Experiencing Transformation of Professional Identity: From Teaching to Leadership in a Small Rural Primary School in Cyprus

The study used the Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) model on teacher professional growth to investigate the changes and the transition of professional identity when a deputy head teacher was appointed as an acting head teacher in a small rural primary school in Cyprus. The head teacher had no previous experience in headship, and did not receive any training or followed an induction course to the job. The goal of the study was to identify ways to support novice acting head teachers for effective leadership in the complexities of small primary schools. Data was collected through diary notes and semi-structured interviews using thematic analysis of qualitative data. The analysis revealed the importance of the interaction between the external stimuli and information through informal professional learning in the role set and the personal knowledge and previous experience. Feelings of isolation as the main outcome of this experience enabled changes in leadership practice through enactment and reflection. The teacher’s suggestions for a professional learning program could be the contribution of her personal experience on the educational context.

"acting" in that it includes "the putting into action of a new idea or a new belief or a newly encountered practice" (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002, p. 953).
The interconnected, non-linear structure of the model enables the identification of change sequences and networks, giving recognition to the idiosyncratic and individual nature of teacher professional growth. A change in one domain leads to a change in another or to ongoing change in more than one domain, supported by enactive or reflective links. Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) admit that some pathways may be more prevalent than others but what is important is the dynamic character of the model: different types of teacher change take a cyclical path of consideration and refinement through formal and informal interactions. Teacher learning adapts with the setting, considering external influences to integrate them and facilitate a responsive approach to individual needs. Teachers value and consequently attend to different things within a professional learning experience and inferences depend upon the value and belief system of the teacher. Opfer and Pedder (2011) emphasize the dynamic character of the model by pointing out that simple cause and effect relationships are inadequate to model the complex process of teacher professional growth and learning. More sophisticated conceptualisations are required in order to take into account the various dynamics and how they interact and combine in different ways, forming thus teachers' professional identity and growth. The social environment is a living entity and the teacher feels the need to act differently in changing situations in it. During the interaction with the environment the teacher as an individual seeks the definition of each situation with the aim of achieving control over it and to handle the impressions that others form. The social roles are interpreted through interaction and individual behaviour is approached as the performance of the role in relation to the rules that frame interaction and interpretation (Goffman, 1963/2001, 1961/1996). Justin, 2019Steward, 2013) showed that their work influenced their quality of life which reflected a level of anxiety, detracted work satisfaction, and created chronic fatigue and feelings of guilt when not attending to school matters. Holding dual roles, divergent responsibilities, pressures of work and expectations were perceived as a source of professional strain and personal dissatisfaction with professional self, having a negative impact on personal life emphasizing the difficulty of realizing a suitable work life balance (Newton & Wallin, 2013;Parson & Hunter, 2019).
Working in small schools in Cyprus was found to have both benefits and difficulties for teachers as smallness created opportunities as well as problems and thus, management needed improvement (Tsiakkiros & Pashiardis, 2002). Successful leaders combined instructional and entrepreneurial aspects of leadership in their effort to build capacity for student learning in rural primary schools in Cyprus (Pashiardis & Savvides, 2011). They were found to act in a systemic manner, take into account all the forces that impact student learning both within the school itself as well as through the utilization of its wider environment. Successful leadership was characterised by people-centred leadership, clearly communicated values and visions, a strong emphasis on the promotion of learning, the use of networked leadership as well as the creative management of competing values are all vital constituents of a successful leadership (Pashiardis et al., 2011b).
Rural communities are influenced by particular societal and cultural values, some of which may appear unusual from the urban perspective that many principals will have acquired before (Clarke & Stevens, 2009). School leaders, as an integral part of the rural communities which often work as "fish bowls" (Hardwick-Franco, 2018), need to be able to read the complexities of the contexts of small rural communities (Parson & Hunter, 2019). The power framework in a school setting is not necessarily tied to the formal leadership structure (Morag Catterson, 2017) but to the people a head teacher engages with. Successful rural head teachers promote people-centered leadership and use power with rather than power over (Preston & Barnes, 2017) by creating high levels of participation and trust in a school where people are empowered, motivated and engaged in a shared vision.

