Training school principals, educating school governors Available to Purchase

School leadership in England and Wales is legally shared between the full‐time principal and the part‐time volunteers, the school governors. Their professional development opportunities during the last ten years have taken opposite directions. Principals’ development has moved to a training focus, with a nationalised, standardised, competency‐based qualification for aspirant headteachers. Governors’ education remains a non‐standardised, decentralised system but has now become largely school‐based and centred on educational issues. In exploring why such differences have occurred, the reasons suggested concern differing role expectations, training developments in related occupations, centralisation and decentralisation, uncertainties about the objectives of educational leadership and the costs of professional development.