Evaluating Leadership Development: Experiences with the NCSL

A symposium was organized at the BELMAS/SCRELM Research Conference in July 2004 to explore the issues arising from the experiences of those contracted by the National College for School Leadership to evaluate its programmes. This article presents four contributions that drew on a wide range of evaluation experience and a response from a representative of the NCSL to the issues being raised. These are: (1) "Control, partnership and empowerment" by Tony Bush; (2) "Matching methods to purpose" by Tim Simkins; (3) "Making evaluation count" by Nigel Wright and Derek Colquhoun; and (4) "Assessing impact--why evaluation is hard" by Peter Earley. In a response from the NCSL, Colin Conner identified three major themes from the papers. The first theme relates to the kind of knowledge that NCSL commissioned evaluations generate. The second theme relates to the issue of ownership and control of evaluations. A third theme draws together a number of issues, in particular the finance and time scales available for evaluations and the extent to which it is possible to explore issues in depth. A summary of these major themes is presented.