Professional Learning
Since school leaders are both agents of learning and agents of leadership (Swaffield & Macbeath, 2013) the second pillar related to the new role and the new identity of headship in a small rural school, is professional learning both at an individual as well as at a collaborative level. Teachers need time to develop, discuss and practice through learning activities that are systematic, sustained and intensive (Garet et al., 2001) and which empowers them to enact their best work (Harwick-Franco, 2018).
Teachers' professional learning is related to teacher's professional autonomy and is both an individual endeavour, related to teachers' active role, and a collaborative endeavour, that supports transformative practice and relates to teachers as a professional group (Αυγητίδου, 2014Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002;Kennedy, 2014;Sachs, 2001).
The new policy on teacher professional learning in Cyprus follows this paradigm (ΥΠΠ, 2015). There has been a shift from teacher training and professional development, which are usually designed and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jecs Journal of Education and Culture Studies Vol. 4, No. 2, 2020 163 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
implemented hierarchically, to professional learning, which focuses on active learning and transformative practice (Easton, 2008 Teachers are acknowledged as reflective practitioners who are active in the learning process rather than being passive recipients of the theories and the policies that they should implement. They learn effectively when learning activities are school-based are integrated into daily work, promoted through collective participation, take place within a positive school culture with a good atmosphere and understanding of teachers' learning, and co-operation with external resource persons (Opfer & Pedder, 2011;Postholm, 2012 (Nicolaidou & Petridou, 2011a, Sophocleous, 2015. There is no in-service training program for acting head teachers or deputy head teachers for primary schools. A program similar to the one developed for newly promoted head teacher is also available for deputy head teacher in secondary schools (MOEC, 2018).

Method
The case study presented in this article had as subject of analysis the newly appointed acting head teacher's journey in professional learning for school leadership. It explored the challenges she faced in a small rural primary school throughout the transition of her professional identity from teacher/deputy head to a head teacher during the first year of her service as acting head teacher. The teacher change model suggested by Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) (Figure 1) was used as the frame of reference to capture different aspects of the experience at the small rural school and explain the route followed and the change achieved and to analyse teachers' professional life. This professional experience of the acting head teacher offered the field for a descriptive qualitative single case study research, providing an opportunity to advance new understanding. The head teacher participated in a semi-structured interview reflecting on her biography and her leadership experience on the first year of work in this type of school following a list developed by the external co-researcher and framed around the two aforementioned research questions (Genor & Goodwin, 2005;Τσιώλης, 2006).

Hollingsworth (2002) used as the Frame of Reference in the Study
The interview was transcribed, and the transcription was sorted into different aspects and themes related to different issues of leadership. The study aimed to be descriptive and interpretive. The interview was analyzed by coding, initial themes were identified and connected to the research questions, using memos between the researchers (Kvale, 2007, Kuckartz, 2014 aligned to beliefs about different issues related to leadership, to form the basis for conclusions about the teachers' Personal Domain (PD). Some categories derived from the analysis of the interview were used to identify teachers' reflections on the External Domain (ED) and interactions with all significant Others in the school role-set. Analysis, involving memoing and coding of events identified in the interview and the co-researchers' notes, were used to map teachers' Domain of Practice (DP) as well as to identify reflection on actions and salient outcomes observed related to actions or practices, to form the basis for interactions with others for learning, and perceived changes in practice.

