Enacting subject leadership as practice: Primary science and curriculum marginalisation in English primary schools

Leadership-as-practice

Leadership-as-practice provides the primary conceptual lens for this study. From this perspective, leadership is understood not as a set of individual traits or positional responsibilities, but as something that emerges through everyday actions, interactions and relationships within organisational contexts (Raelin, 2019; Raelin and Robinson, 2022). Leadership is therefore conceptualised as a social and collective accomplishment, enacted through practice rather than located solely in individuals. Raelin's work (Raelin, 2019, 2022; Raelin and Robinson, 2022) further emphasises that leadership emerges through ongoing interaction and is embedded in the flow of everyday organisational activity, rather than residing in individuals or formal roles. This perspective shifts analytical attention from leaders as actors to leadership as a process that unfolds through practice. It also highlights the importance of examining how leadership is shaped by context, including organisational structures, professional relationships and policy conditions. Such an orientation is particularly relevant in primary school settings, where leadership is often enacted informally and in conjunction with teaching responsibilities. This practice-oriented perspective is further supported by Theory of Practice Architectures (TPA), which conceptualises practice as shaped by the interrelated dimensions of ‘sayings’, ‘doings’ and ‘relatings’ within particular cultural, material and social arrangements (Grootenboer et al., 2023; Kemmis, 2019; Kemmis and Hopwood, 2022). From this perspective, leadership practice is not only enacted through action, but is enabled and constrained by the conditions in which it occurs. While this study does not adopt TPA as a primary framework, these ideas reinforce the view of leadership as situated, relational and shaped by organisational and policy contexts. Raelin (2019) argues that leadership-as-practice requires methodological attention to what leaders do, how leadership unfolds in situ, and how practices are shaped by organisational and cultural conditions. This orientation is particularly appropriate for examining subject leadership in primary schools, where formal authority is often limited and leadership influence is exercised through persuasion, collaboration and informal interactions rather than hierarchical power. In this study, leadership-as-practice enables an analytic focus on how primary science subject leaders enact leadership through everyday practices such as curriculum advocacy, professional dialogue and relationship-building with colleagues.

By foregrounding practice, this framework allows leadership to be examined as fluid and contingent, shaped by school structures, accountability demands and curriculum priorities. This is especially relevant in primary contexts, where subject leaders frequently balance leadership responsibilities alongside full-time classroom teaching and where science may occupy a marginal position within the wider curriculum (Ofsted, 2023; Wellcome Trust, 2020). Recent work has further emphasised the importance of examining leadership as situated practice, highlighting how leadership emerges through interaction, context and organisational conditions rather than through formal role expectations alone (Karamanidou, 2025a; Raelin and Robinson, 2022).

Sensemaking and sensegiving in leadership practice

Sensemaking is widely recognised as a key process through which leaders interpret and respond to complexity, ambiguity, and policy demands within organisational contexts. To complement the practice-oriented view of leadership, the study also draws on sensemaking and sensegiving as analytic lenses. Sensemaking refers to the processes through which individuals interpret, construct and negotiate meaning in complex or ambiguous situations, while sensegiving involves attempts to shape the understandings of others (Ganon-Shilon and Becher, 2024). These processes are particularly salient in periods of policy pressure, role ambiguity or organisational constraint. Leadership research highlights how school leaders engage in sensemaking and sensegiving when navigating competing expectations and accountability demands. For example, Ganon-Shilon and Becher (2024) suggest how school leaders mediate role tensions by reinterpreting policy demands and reframing professional priorities.

Sensemaking is also highly relevant for subject leaders who must translate external policy signals into local practice. Braun and Maguire (2020) show how English primary schools enact policy through processes of compliance, interpretation and selective engagement, often ‘doing without believing’ in response to accountability pressures. This study builds on that insight by examining how science leaders make sense of inspection expectations and curriculum priorities, and how this sensemaking shapes the practices through which science leadership is enacted. The inclusion of sensemaking and sensegiving allows leadership to be analysed not only as action, but as interpretive work. It draws attention to how science subject leaders negotiate meaning, legitimacy and professional identity in contexts where science may be perceived as secondary to English and mathematics (Ofsted, 2019/2025; Ofsted, 2021).

Middle and subject leadership in primary schools

Middle leaders play a crucial role in mediating between senior leadership priorities and classroom practice, yet their work is often shaped by role ambiguity, competing expectations, and limited formal authority (Ainsworth et al., 2022; Gurr, 2022). Research highlights how accountability pressures and workload intensify these challenges, contributing to stress and shaping how leadership work occurs in practice (Hulme et al., 2025). Research on primary leadership also points to the significance of organisational context and governance structures in shaping leadership practice. Studies of primary schools in Cyprus (Karamanidou 2025a) and complementary school settings in England highlight how leadership roles are enacted within complex governance arrangements that shape authority, responsibility and professional identity (Thorpe and Karamanidou, 2024). Such research reinforces the view that leadership practice is embedded within wider organisational and cultural structures rather than residing solely in formal roles.

