Exploring the relationships between instructional leadership and teacher competences: Singapore primary school teachers' perceptions

This article presents part of the findings drawn from a larger study on school leadership in 28 Singapore primary schools. This article discusses the perceptions of 224 key personnel (i.e. teachers with formal leadership titles) and 462 teachers (i.e. classroom/subject teachers without a formal leadership position) of their school leaders' enactment of instructional leadership and the predictive relationships between instructional leadership and teacher competences. The key findings were (i) Singapore school leaders were perceived to adopt a selective instructional leadership approach and (ii) instructional leadership practices that focused on promoting professional development and positive school climate were strongly associated with teacher competences. The article contributes to the growing knowledge base on the enactment of instructional leadership in non-Western settings and specifies the relationships between instructional leadership and teacher-level variables.