Navigating System Reform: ACT Principals' Leadership, Agency, and Collaboration in Times of Change

The focus of this research is to investigate how school principals in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) are exercising leadership to navigate system-wide reform implementation, with particular emphasis on effective change management and reform implementation strategies. The study examines the landmark Strong Foundations reform package as the primary case, given its significance as a mandated whole-system reform that fundamentally alters pedagogical approaches across the ACT public education system.

The Strong Foundations reform represents a significant shift toward explicit instruction and standardised foundational literacy and numeracy teaching across the ACT's historically autonomous school system. However, what works in implementing system-wide reform, particularly the people leading the change, remains under-researched. While the policy's intentions are stated as achieving equity and excellence, its top-down nature risks undermining principal agency, eroding professional judgement, and creating implementation friction that may ultimately hinder its goals. We know what the policy says, but we do not yet know how it is being lived by those tasked with its enactment.

This study addresses this gap by examining how principals - as the critical interface between system policy and school practice - are leading complex change in their unique contexts. There is an opportunity to explore this phenomenon while the change is unfolding, rather than after the fact.

The research asks: How are ACT principals exercising effective leadership to implement system-wide reform, and what competencies, skills, and knowledge do they need to manage complex change successfully?