Primary And Secondary School Principals, Curriculum Leadership, In The School-based Curriculum Development Background

Curriculum reform of basic education in China has implemented three-level curriculum and three-level management, which is national, local and school-based curriculum, and empowers schools to develop some curriculum. To some degree, the schools have the some rights of self decision-making. Therefore, many schools begin to develop school-based curriculum with their characteristic based on their own condition, equipment, resource and so on.The principal, as the top school leader, is a key factor to the development of school-based curriculum. The most universally accepted conventional wisdom regards the fundamental role of the contemporary principal in a single phrase: The principal must serve as the administrative leader of the school. However, the curriculum reform is coupled with the press for the principal as curriculum leader, because the principal plays a significant role in curriculum monitoring and innovation.However, the principal is accustomed to the administrative "housekeeping" tasks rather than providing leadership to move the curriculum reform forward. Therefore, how the principal becomes the transformative curriculum leader is a key problem to be resolved. The author does careful analysis and tried her best to find out the practicalsituation, the problems and the cause of them after questionnaire, fieldwork, internet searching and reading the materials of elementary and high schools.The study consists of four parts. Part one makes discussion on such topics as the background, definition and connotation of curriculum leadership. Chapter Two focuses on the significance, the connotation and the responsibility of principals as curriculum leaders. Part Three focuses on the inquiry about the present situation of the curriculum leadership of principals. The last part endeavors to analyze the result of the inquiry and explore the practice strategy to improve principals as curriculum leaders.