VADOVŲ POŽIŪRIS IR VEIKMĖ KURIANT ĮTRAUKIĄ MOKYKLĄ

The article analyses the attitudes and actions of school leaders in implementing a project enhancing inclusive education, chosen by a school. The implementation of the project in Lithuania is supported by the programme “I choose to teach – for school change!”, which aims to increase inclusive education as a focus on each child and the child’s continuous learning progress. The article presents interviews with 14 principals of Lithuanian general education schools, who participated in the first stage of the programme “I choose to teach – for school change!”. The interviews were aimed at finding out school leaders’ attitudes towards inclusive education, their actions of planning and managing transformational processes taking place in school while strengthening inclusive education. Applying the method of inductive qualitative content analysis, four themes revealing the diversity of school leaders’ attitudes and actions in creating the inclusive school were distinguished: 1) the deconstruction of the phenomenon of inclusion, singling out the categories of acknowledgment of individuality and equal opportunities, every child’s progress and participation, and the development of general competencies; 2) personal readiness for strengthening inclusion, where the elements of internalization of the sense of change and acknowledgment of challenges of change have come to light; 3) leadership projections manifesting themselves through the “declaration” of value priorities by personal example, initiatives supporting and inspiring teachers; and 4) reorganisation of organizational structures in creating and formalising internal procedures and agreements, the collegial learning system and in making decisions that mobilise various types of resources.


Abstract
The article analyses the attitudes and actions of school leaders in implementing a project enhancing inclusive education, chosen by a school. The implementation of the project in Lithuania is supported by the programme "I choose to teach -for school change!", which aims to increase inclusive education as a focus on each child and the child's continuous learning progress. The article presents interviews with 14 principals of Lithuanian general education schools, who participated in the first stage of the programme "I choose to teach -for school change!". The interviews were aimed at finding out school leaders' attitudes towards inclusive education, their actions of planning and managing transformational processes taking place in school while strengthening inclusive education. Applying the method of inductive qualitative content analysis, four themes revealing the diversity of school leaders' attitudes and actions in creating the inclusive school were distinguished: 1) the deconstruction of the phenomenon of inclusion, singling out the categories of acknowledgment of individuality and equal opportunities, every child's progress and participation, and the development of general competencies; 2) personal readiness for strengthening inclusion, where the elements of internalization of the sense of change and acknowledgment of challenges of change have come to light; 3) leadership projections manifesting themselves through the "declaration" of value priorities by personal example, initiatives supporting and inspiring teachers; and 4) reorganisation of organizational structures in creating and formalising internal procedures and agreements, the collegial learning system and in making decisions that mobilise various types of resources.