It is also important to distinguish subject leadership in primary schools from subject leadership in secondary contexts. In secondary schools, subject leaders typically operate within departmental structures, with clearer lines of authority, dedicated time and formal responsibility for curriculum, assessment and staff within their subject area (Hulme et al., 2025). In contrast, primary subject leaders usually hold whole-school responsibility for a subject while simultaneously maintaining full-time classroom teaching commitments (Karamanidou, 2026). Their leadership is therefore enacted with limited formal authority, constrained time, and across diverse year groups and teacher expertise. This distinction is significant, as it shapes both the nature of leadership practice and the forms of influence available to subject leaders. In primary contexts, leadership is more likely to be exercised through informal, relational and practice-based processes rather than through positional authority.

In primary schools, subject leadership takes on particular characteristics due to school size, staffing structures and curriculum organisation. Subject leaders often lead areas that hold lower status within accountability frameworks, requiring them to advocate for their subjects while navigating competing priorities (Ofsted, 2023; Wellcome Trust, 2020). Research on professional development leadership further highlights how middle leaders influence practice indirectly, through facilitation, modelling and relationship-building rather than direct supervision (Hotham and Perry, 2025; Stone and Stone, 2024). This study conceptualises primary science subject leaders as a specific form of middle leader whose leadership is enacted through practice, sensemaking and relational work. In addition, studies of leadership progression in primary education have shown how professional pathways are influenced by gendered, cultural and structural factors, further complicating the enactment of leadership in everyday practice (Karamanidou and Bush, 2017). These perspectives strengthen the conceptualisation of primary science subject leadership as a form of middle leadership that is negotiated, contextually situated, and shaped by both organisational conditions and professional norms. Drawing on Gurr's (2022, 2024) synthesis of middle leader research, the study positions science leaders as key actors in shaping curriculum coherence and teacher confidence, despite operating within structurally constrained roles.

This study also connects with literature on teacher leadership, which highlights how teachers exercise leadership through influence, collaboration and professional practice rather than through formal authority. Research on middle and professional learning leadership emphasises the importance of relational work, professional credibility, and informal influence in shaping teaching and learning within schools (Ainsworth et al., 2022; Hotham and Perry, 2025; Stone and Stone, 2024). These perspectives are particularly relevant to primary subject leadership, where leadership is often enacted alongside classroom teaching and relies on peer relationships rather than hierarchical power. While this study focuses specifically on subject leadership, it aligns with teacher leadership scholarship in foregrounding leadership as practice enacted through everyday professional interactions.

Subject leadership, legitimacy and the problem of marginality in primary schools

While research on middle leadership has grown substantially, much of this literature implicitly assumes that leadership roles are associated with recognised authority, stable expectations and a degree of organisational legitimacy. Even where tensions and workload pressures are acknowledged, middle leadership is often framed as a bridge between senior leadership and classroom practice, with a relatively clear mandate to lead improvement within a defined area (Ainsworth et al., 2022; Gurr, 2022). However, this framing obscures important variation in how subject leadership is experienced across different curriculum areas, particularly within primary schools. In primary contexts, subject leadership roles are frequently enacted in conditions of limited formal authority, restricted time allocation and competing priorities. These conditions are intensified for subjects that occupy marginal positions within accountability hierarchies. Research indicates that curriculum status strongly shapes leadership opportunity, with subjects prioritised within inspection and assessment frameworks more likely to receive structured leadership support, professional development and organisational recognition (Courtney et al., 2021; Ofsted, 2023; Wellcome Trust, 2020). In contrast, leadership in lower-status subjects is often characterised by informality, ambiguity and dependence on individual commitment.

It is important to note that the marginalisation of science described here is context-specific to English primary schools, where accountability systems strongly prioritise English and mathematics. This contrasts with international contexts in which STEM subjects may hold greater prominence, highlighting the need to interpret subject status in relation to national policy and accountability frameworks. This raises questions about legitimacy as a core dimension of subject leadership. Rather than assuming leadership legitimacy as given, subject leaders in marginalised areas may need to actively construct and sustain legitimacy through practice. This involves persuading colleagues of the subject's value, aligning subject priorities with whole-school agendas, and interpreting accountability signals in ways that protect curriculum space. Leadership in such contexts is therefore not simply a matter of implementing improvement strategies, but of ongoing negotiation over whether leadership itself is recognised and supported.

While leadership legitimacy is relationally constructed and conferred by others, the findings of this study suggest that legitimacy becomes more fragile in marginalised curriculum contexts. For primary science subject leaders, legitimacy cannot be assumed on the basis of role or subject status but must instead be continually negotiated through advocacy, relational influence and alignment with organisational priorities.

Accountability, emotion and professionalism

Finally, the framework recognises that leadership practice is shaped not only by structural conditions but also by emotional and professional dimensions. Oplatka and Arar (2019) emphasise the centrality of emotion management in educational leadership. Emotional labour refers to the process through which individuals regulate their own emotions and respond to the emotional demands of others as part of their professional role. In educational contexts, this includes managing relationships, sustaining morale, and responding to the emotional needs of colleagues and students (Courtney et al., 2023). This is particularly relevant for subject leaders working to sustain morale and confidence in marginalised curriculum areas. Research on professionalism and leadership in performative contexts further underscores how leaders negotiate values, accountability and professional identity (Courtney et al., 2017, 2023). In English primary schools, inspection frameworks and policy expectations shape what is valued, visible and legitimate, influencing how subject leadership emerges (Ofsted, 2019/2025). This also raises questions about leader agency in mediating and responding to policy expectations. While accountability frameworks shape what is prioritised and valued within schools, leaders are not passive recipients of policy demands. Instead, they engage in active interpretation, mediation, and, at times, subtle forms of resistance, shaping how policy is enacted in practice. In the context of primary science leadership, this suggests that subject leaders exercise agency not only in responding to accountability pressures but in creatively negotiating how these pressures are translated into everyday practice.

