The changing role of the school inspector and advisor in England and Wales : a case study of a London suburban authority

The aim of this thesis is to investigate and evaluate the role of
the school. local authority inspector and adviser,.The study is in two parts. The first outlines aspects of the historical development of the school inspector's role. The second comprises an investigation into the changing role of the local authority school inspector and sources of role conflicts which previous researchers have shown to exist. Participant observations and research interview methods were used to obtain the opinions of the respondents. The main conclusions
of the study were: 1. In the opinions of the majority of the
respondents, the inspector and adviser should attach a high degree of importance to the items of the activities in the following order of priority: first, activity (2), Advising individual staff on personal and professional matters; second, activity (5) Informal inspection of schools; third, activity (17) Disseminating the best practices from one school to another; fourth, activity (18) Report Writing; fifth, activity (19) Dealing with correspondence. 2. The inspector or adviser is expected to advise and inspect teachers. These are the main changing roles or expectations of the inspector or adviser. 3. The inspectors' and advisers' conceptions were convergent with
regard to the following activities:- Activity (17) Disseminating the best practices from one school to another; activity (2) Advising individual staff on personal and professional matters; activity (5) Informal inspection of schools. 4. The inspectors and advisers conceptions were divergent on activities: (3) Evaluation of teachers; (4) Formal inspection of schools; (15) Observing teachers in their classes. 5. It is suggested that those activities on which their conceptions were divergent constituted sources of role conflicts and role strain for the inspectors and advisers. 6. The inspector's and adviser's role overload and role stress could be alleviated by means of delegation of responsibility of authority. 7. The inspector's
or adviser's role depends very much on the expectations which he perceived that members of his role-set hold of his role. The most important of these are his immediate superiors: the chief inspector, the director of education and headteachers and teachers. 8. As schools respond to increasing pressures, inspection is changing. Schools are becoming more formal organisations and are resorting to more management systems. Inspectors and advisers are becoming more closely identified with management positions as planners, monitors, evaluators, experimenters and teacher educators. Such radical departures from the roles previously prformed by many inspectors and advisers will require considerable modifications in knowledge and skills. Yet, since inspector's and adviser's aim is the improvement
of instructions, present conditions require such a changing role.