Open Society

The transfer of human resource management (HRM) practices from the corporate business context into schools has taken a novel turn. No longer restricted to the management of school teachers, HRM techniques are now being applied to the management of students. HRM views the student as a human resource to serve the school, and seeks to systematically regulate students’ identities in order to align them with school values and goals. This article introduces the Uncommon Schools model as an exemplar of student-centred HRM. The case study demonstrates how student-centred HRM is being operationalised in schools and concludes by exploring the potential effects on students of existing within an HRM system. The article is informed by critical management theories and argues that student-centred HRM constitutes a radical shift in the relationship between school and student.

When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That's no problem for someone on the manager's schedule. There's always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker's schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.For someone on the maker's schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an exception. It doesn't merely cause you to switch from one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work.