By integrating leadership-as-practice, sensemaking and middle leadership perspectives, this theoretical framework provides a coherent lens for analysing how primary science subject leaders in England enact leadership in everyday practice. It enables an examination of leadership as relational and interactional work, while foregrounding the often-invisible work involved in leading a marginalised subject within a high-accountability system. Taken together, these perspectives position primary science subject leadership as a form of leadership practice that emerges through experience, interpretation and negotiation within constrained organisational contexts, rather than as a clearly bounded or formally empowered role (Karamanidou, 2025b).

Research design

A total of 15 primary science subject leaders participated in the study. All participants were based in English primary schools in London and held responsibility for science leadership alongside ongoing classroom teaching. Participants were recruited through professional networks and practitioner contacts, enabling access to leaders with direct experience of enacting subject leadership in high-accountability primary school contexts. The study did not seek to evaluate leadership effectiveness or outcomes. Instead, it aimed to generate an empirically grounded understanding of how leadership is enacted in practice by subject leaders operating within conditions of curriculum marginalisation and accountability pressure. This focus aligns with leadership research that foregrounds practice, interpretation and mediation rather than formal authority or positional power (Braun and Maguire, 2020; Ganon-Shilon and Becher, 2024).

Research context

The research was conducted in English primary schools, a system characterised by high-stakes inspection, strong accountability mechanisms, and curriculum prioritisation of English and mathematics (Ofsted, 2019/2025). Within this context, science is frequently positioned as a lower-status subject despite its inclusion within the national curriculum and inspection frameworks (Ofsted, 2023; Wellcome Trust, 2020). This creates particular challenges for science subject leaders working to sustain curriculum quality and teacher confidence within constrained organisational conditions.

Participants and sampling

This study adopted a qualitative, interpretivist research design to explore how primary science subject leaders understand and enact leadership in English primary schools. A qualitative approach was appropriate given the study's focus on leadership as practice and sensemaking, which conceptualise leadership as emerging through everyday interactions rather than as fixed roles or competencies (Raelin, 2019; Raelin and Robinson, 2022). The research design enabled close attention to participants’ experiences and interpretations within their organisational contexts.

Participants were primary science subject leaders working in English primary schools who held responsibility for science leadership alongside ongoing classroom teaching. Participants were selected purposively to capture variation in school context, including differences in school size, organisational structure and leadership experience. This approach supported exploration of leadership practice across diverse organisational settings rather than seeking representativeness or generalisation.

Participants represented a range of school contexts, including variations in school size, organisational structure and levels of experience in subject leadership. Participants’ experience as subject leaders ranged from early-career leaders to those with several years of leadership responsibility. While all participants were based in London primary schools, the sample included schools with differing levels of emphasis on science within their curriculum priorities. This variation supported exploration of how leadership practice is enacted across different organisational conditions.

The sample also included participants working within differing organisational and leadership contexts, including variations in senior leadership support for science and the extent to which science was prioritised within whole-school improvement agendas. These contextual differences provided insight into how science leadership was enacted across varying organisational and accountability conditions while maintaining participant anonymity.

Data collection

Data were generated through 15 semi-structured interviews with primary science subject leaders, each lasting approximately 45 to 60 minutes. Interviews were conducted online and focused on participants’ leadership practices, professional judgements, and responses to organisational and accountability pressures.

Interview prompts focused on:

participants’ understandings of their science leadership role;

This approach supported examination of leadership enactment and sensemaking processes, allowing insight into how participants interpreted, mediated and responded to competing expectations (Ganon-Shilon and Becher, 2024).

Where available, school documentation relating to science leadership (such as subject action plans or monitoring records) was used to provide contextual insight into leadership practice. These documents were treated as artefacts of leadership enactment rather than as evaluative evidence.

Data analysis

Data analysis followed a reflexive thematic analysis approach (Braun and Clarke, 2021). The analysis proceeded through several phases. First, transcripts were read multiple times to develop familiarity with the data. Initial codes were then generated to capture meaningful features of participants’ accounts, focusing on leadership actions, interactions and interpretations. Codes were subsequently reviewed and grouped into broader patterns, which informed the development of candidate themes. These themes were refined through iterative engagement with both the data and the theoretical framework, ensuring coherence within themes and clear distinction between them. The final themes were developed to capture recurring patterns in how leadership was enacted in practice, while also enabling theoretically informed interpretation.

