experienced by those working at school-level. Although the school leaders and we as advisers worked purposefully to establish mutuality, the leaders described having to manage misconceptions and fears among the teachers at the outset of the project related to the purpose and nature of the partnership as well as their own uncertainties.

Understandings are continually produced through actions and experiences of people, separately and through interactions with others (Gergen, 2014). They can only be as sound as the sum of the people involved at any given moment, and changes in staff need to be expected and taken account of. As our findings show, staff turnover is a reality of school life and therefore of university-school partnerships. Therefore, establishing shared intentions at the start of a partnership between key individuals is insufficient, especially, as in this case, if the intentions are to be realised by others through their daily practice. The research presented here demonstrates how intentions were developed and shared by some in accordance with egalitarian and participatory intentions, but not by everyone throughout the duration of the partnership. As the project progressed, and different people became involved, the original intentions became increasingly remote, and without sufficient and sustained attention to relationships and communication, suspicions grew. The project became permeated by mistrust as teachers appeared to us to become increasingly uncertain as to why we were present in their classrooms and asking them to reflect on their practice. Doubts reemerged relating to the nature of the national improvement initiative and its potentially performative agenda. Leaders described having to field questions about the project’s purpose and relevance, and worse, having to provide reassurance that we were not there as evaluators. Regular digital meetings and physical visits from us as advisers were inadequate to maintain understanding and motivation for the project and shared understandings were described by the leaders as being further impacted by changes within the leadership team. The school leaders seemed to be responding to changes in attitude and concerns among the teachers more reactively than proactively. Findings indicate, therefore, the importance of leaders organising for and facilitating processes among the teachers and communicating within the leadership team. The work that happens with developing understandings within the school in between meeting points with external partners is essential. Also, that all involved need to be mindful that the pace of the project will be affected as the partnership is restarted and recreated each time new people are involved.

Uncertainty and unpredictability are defining features of complex university-school partnerships, and they should be designed, planned and led accordingly. As Gutierrez (2024) has suggested that rather than being feared, uncertainty and unpredictability can open up spaces for innovation and development: the unplanned can lead to creative ideas and new solutions. But this is dependent on school leaders’ abilities to work continually within the school with understandings, challenges and critiques of partnership activities. Cooperation between school and university is important, as is the quality of support provided by the university advisers, however, so is the work of the school leaders in facilitating co-creative processes with each other and their staff. University-school partnerships are not only co-created through interactions between universities and schools, they are also formed and shaped by the processes and interactions within each organisation. In this case, the findings illustrate the significance of the school leaders’ actions within their organisation on the success of the partnership. The impact of the partnership was described by the school leaders as being hampered by internal issues such as communication, difficulties with prioritising and staffing. Arguably, this partnership may have had fewer challenges if the school leaders had felt more empowered to respond proactively, working to create understandings and continuity within the leadership team and with their staff. Thus, this research directs attention away from how universities and schools collaborate, a dominant theme in existing literature, towards the need for further investigation into the actions of school leaders relating to university-school partnerships within their schools. This work provides support for the importance of school leaders in university-school partnerships, but also identifies a need for more focus on how school leaders might be able to sustain and develop understandings, to respond to challenges and redesign processes and how they can utilise the perspectives gained from working in a partnership within their own organisation.

Continuity needs to be attended to in terms of how the key people involved in the partnership sustain processes, but also how practices and structures can ensure that continuity is not solely in the hands of individuals. These considerations may also be relevant within universities in their partnership work with schools. Leaders have a vital role in organising for continuity since they have the mandate to design the tools of structures and meeting points. Not everything is within their control, however. Our project was affected by staff turnover within the school, and it would be tempting to conclude that leaders should work harder to keep their staff. This is an unrealistic expectation; unavoidable staff movement related to unforeseen circumstances is normal in schools. The findings suggest our project was not designed with this in mind and suffered as a result.