The Setting
At the macro-level of the system, Cyprus education is centralized. All policies derive from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport and Youth (e.g., allocation of the school budget, curriculum design and books, implementation of educational programs) (MOEC, 2018). In each level of education there is a body of Inspectorate who supervise the function of the schools, the curriculum implementation, and evaluate the teaching personnel. At the same time, they act as counselors and give guidance to teachers in improving their performance and to head teachers in implementing educational policies. An independent body, the Education Service Committee, is responsible for appointments and placements of the teaching staff. At the meso-level of the school, the head teacher has limited autonomy as regards evaluation of the teaching staff, use the school budget etc. The community and the parents' associations support financially the schools by organizing various events.
The primary school in the study was situated in a small village not far from the city. The school was defined as small because of the number of students forming three different mixed levels. It was a school with a population ranging between 20 and 29 pupils every year. The student population was regarded as homogeneous in terms of socioeconomic status, coming mainly from low and average backgrounds.
In the case of small primary schools with less than thirty students, a deputy head teacher is appointed as acting head teacher. He or she has the same responsibilities as a head teacher and at the same time is responsible for a class with only two periods free for the head teacher's duties. Apart from the deputy head teacher, the staff consisted of two permanent teachers, who had already been working in the school for some years, and three visiting teachers who came twice a week. A secretary and a care keeper had also a permanent job in the school.
The president of the local community in rural areas in Cyprus becomes automatically the president of the school board. The school budget is allocated to the community by the Ministry of Education. The school head teacher can use a particular amount of the budget to cover different needs at school, mainly in terms of educational material, but without having direct access to the budget.
Due to the composition of the school population in small schools, co-teaching of different classes is a necessity. In that case, the timetable is adapted accordingly with the approval of the Inspectorate. The timetable of each school type and the teaching approaches adopted (individualised work, silent work, group work, etc.) offer pupils equal opportunities in acquiring new knowledge, forming attitudes and skills and achieving the Curriculum indicators.

Findings
As regards the first research question on how the acting head teacher dealt with different aspects of the new experience and her professional life, in order to promote her vision for the school, findings on the four domains of her professional life and role are presented.

The Personal Domain: Knowledge, Beliefs, Attitudes
The newly appointed acting head teacher was a high-qualified, Ph.D. holder female in her forties. Ann (pseudonym), had for many years worked as a primary school teacher and as a researcher in the field of education during and after her postgraduate studies. She had also worked as a teacher trainer in the in-service teacher training department at the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute. When Ann was promoted to a deputy head teacher, she worked for three years in urban schools. At the beginning of the fourth year of service as deputy head, she was appointed in a small rural primary school in Nicosia district.
This transfer to the rural school seemed to be traumatic from the very beginning, as Ann had no other leadership duties but organizing professional learning activities in the urban schools she had previously worked. Ann came to the school with no experience on the whole spectrum of school management issues, or on the peculiarities of a small rural school. Her theoretical background and experience worked up to a point as a back-up for confronting new issues. Studying the duties and the regulations before the promotion to a deputy head teacher were found to be useful but not adequate. Neither were the experiences she had as deputy head in the urban schools with a staff of more than ten teachers. She suddenly faced the burden of leadership duties together with teaching duties. The different aspects of school management and everyday life schedule of a small rural school came up.

I was given the duties and responsibilities of a head teacher. In addition
As a head teacher, I had to deal with all the management and administration and meet all engaged stakeholders. My teaching schedule was almost the same as in the big urban schools. While teaching in the classroom, I had to take the right decision about hundreds of things happening in the school.

The External Domain
The main sources of stimuli and information were informal and, at least, at the beginning of the first year closely connected to the previous head teacher and the school teaching staff. Provision of information, stimulus, and support as seminars, advocated practices, suggested professional reading, mentoring and discussion of the relevant content and context to reflect and collaborate as part of a professional development program were absent. Ann admitted that the former head teacher was supportive but only in an informative way. She was willing to explain how things work in order to become an integral part of the established situation. In trying to define the situation Ann reflected and admitted that the previous head teacher managed a lot with the help of the secretary, as they used to share the same office, working desk and even computer. The secretary took a lot of responsibilities of the school staff and participated in the discussions of the teachers. However, Ann wanted to shift away from that model. Frustration and feelings of isolation were quickly intensified. Ann soon found out that parents received a lot of "inner' information about the school. What she mentioned as even more frustrating was that everyone was eager to express feelings, personal views, or complains. One month after she had come to school, she found out that the members of the former parents' association board had decided to ask for her replacement.
The school inspector, as the representative of the Ministry and part of Ann's role-set and her external domain of influence gave information on new duties and sources of information. Nevertheless, she did not refer to the sociological or emotional issues that were related to decisions of the school leader. She supported, but through comparisons to previous years. issues presenting personal experiences as case studies, discussing possible reactions and their consequences.

She was always by my side in an active
She said "you represent the school, you are the mirror of everything that happens in the school, you must gain the respect".