Subsequent stages of analysis involved relating these patterns to the study's theoretical framework to support interpretation of leadership as practice (Raelin, 2019). Particular attention was paid to how participants made sense of accountability expectations and curriculum hierarchies, drawing on policy enactment research that highlights interpretation, mediation and selective engagement within schools (Braun and Maguire, 2020). The analysis also considered the emotional and relational dimensions of leadership practice, recognising that subject leaders often undertake significant emotional labour in sustaining teacher confidence, negotiating legitimacy and managing professional relationships (Hulme et al., 2025; Oplatka and Arar, 2019). Movement between data, theory and reflexive interpretation supported the development of analytically coherent themes that extend beyond description to offer conceptual insight into the enactment of primary science leadership. While the study does not seek statistical generalisation, the number of interviews provided sufficient depth to identify recurring patterns in leadership enactment across participants’ accounts.

Researcher positionality and reflexivity and ethical considerations

The researcher's professional background in primary science education and educational leadership informed all stages of the research process. This included prior assumptions regarding the marginalisation of science within primary schools and the challenges associated with subject leadership in high-accountability contexts. Recognising this, reflexive attention was given to how these assumptions might shape data generation and interpretation. Throughout the research process, care was taken to remain open to participants’ perspectives, including accounts that challenged or nuanced these assumptions. Analytic decisions were grounded in participants’ accounts, with ongoing reflection to minimise the influence of prior professional experience. Consistent with leadership research that foregrounds professionalism, power and reflexivity, analytic decisions were made transparent and grounded in participants’ accounts rather than assumptions derived from prior practice (Courtney et al., 2017). Reflexive awareness was maintained throughout the research process to ensure credibility and trustworthiness. Consistent with reflexive thematic analysis, themes were understood as interpretive and co-constructed through the researcher's engagement with participants’ accounts, theoretical frameworks and contextual understanding.

Participants were informed of the purpose of the study and provided informed consent. Confidentiality and participant anonymity in reporting were ensured through the removal of identifying details from transcripts and published findings. Given the nature of semi-structured interviews, full anonymity cannot be guaranteed; however, all efforts were made to protect participants’ identities and minimise the risk of identification. Given the pressures associated with subject leadership roles in high-accountability contexts, particular care was taken to ensure that participation did not pose professional risk to participants.

Constructing the science leadership role under constraint

Most participants described science leadership as an ill-defined and flexible role shaped more by local context than by formal role descriptions. However, participants’ experiences were not uniform. Leaders working in schools where science held greater organisational visibility or where senior leadership actively supported science described having clearer expectations and greater scope to enact the role strategically. In contrast, participants working in contexts where science was more marginalised described leadership as reactive, fragmented and heavily constrained by competing priorities. While participants held designated responsibility for science, they reported limited clarity regarding expectations, authority or time allocation. While leadership is widely understood as constructed through experience, judgement, and everyday action, the findings of this study suggest that these processes are particularly visible and consequential in primary science subject leadership, where formal structures are limited and role expectations are less clearly defined. In this context, leadership is not only enacted through practice but must be continually assembled and reassembled in response to shifting organisational priorities and curriculum hierarchies.

This highlights not a difference in the nature of leadership itself, but in the conditions under which it is enacted. Almost all middle leaders described having to work out the role for themselves, drawing on prior experience and professional judgement to determine what science leadership should involve in their school. As one participant explained ‘There isn’t really a clear brief for science. You’re named as the science lead, but then you have to decide what that actually means in your school’ (ML4). This account suggests that role ambiguity was not simply a matter of unclear job description, but a structural condition of subject leadership in primary schools. Participants were required to define the scope and purpose of science leadership for themselves, often without clear organisational guidance. In this sense, the role was not merely flexible; it was contingent on local interpretation and dependent on how far science was recognised as worth leading within the school.

Another leader similarly described the role as open-ended and responsive to circumstance, ‘It's very much shaped by what else is going on. Some years you’re really pushing science, other years it's more about just keeping it going alongside everything else’ (ML11). Importantly, participants did not describe this flexibility in uniformly positive terms. While some degree of openness allowed leaders to adapt the role to their school context, it also meant that science leadership could be easily displaced by other institutional priorities. This suggests that the work of subject leadership was shaped not only by what leaders intended to do, but by whether conditions existed for the role to be enacted in a sustained way. This process was shaped by curriculum priorities that positioned English and mathematics as dominant, leaving science leadership to be enacted within constrained organisational spaces. Several participants suggested that the role expanded when science gained temporary visibility, for example during inspection preparation or curriculum review, but contracted again when core subjects reasserted priority. Participants noted that their leadership work often occurred around the edges of the school day, embedded within informal conversations, planning meetings or moments of opportunistic influence, as ‘Most of the science leadership happens in passing, a quick chat after school, a conversation in the corridor. There's no protected time for it’ (ML1). This finding illustrates how participants actively construct leadership through practice in response to local conditions and constraints, shaped by competing expectations and limited structural support. Leadership, in this sense, emerged through what participants did rather than what they were formally empowered to do, reinforcing the importance of examining leadership as practice rather than role enactment (Raelin, 2019).

Leading through influence, relationships and professional credibility

Participants emphasised the central role of relational influence in enacting science leadership, relying on trust, credibility and collaboration with colleagues. Leadership was described as dependent on trust, professional credibility and collaborative relationships. Participants rarely framed their leadership in directive terms; instead, they described strategies centred on encouragement, modelling and professional dialogue. One participant noted, ‘You’re expected to lead science, but it's never really clear what that should look like in practice’ (ML6). Participants explained that leadership in science relied heavily on trust and collaboration with colleagues. However, not all participants experienced these constraints in the same way, with some reporting greater access to resources or stronger institutional support.