The school leaders described the benefits of being part of developing a shared plan for action learning, organising meetings in which the project was prioritised, explained and discussed and talking to teachers individually and informally. They invested time and energy in these processes, to the point where several leaders seemed unsure about what more they could have done. This was a feeling that we as researchers/advisers shared. These actions appeared, however, inadequate to sustain continuity in the project, and although overall the school leaders were positive about the project, their experiences seemed tinged with disappointment. They were hopeful about how the project might be developed and adapted to other areas of the school, but there was a consensus about the need to use leadership meetings to discuss and plan this more. This is an example of the need for leaders to utilise existing structures to work actively with continuity within their organisations. Changes within partner organisations are beyond their control. Even with the best of intentions, complexity and unpredictability are key features of partnerships, complexity of partnerships, however, this should not mean anything goes. An important takeaway is perhaps, therefore, the need for leaders to identify what changes can and cannot be anticipated, and design elasticity in organisational structures to accommodate for the unexpected. This is reminiscent of the ‘spirit of transparency and flexibility’ advocated by Walsh and Backe (2013). Our findings provide examples of that which Gutierrez (2024) describes as the most exciting aspect of complexity in partnerships: when spaces are created for innovation and dialogue. It would be interesting to explore how these opportunities are made use of in other partnerships and contexts. We should not seek to avoid complexity, but rather to explore how unpredictability and uncertainty as features of university-school partnerships can be acknowledged and managed to create more innovation than frustration. This creates the possibility to shift the quality of unexpectedness from foe to friend: interruptions, hiccups, surprises, and turns of events are potential opportunities for learning and innovation, provided time and space to process and reflect are organised for.

This work is both limited and enhanced by our involvement in the partnership as advisers and researchers. Our knowledge and experiences unavoidably colour and shape the research, but at the same time, our position allows for an otherwise inaccessible perspective. We are also mindful of the absence of the teachers’ insights. Each university-school partnership is unique, and we acknowledge that there are aspects of this research which are unavoidably anchored in national and local contexts. We are, however, hopeful that the findings are useful in encouraging further inquiry on the work of school leaders in university-school partnerships elsewhere in the world, and that our conclusions may be more broadly applicable.

The school leaders’ reflections presented here together with our lived experiences highlight not just the complexity and unpredictability of partnerships within education; we have become more conscious than ever of the difficulties involved as well as the necessary investments of energy and time. We choose to encapsulate the process of co-creating partnerships as partnershipping: a human activity which is dynamic and permeated with emotions, reactions, unpredictability and uncertainty. The existing literature already advocates what Billett et al. (2007) describe as a ‘process perspective’, but partnershipping takes this further. Being in verb form, partnershipping can only be done by people, it emphasises action. Furthermore, it reminds us that although partnership agreements are often between organisations, the process of partnershipping is realised by humans. Partnershipping is dependent on the context and the individuals involved (Blackmore and McNae, 2021): it cannot be a reproductive process. We are, however, confident that the human aspect of partnershipping transcends borders and local and national frameworks for partnerships. Structures can help us to organise the work, for example, to know where and when to meet. They do not, however, ensure success. Taking an instrumental approach to partnershipping creates a false impression that the work is easy, as long as certain aspects are taken account of. Whilst we remain committed to the idea that a shared rather than an individual response to educational challenges is preferable, university-school partnerships are not quick-fixes (Gomez et al., 2020), nor are they guaranteed to work provided the intentions are democratic and participatory and structures are in place. They should not be entered into without due consideration of available time and resources. It is unreflective of the capricious processes of partnershipping to design projects for ideal, unrealistic conditions and with the anticipation that key people will always be in place. We invite researchers and practitioners to consider uncertainty and unpredictability as unexceptional and unavoidable. For university-school partnerships to be impactful, those involved need to expect the unexpected: to prepare to respond proactively and even welcome the opportunities it brings. Such conscious adaptivity requires skilful leaders.