Domain of Practice: Professional Experimentation
Although Ann started off with a very optimistic perspective on implementing an instructional style of leadership which would focus above all on the students' achievement all the expected issues that concern a novice head teacher came up. However, enactment seemed to create professional experimentation that promoted instructional leadership, despite negative experiences.
As regards her vision she focused on instructional leadership. She gave priority in forming a school program that would offer the children the skills she considered crucial. Principles that functioned as a cornerstone in this route were active learning, respect, framing and specifying duties and roles. She focused on self -control for all staff members and students in the school.

My goals were simple and clear. They derived from my reflection, trying to socially enhance children in order to change the existing climate and culture. I would be able to enact and put my knowledge, attitudes and beliefs into action so that the children can profit.
Her first challenge in the new school was to understand how the curriculum was delivered in the complex classes. She had to deal with a new time schedule, which she was responsible to prepare and share with the other teachers. She studied the main guidelines and teaching hours on the webpage of the Ministry and dealt with multiple facets of leadership tasks as well as with teaching tasks, implementing an instructional style, with leadership practices that would enable achievement of instructional objectives in order to improve personnel.

I set my personal learning tasks. I wanted to achieve balance between leadership and management.
To create a positive climate among all members of the school, a dynamic team by enhancing the interests and talents of the teaching staff.
As regards power and authority emphasis was given on time and priority management in the school in a combination with the influence on the culture and how the various roles interact. Through her own reflection she chose to create firm boundaries through an establishment of daily routines and life skills.
At the same time these experimentations in the school seemed to gradually reinforce the building and sustaining of her emotional resilience.

Domain of Consequences
Feelings of professional isolation and loneliness were the main consequences of the interaction of the personal domain and the external stimuli: Although the other colleagues were familiar with the school environment, they did not offer helpful information. inferred to be the result of her interaction and action in the school. The activation and interconnection of the Personal Domain was achieved through reflection in the process of exploratory examination of the choices and actions but also during the interaction with the co-researcher. More specifically, as shown in Figure 2, Ann's action and change in school was established through three different ways: direct application of what was learned through external interactions with other roles or professional learning activities, which mainly referred to what was in accordance with her beliefs. (1), planning and application in practice based on her knowledge and beliefs expressing her professional identity focusing on learning and thus on an instructional leadership style (2) or through outcomes which at the beginning were mainly feelings of frustration and loneliness

Figure 2. Clarke and Hollingsworth's (2002) Model of Teacher Professional Growth in the Study
(3). Reflection on the main outcome, these feelings of frustration and loneliness seemed to make her restructure her Practice domain and at the same time to reflect on her beliefs. Her professional identity was (trans-)formed through three ways of reflection: on the interaction of significant Others (4), on outcomes (7) and on practical experimentation in school leadership (8). Outcomes were influenced by Ann's professional identity and her resilience (5) and practical experimentation (6) which became her personal "cocktail-mix" of instructional, entrepreneurial and distributed leadership style. Lastly the established professional identity contributed to the formation of the external domain (9) by focusing on those significant Others that were positively "significant" and by suggesting a new approach to the headteacher role through suggestions for a professional learning program for acting head teachers in small rural schools. In dealing with leadership she focused on commitment and instructional issues and was annoyed by issues of power and authority.
In reflecting on loneliness and resilience and the way a head teacher can contextualize the school and apply the best combination of leadership practices certain reactions were important. She had realised that as a school leader she received no support through the external domain and that she should enrich her external domain. The first step was made by raising awareness of being different as regards the previous head teacher, but also by raising awareness of the absence, lack of external support, and the inadequacy of the external domain, in the provision of professional learning opportunities for the teacher in the new role of a leader. Ann started becoming stronger. She spent the Summer on reflecting and re-planning. In September changes in teacher personnel and students and consequently new parents' association reinforced a communicative and supporting role-set.
Reflection through discussion with the co-researcher on different perspectives strengthened Ann's professional identity and repositioned her within the school leadership role, leading to actions that were incorporated into the school context. The redefinition of social circumstance, the issues of the exercise of power and objectives at both individual and collective level, i.e. at school level, leads to joint action.
The issue of integration in an existing definition of situation was not needed anymore. On the contrary shifting to a distributed leadership, focusing on the way decisions were made, promoted a shared approach to leadership.
We decided to change the culture of the school and the pupils' attitudes. We showed to everyone at school and especially pupils that we are a strong 'sequent corpus'. We defined clearly the role of  As regards the second research question and the search for a specific action in the educational policy in Cyprus that could strengthen the teacher when joining the role of (acting) head teacher, Ann's case highlighted the absence of an official training that could support her by building on existing formal learning structures, such as the series of training seminars. Above all it created the rationale for taking advantage of the new policy where teacher learning takes place within a professional community.
It emerged that Ann needed that professional community. She looked for it in the school, in the school role-set, in the network of headteachers organized by the inspector, in her predecessor in the role, in another head teacher. But these movements were informal, fragmentary and individual without forming a broader solid background. Ann learned that the implementation of a dynamic approach that encompassed external and internal factors helped her manage culture, relationships and cooperation.
This contributed to the implementation of specific structures, knowledge, attitudes and to the establishment of actions that would reshape her own professional identity as well as that of her partners.
She realized that seminars may not give answers to all the issues, and that the daily routine of working The crucial question was whether that support, autonomy and teamwork could exist from the very first moment Ann had found herself in the new school. In reflecting on the first years' experience at the school, the significant Others and the critical incidents could be identified. The idea of building up a professional learning model for the newly appointed acting headteachers could aim at networking between small rural schools which would have a common goal and design similar practices and activities to work out issues that come up in everyday life. This could be Ann's impact on change in the educational context.

Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to provide an understanding of the leadership experience of a novice acting head teacher during her first year of headship in a small rural school. The study aimed to describe the complexity of the leadership experience in a small rural school and make connections between different aspects that influenced the novice head teacher's professional learning. This was based on Clarke and Hollingsworth's (2002) framework suggesting that different teachers may interpret an experience in different ways but it is an individual teacher's interpreted change, rather than only observable change, that is crucial to subsequent change in knowledge, beliefs and practice.
Findings from the study revealed the importance of the interaction between the external stimuli and information through informal professional learning experiences in the head teacher's role-set and her knowledge and previous experience in the profession. Enactment and reflection on these aspects as well as on consequences and practices through interaction with members of the role-set and the co-researcher enabled change and professional growth. The study revealed the importance of the external domain for the novice head teacher as regards establishing conditions for positive relationships and teamwork in this type of schools and as regards supporting the implementation of certain structures and behaviors to improve organizational goals and school effectiveness within small schools in rural communities.
The main outcome of the head teacher's new experience was the feeling of isolation which enabled changes in leadership practice through enactment and reflection. When the stress and the unknown of being a new leader met the realities of rural schools, the consequences can be thorny (Ashton & Duncan, 2012) since divergent responsibilities and the dual role of teacher and leader were obstacles of instructional leadership (Parson & Hunter, 2019). These elements initially created hopelessness and thoughts of resignation/transfer to another school (Smit, 2017), but commitment and care in interaction overcame challenges through reflection on definitions of situation. The head teacher had never worked before neither as a head teacher nor in a rural area or in a small school and being an excellent teacher did not ensure effective leadership at the beginning ( The school context was unique, or even peculiar, and she was not prepared to face or deal with established "ritualities". Although she had studied about her new duties on her own, this was not adequate for surviving, managing impressions (Goffman, 1963(Goffman, /2001) and enhance her working environment. While defining the new situation to take control over it, she failed, at the beginning, to handle the impressions others formed (Goffman, 1963(Goffman, /2001 These referred to issues of professional identity and resilience, school culture, dealing with formal and informal organizational structure, emphases on instructional leadership, breaking the routines and previously formed habits of the staff. The "special culture" of the school makes new head teachers believe that isolation is associated with headship and they contextualise school leadership policies (Hardwick-Franco, 2018;Pashiardis & Brauckman, 2009;Pashiardis & Savvides, 2011;Tsiakkiros & Pashiardis, 2002). Contextual factors are located at the system level (e.g., regulations of the rural school timetable that the headteacher in the study faced), or at the school level (e.g., interaction with the parents and the secretarial staff). These factors influence, as it was shown in the study, the action "radius", the prioritising of tasks, their weight, pace and criticalness depending on how the head teacher deals with her role in the school organization and role-set (Smit, 2017). The head teacher in the study showed once again (Pashiardis & Brauckman, 2009;LISA, 2009) that there is no single model of leadership that could be easily transferred across different schools -but that specific contexts in which schools operate may limit the head teacher's room for maneuvering or provide opportunities for a palette of leadership (Hardwick-Franco, 2018).
Depending on the school contexts in which they work, school leaders face very different sets of challenges and thus, approaches to school leadership policy need to be based on careful considerations of the context in which schools operate (OECD, 2008). However, insisting on instructional leadership and mutualistic relationships through distributed leadership confirmed previous findings on being characteristics of an effective leader (Conway & Andrews, 2016;Newton & Wallin, 2013).