While this relational approach was widely reported, some participants indicated that it could limit their ability to challenge practice directly, particularly in contexts where science was not prioritised (ML6). Almost all middle leaders reported being acutely aware of colleagues’ confidence in science and described their role as supporting, rather than judging, classroom practice. One participant reflected, ‘If you come across as telling people what to do in science, they just switch off. A lot of staff don’t feel confident, so it has to be very supportive’ (ML2). Several participants noted that overt monitoring or evaluation of science teaching risked damaging relationships and undermining engagement, particularly in a subject that many teachers perceived as challenging ‘I’m careful not to make it feel like I’m checking up on people. Science can already feel intimidating, and that just makes it worse’ (ML9). These accounts indicate that relational leadership was not simply an interpersonal style but a strategic necessity. Participants recognised that, in a subject where many colleagues felt uncertain, directive approaches risked producing disengagement rather than improvement. Leadership therefore involved calibrating support carefully: leaders needed to encourage better practice without appearing supervisory, and to influence colleagues without the formal authority typically associated with evaluation. As a result, leadership practices prioritised reassurance, shared problem-solving and the normalisation of uncertainty. This relational approach positioned science leadership as emotionally and professionally demanding work. Many participants described carefully managing conversations to maintain morale while still advocating for curriculum coherence and improvement, and as one mentioned, ‘You’re constantly trying to build people up, saying it's okay not to know everything. That emotional side of it is actually a big part of the role’ (ML7). This points to an important tension within the role. Participants were expected to promote curriculum quality and professional learning, yet much of this work depended on protecting colleagues’ confidence and preserving trust (ML11). The emphasis on emotional labour highlights the work involved in managing relationships, sustaining colleagues’ confidence and responding to the emotional demands of the role, rather than simply experiencing emotions. In this sense, emotional labour refers to the active regulation and management of emotions as part of leadership practice. The emotional labour of science leadership therefore lay not only in being supportive, but in managing the boundary between advocacy and pressure. While this supportive orientation was widely valued, some participants implied that reliance on informal influence could also be limiting, particularly where colleagues were resistant or where science held little whole-school priority. Such accounts foreground the emotional labour involved in managing relationships and sustaining colleagues’ confidence (Oplatka and Arar, 2019). Differences also emerged in the extent to which participants felt able to exercise influence. More experienced subject leaders and those working within supportive leadership cultures described greater confidence in challenging practice and advocating for science, whereas less experienced leaders more often described relying on cautious and highly relational approaches in order to maintain collegial trust and engagement.

Sensemaking accountability and negotiating curriculum legitimacy

Most participants differed in how they responded to accountability pressures, with some prioritising compliance and others placing greater emphasis on maintaining professional judgement (ML4). Participants’ accounts revealed that a significant component of science leadership involved interpreting and mediating accountability expectations. Many middle leaders described engaging in ongoing sensemaking around inspection frameworks, curriculum guidance and senior leadership priorities, often in the absence of explicit direction regarding science. Several participants reported uncertainty about how science would be viewed during inspection and described having to interpret signals from policy documents, senior leaders and previous inspection experiences. ‘You’re never quite sure how much science is going to matter on the day. You end up second-guessing what inspectors might focus on’ ML6 mentioned. This uncertainty was echoed by ML12, who described ‘trying to read between the lines of what inspectors might actually be looking for’. This uncertainty mattered because it shaped how leaders allocated attention and effort. In the absence of a clear and stable message about the place of science within inspection, participants engaged in anticipatory interpretation, attempting to predict what would count as legitimate evidence of subject quality. Accountability, therefore, did not operate only through explicit mandates; it also worked through ambiguity, prompting leaders to infer priorities and respond pre-emptively. This uncertainty required leaders to make strategic judgements about how much emphasis to place on documentation, curriculum mapping and evidence generation, often balancing compliance with professional values as ‘We spend time making sure the paperwork looks right, even if in reality science doesn’t get as much time as maths or English’ (ML14). Such accounts reveal a distinction between the performance of curriculum legitimacy and the lived reality of curriculum time. Participants were often aware that documentary coherence could mask the relatively weak position of science in everyday school life. This suggests that subject leadership involved not only curriculum development, but also representational work: constructing an accountable version of science that could withstand external scrutiny.

Participants described selectively aligning science practices with perceived accountability priorities in order to secure legitimacy for the subject. This included framing science initiatives in terms of curriculum intent, coherence or cross-curricular contribution, rather than as intrinsically valuable, and as one middle leader mentioned, ‘I often talk about science in terms of skills or vocabulary because that seems to carry more weight than just saying science is important’ (ML10). The strategic use of terms such as ‘skills’ and ‘vocabulary’ indicates that advocacy for science was often mediated through dominant accountability languages. Rather than asserting the value of science on its own terms, leaders framed it through discourses already recognised within school improvement and inspection. This reflects not simply compliance, but a form of tactical sensegiving through which subject leaders sought to make science speakable and defensible within prevailing institutional priorities. A small number of participants described more stable forms of legitimacy, often linked to prior expertise or supportive leadership structures.

Such practices illustrate how science leadership involved creative mediation, as leaders sought to reconcile external accountability demands with internal commitments to meaningful science education (Braun and Maguire, 2020). These findings highlight the agentic role of subject leaders in mediating policy expectations, demonstrating how leadership involves not only responding to accountability demands but actively shaping how they are enacted in practice. However, participants varied in the extent to which they embraced or resisted these framings. For some, aligning science with dominant priorities was a pragmatic means of protection; for others, it reflected frustration at the need to justify science indirectly rather than as a valuable subject in its own right. These processes are of course not limited to subject leaders alone but are shaped by senior leadership decisions, which influence how accountability priorities are interpreted and enacted across the school.

Sustaining science leadership through professional learning and advocacy

A further theme concerned how participants sought to sustain science leadership over time, particularly in contexts characterised by staff turnover, limited resources and competing priorities. While advocacy was a common feature across participants’ accounts, the extent to which leaders felt able to influence whole-school priorities varied considerably. Leaders described professional learning as a key mechanism through which they attempted to influence practice and build collective confidence in science. Rather than formal training programmes, participants emphasised informal and situated professional learning opportunities, such as shared planning, modelling lessons and short, focused discussions, ‘There isn’t the capacity for big CPD, so it's more about little moments, sharing ideas, modelling a lesson, talking things through’ ML3 mentioned. This suggests that professional learning was embedded within the ordinary rhythms of school life rather than organised through formal leadership structures. Participants’ emphasis on brief, situated interactions indicates that leadership development in science often depended on opportunistic and incremental work. What counted as leadership here was not the delivery of large-scale training, but the capacity to create small but meaningful openings for professional learning within constrained conditions. Similarly, ML13 emphasised the ongoing nature of this work, noting that ‘you have to keep bringing science back into conversations or it just disappears’.

These approaches were perceived as more achievable within the constraints of primary school structures and more responsive to teachers’ needs. Advocacy emerged as a central component of sustaining science leadership. Participants described actively promoting the value of science within the school, often positioning it as contributing to broader educational goals rather than competing with core subjects, and as ML8 mentioned ‘You’re constantly having to make the case for science, showing how it fits with the bigger picture so it doesn’t get pushed aside’. This advocacy work was described as ongoing and effortful, requiring persistence and strategic communication and as one middle leader mentioned, ‘It's a long game. You’re always pushing, reminding people why science matters, even when it feels like an uphill battle’ (ML15). These findings position primary science leadership as a form of growth-oriented practice, emerging through experience, informal learning and sustained advocacy rather than through formal leadership development pathways (Karamanidou, 2025b). Leadership was enacted as a long-term commitment to building capacity and legitimacy within constrained organisational conditions. Advocacy was similarly described as cumulative rather than event-based. Participants did not portray themselves as securing legitimacy for science once and for all; instead, they described a recurring need to restate its value, align it with wider priorities, and protect it from being displaced. This highlights the temporal dimension of subject leadership: sustaining science required repeated effort over time, rather than one-off initiatives or formal mandate. Taken together, these accounts suggest that sustaining subject leadership depended less on formal structures of leadership development and more on persistence, strategic communication, and repeated relational work.

Understanding primary science leadership as an enacted and negotiated role

The first research question examined how primary science subject leaders understand their leadership role. The findings suggest that participants did not experience science leadership as a clearly defined or formally bounded role. Instead, leadership was understood as something that had to be actively constructed through experience, judgement and everyday action. This aligns with research emphasising the role of middle leaders in shaping professional learning through informal and networked practices (Hotham and Perry, 2025). Participants’ accounts illustrate how role expectations were often unclear, with limited guidance regarding authority, time or priorities, requiring leaders to ‘work out’ the role in relation to their specific school context. This finding is consistent with leadership-as-practice perspectives, suggesting that leadership is enacted through everyday practice rather than formal designation. For the middle leaders in this study, leadership was not a stable identity, but an ongoing process of negotiation shaped by curriculum hierarchies and organisational constraints. The findings extend existing work on primary leadership development by illustrating how leadership growth occurs informally and unevenly, emerging through practice rather than structured leadership pathways (Karamanidou, 2025b).

By focusing on science, a subject that occupies a relatively marginal position within accountability frameworks, the study highlights how subject leaders must actively construct legitimacy for their role. This contributes to middle leadership literature by showing that role ambiguity is not merely a structural issue but a defining condition through which leadership practice is enacted (Ainsworth et al., 2022; Gurr, 2022).

Enacting leadership through relational and emotional labour

The second research question focused on how primary science leadership is enacted in everyday practice. The findings indicate that leadership was enacted primarily through relational influence, professional credibility and emotional labour rather than through directive or managerial practices. Participants noted that leadership strategies centred on encouragement, modelling, reassurance and professional dialogue, reflecting an acute awareness of colleagues’ confidence and vulnerability in relation to science.