The school head teacher was finally responsive to the context in which she operated but she did not depend on it; She adapted to the context of her school, sometimes irrespective of the system, confirming that success in her role were not diminished by rurality (Parson & Hunter, 2019). This leads to the conclusion that strong instructional leadership (for which she aimed from the beginning of her new placement) and forms of distributed leadership can help to establish conditions for collaboration (Newton & Wallin, 2013;Preston & Barnes, 2017 (Stevenson et al., 2015). The suggestions of the teacher in the development of a professional learning program could be the contribution of her personal experience on the educational context and could offer the head teacher multiple pathways for professional growth. The case study presented here enhances suggestions from previous research (Parson & Hunter, 2019) for working on identifying specific differences and challenges for rural head teachers and develop professional learning settings accordingly. The novice head teacher experience supports the notion that effective collaboration based on the tenets of a professional learning community can contribute to improving the head teacher and her school. There is indeed a need to form a community of practice that focuses on interaction relationships with the aim of improving every member of the school unit rather than functioning on power relationships (Bennett, 2003) which will compensate limited time or lack of proximity to other schools and head teachers (Stewart & Matthews, 2019). A new view of school networks with common issues and interaction between experienced and new leaders could create the basis for interconnections of knowledge (Darling-Hammond et al., 2009;Nehring & Fitzsimons, 2011) through which novice head teachers will work best, enhance instructional leadership and inform content and procedures through peer-reviewed and evidence-based interaction (Hardwick-Franco, 2018). The policy on teacher professional learning in the Cypriot education system (Αυγητίδου, 2015;YΠΠ, 2015) built on the rationale of research-action can be used as the framework. It could include a process of exploring the perspectives of teacher professionals and those of the significant Others in their role-set, learning, training, analyzing data, consciously activating the other areas (personal, practical, results). Learning communities can be structured between the new leaders and the teachers of their school, and can work through planning, implementation and reflection, so that collaborative learning experiences can facilitate and scaffold resilience and effective leadership (Rorrer et al., 2019).
They can process new information, remaining focused on the common goal, and communicate regularly in order to increase their own learning and have an extension to the students' learning (Lieberman & Miller, 2008, 2011. They can share common values and beliefs and learn from each other both individually and as a group. This could also include a formal "handover" period or the appointment of an experienced head teacher or the school inspector as a "regional principal consultant" (Lock et al., 2012). Since novice rural head teachers arrive from diverse contexts, it is crucial to create opportunities for extended field experience covering aspects of successful leadership though enactment and reflection and are based on mutual relationships (Conway & Andrews, 2016;Leithwood et al., 2008;Wieczorek & Manard, 2018). Thus, school leaders will be able to engage in information exchange, share problems, solutions and learning events that gradually become experiences of collective learning and shared interpretation of specific knowledge with a view to strategic decision-making for their small schools (Crawford & Cowie, 2011). The frustration and the disappointment of the head teacher could be confronted or even avoided or eliminated in building professional learning activities which would be school-and inquiry-based. Training that supports and enhances resilience competence of head teacher is important, too. There is a need for a change towards a more dynamic approach towards internal and external factors of school function with leaders of change at all levels of the educational system, since only when head teachers are supported can they "get the 3Rs right: Relationships, Responsibilities and resourcing" (Hardwick-Franco, 2018, p. 27).