These findings align with research highlighting the emotional dimensions of educational leadership (Oplatka and Arar, 2019) and extend it by demonstrating how emotional labour is intensified in marginalised curriculum areas. Science leaders were required to carefully manage relationships to sustain engagement, avoid resistance and maintain trust. Leadership enactment therefore involved subtle interpersonal work rather than visible leadership actions, rendering much of this work invisible within formal leadership structures. The emphasis on informal professional learning and modelling further supports research suggesting that middle leaders influence practice indirectly rather than through formal authority (Hotham and Perry, 2025; Stone and Stone, 2024). In this study, leadership emerged through small, situated practices that accumulated over time, highlighting how influence developed through interaction rather than formal authority (Gurr, 2024). A tension emerges in which science leaders are required to provide reassurance and emotional support while simultaneously advocating for improvement, positioning leadership as both caring and pressurising in ways that are rarely acknowledged in formal role descriptions. While relational influence, negotiation and advocacy are widely recognised as features of educational leadership, the findings of this study suggest that these practices are intensified and more explicitly foregrounded in marginalised curriculum contexts. For primary science subject leaders, the absence of formal authority and the lower status of the subject within accountability hierarchies mean that leadership is enacted predominantly through these relational and interpretive practices. In this sense, the study does not position such practices as unique to science leadership but highlights how they become central and unavoidable under conditions of marginality.

Sensemaking accountability and negotiating curriculum legitimacy

The third research question examined how accountability pressures and curriculum priorities shape the enactment of primary science leadership. The findings reveal that sensemaking was a central component of leadership practice, with science leaders engaging in continuous interpretation of inspection frameworks, policy signals and senior leadership priorities. The findings suggest that leadership-as-practice becomes particularly visible under conditions of ambiguity, where role expectations are less clearly defined, inspection expectations remain uncertain, and subject status is insecure, intensifying the need for sensemaking and advocacy. Participants’ accounts illustrate how uncertainty surrounding inspection expectations required leaders to make strategic judgements about documentation, curriculum emphasis, and evidence generation.

This finding suggests that science leaders engage in selective compliance and interpretation in response to accountability pressures (Braun and Maguire, 2020). The study extends this work by suggesting that sensemaking is not confined to senior leaders but is a key feature of subject leadership practice. Science leaders acted as mediators between external accountability demands and internal professional values, creatively reframing science to align with dominant priorities in order to secure legitimacy. These findings also align with sensemaking and sensegiving research, which emphasises how leaders interpret ambiguity and attempt to shape shared understandings within their organisations (Ganon-Shilon and Becher, 2024). In this study, sensegiving was evident in the ways science leaders framed science in terms of curriculum intent, coherence and whole-school goals, highlighting subject leadership as a critical site of policy interpretation and enactment.

Theoretical contribution

Much of the leadership work identified in this study remains largely invisible within formal leadership structures, despite being central to sustaining curriculum provision in marginalised subjects. This study contributes to educational leadership scholarship in three interrelated ways. It offers an empirically grounded perspective on leadership-as-practice by illustrating how subject leadership is enacted under conditions of constraint and marginalisation in primary schools, foregrounding the everyday practices through which leadership is constructed in marginalised curriculum contexts. By focusing on primary science, the study reveals leadership practices that may remain obscured in higher-status curriculum areas. The study contributes to middle leadership literature by illustrating how subject leaders operate with limited formal authority and must rely on relational, emotional and interpretive work to influence practice. The findings deepen understanding of the pressures and tensions associated with middle leadership roles in high-accountability systems (Ainsworth et al., 2022; Hulme et al., 2025), while highlighting the distinctive challenges faced by leaders of marginalised subjects.

The study contributes to understanding of sensemaking in educational leadership by suggesting how subject leaders engage in ongoing interpretation and mediation of accountability demands (Ganon-Shilon and Becher, 2024). This positions subject leadership as a key site of policy enactment within primary schools and underscores the importance of examining leadership beyond formal hierarchies. While leadership-as-practice scholarship foregrounds leadership as emergent and relational, the findings of this study suggest that, in marginalised curriculum areas, leadership practice is not only emergent but also continually provisional, requiring ongoing negotiation to maintain legitimacy over time.

A key contribution of this study is the conceptualisation of subject leadership as legitimacy-seeking practice. While leadership literature has long recognised legitimacy as relationally constructed and conferred by others, this study highlights how, in marginalised curriculum contexts, legitimacy is not only relational but also fragile and continuously at risk. In such contexts, leadership practice involves sustained effort to establish, maintain, and re-establish legitimacy over time. This extends leadership-as-practice perspectives by showing that leadership is not only emergent through interaction, but must also be actively sustained under conditions where its authority cannot be assumed.

Subject leadership as provisional and legitimacy-seeking practice

An additional insight offered by this study concerns the provisional nature of subject leadership in marginalised curriculum areas. While leadership-as-practice scholarship emphasises leadership as emergent and relational (Raelin, 2019; Raelin and Robinson, 2022), the findings of this study suggest that, for primary science subject leaders, leadership is not only emergent but also continually provisional. Leadership legitimacy was shown to be fragile and contingent, shaped by shifting curriculum priorities, inspection expectations, and organisational attention, echoing research on the constrained and ambiguous positioning of middle leaders within high-accountability systems (Ainsworth et al., 2022; Gurr, 2022; Hulme et al., 2025). Participants’ accounts indicate that leadership authority could not be taken for granted, but had to be continually re-established through advocacy, alignment with whole-school agendas and careful relational work. This aligns with research highlighting leadership as a process of mediation and selective alignment under accountability pressures (Braun and Maguire, 2020; Ganon-Shilon and Becher, 2024). Taken together, these findings suggest that subject leadership in marginalised areas involves a distinctive form of leadership labour focused not only on influencing teaching and learning, but on maintaining the conditions under which leadership itself remains possible (Karamanidou, 2025b; Oplatka and Arar, 2019).

The emphasis on provisional leadership also sheds light on the emotional dimensions of subject leadership. Where leadership legitimacy is uncertain, leaders may experience heightened emotional labour as they manage professional relationships, support colleagues’ confidence, and absorb frustration associated with limited recognition or support. This provisional nature of leadership legitimacy is particularly significant in marginalised curriculum contexts, where subject status is unstable and organisational attention is uneven. As a result, leadership is not only enacted through practice but must be continually sustained and re-established over time. This aligns with research highlighting emotion management as a central, yet often invisible, dimension of educational leadership (Oplatka and Arar, 2019). By conceptualising primary science subject leadership as provisional and legitimacy-seeking practice, this study extends leadership-as-practice perspectives to account more fully for the influence of curriculum hierarchy and accountability regimes. It suggests that leadership theory must attend not only to how leadership emerges, but also to how leadership is sustained, or constrained, over time in different organisational and policy contexts.

Implications for leadership development and policy

The findings suggest that leadership development for primary subject leaders should recognise leadership as a form of practice that involves emotional labour, sensemaking and advocacy. The prevalence of ‘learning on the job’ suggests that subject leadership development is often informal and uneven, relying heavily on individual initiative rather than structured support. Senior leaders therefore play a critical role in creating the conditions that enable subject leaders to develop their leadership practice. This includes providing protected time, access to professional learning, and clearer role expectations, as well as recognising and legitimising the leadership work undertaken in marginalised subjects. Without such support, subject leaders may continue to rely on ad hoc learning processes that risk reinforcing inconsistency and limiting the sustainability of leadership practice.

The findings also have important implications for senior school leaders, including headteachers and senior leadership teams, who play a central role in shaping the conditions under which subject leadership is enacted. The framing of subject leadership roles, the allocation of time and resources, and access to professional learning are largely determined at this level. Where these conditions are limited or unclear, subject leaders are required to rely on informal and self-directed forms of leadership development. Senior leaders therefore have a critical role in creating the organisational conditions that enable subject leadership to be sustained, including providing clearer role expectations, protected time, and structured opportunities for professional learning and support. This highlights that the challenges identified in the study are not solely located at the level of subject leaders themselves, but are shaped by broader organisational decisions and leadership priorities.

Professional learning opportunities should support subject leaders in developing confidence to navigate accountability pressures and negotiate curriculum legitimacy, rather than focusing solely on technical aspects of the role. At a policy level, the study raises questions about how accountability frameworks signal curriculum priorities and how these signals shape leadership practice. If subjects such as science are to be meaningfully led and sustained in primary schools, greater attention is needed to how inspection and policy frameworks recognise and support subject leadership beyond core curriculum areas (Ofsted, 2019/2025; Ofsted, 2023). In practical terms, this may involve structured opportunities for collaborative professional learning, such as regular subject leadership meetings, peer mentoring and participation in subject-specific networks that extend beyond the individual school. Professional development could also include coaching focused on navigating relational influence, advocating for subject priorities, and interpreting accountability expectations. In addition, providing subject leaders with protected time within the school timetable to carry out their leadership responsibilities is critical, particularly in contexts where competing curriculum priorities limit opportunities for sustained leadership work.

At a policy level, greater consideration could be given to how accountability frameworks recognise and signal the value of foundation subjects such as science. This may include ensuring that inspection and accountability systems more explicitly attend to subject breadth and curriculum balance, as well as supporting schools to invest in subject leadership across a wider range of disciplines. Policy initiatives could also promote access to subject-specific professional development and leadership pathways for teachers in foundation subjects, helping to strengthen leadership capacity beyond core areas such as English and mathematics. At the school level, senior leaders play a key role in enacting these changes through decisions about resource allocation, role expectations and curriculum prioritisation.

For such approaches to be implemented effectively, subject leadership support requires alignment across school and system levels. At school level, this includes protected leadership time, explicit role expectations and regular opportunities for collaborative professional learning. At system level, implementation may depend on accountability frameworks signalling the value of broader curriculum leadership beyond core assessed subjects. Professional development providers and school networks may also play an important role by offering sustained mentoring, subject-specific leadership development, and opportunities for cross-school collaboration. Together, these conditions may help strengthen the sustainability and legitimacy of subject leadership within marginalised curriculum areas.

In addressing the study's research questions, this discussion highlights primary science leadership as a form of everyday practices of influence and interpretation. Leadership emerges through everyday actions, emotional labour and continuous sensemaking, shaped by accountability pressures and curriculum hierarchies. By foregrounding the experiences of science subject leaders in English primary schools, the study contributes new insight into leadership enactment in marginalised curriculum areas and extends current debates within educational leadership research.