Introduction
Over the last sixty years, there have been many changes in the social and educational area around the world. One of them is the transformation of the traditional educational paradigm into learnercentred education, respect for the personality, acknowledgment of differences, tolerance. In the mid-1970s of the 20 th century, the ideas of inclusive education, grounded on the belief that the right to (self-)education is a fundamental human right, began to spread in the United States. Equal opportunities and inclusion are among the key tasks for future education (until 2030), published by UNESCO at The World Education Forum in 2015. This direction of future education has been further enhanced by the resolution of The United Nations General Assembly (2015) "Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development", adopted in the same year. The Global Education Monitoring Report (UNESCO, 2020) states that inclusion is a phenomenon with a very broad content, which in the educational practice should encompass not only people who have disabilities but all regardless of age, gender, race, social or ethnic origin, place of residence, financial situation, language, religion, sexual orientation, migration and other conditions. Lithuania's approach to enhancement of inclusion has also been recorded at the level of political agreements and legal documents. The main document outlining the trajectories of change of all general education schools in the country is The Concept of the Good School (2015), according to which the most important feature of the successful school is the proper implementation of the school's mission; i.e., good educational outcomes and rich, memorable, meaningful, enjoyable life experiences at school for everyone. This definition of the school's mission at the national level directly correlates with the provisions of inclusive education: the school is intended for every child and each child learns in it according to his/her possibilities and abilities to achieve progress. The Agreement on Lithuanian Education Policy (2021-2030), which also focuses on the implementation of The Concept of the Good School, accentuates the importance of creating equal opportunities and ensuring equal conditions for every person to pursue education and commits to guarantee safe educational environment for all children, preventing manifestations of bullying and violence. The National Progress Programme "The Millennium School Programme", launched in 2006, aims to ensure that every Lithuanian child has the opportunity to learn in a modern and open school and regardless of where the child lives, of the surrounding social, economic or cultural environment, the focus is on the development of the inclusive educational ecosystem in schools and on the introduction of network-based organization and management of education. From 2024, changes in the Law on Education of the Republic of Lithuania are also oriented to establishing legal preconditions for creating the school responsive to every student's educational needs. The inclusion criterion has also been chosen as a basis of the external evaluation of schools 1 , organised in 2021-2022 (assessing readiness of schools to educate every student according to his/her needs and possibilities).
According to Ališauskienė and Miltenienė (2018), inclusive education is not just about accessibility and/or inclusion of education. True inclusion at school constitutes change in values, approaches, beliefs as a continuous process of developing school culture, policy, and practice Ainscow (2002, 2016)), which never reaches its ultimate point of perfection. At the same time, the creation of the inclusive school can also be treated as a strategic aim of school development, the responsibility for which is assumed by the school principal as an organization's leader who inspires and leads the community towards the implementation of value agreements.
One of the first initiatives in Lithuania to systematically strengthen inclusion in general education schools was in the programme "I Choose to Teach -for School Change!" implemented by the non-governmental organization "School Improvement Centre". The programme was aimed at increasing inclusive education as attention for every child and his/her continuous learning progress. The programme provided versatile assistance to schools to strengthen inclusive education: preparation of persons with higher non-pedagogical education, who are willing to contribute to every child's successful education, for work at school, events motivating for change in schools involved in the project, training courses for teachers and leaders, researchers' consultations in the process of implementing change, etc.
For two years, all schools participating in the project were preparing and implementing the project they have chosen, aimed at strengthening inclusive education at school. Every school's project was peculiar: it differed in its scope, content, target group of impact, implementation strategies. The school leaders' role in implementing this project developing inclusive school approaches and practices also varied.
In creating the inclusive school, leaders are acknowledged as the most important agents of change (Cohen, 2015, Devine 2013Johnson and Fuller 2014), and support to the leader is a significant factor in organizational change, which both directly affects organizational change and manifests itself indirectly in promoting organizational learning and creating structures enabling school teachers to continuously learn from each other. Research shows that leaders' decisions have an impact on change in school culture or other performance through activation of teacher collaboration and teacher leadership (Damkuvienė et al., 2019). By acknowledging students' different educational needs, recognizing talents, forming approaches and creating school structures, showing a clear and demanding personal position, leaders have an indirect but significant impact on student learning (Leithwood and Jantzi, 2008).
The leader's role in the context of school change is inseparable from leadership. Leadership for inclusive education has been investigated through the lenses of facilitated (e.g., Jones et al. 2013), democratic (e.g., Theoharis and Causton 2014), shared (e.g., Kershner and McQuillan 2016), and social justice leadership (e.g., DeMatthews and Mawhinney 2014) theories. Urick (2016) identifies leadership for inclusive education as a complex of transactional, transformational, and instructional leadership, arguing that school governance is based on transactional leadership whose essence is dominance of the leader's power and responsibility, setting clear rules, expected outcomes and ways to achieve them, and prediction of an agreed reward for achieved results. According to Urick (2016), transactional leadership elements are budgeting and budget management, resource allocation, staffing decisions, decisions on safety of learning environment and maintenance of premises, which ensure that school community can focus on its core -educational -activities. Transformation of organizational structures requires transformational leadership of school principals; i.e., setting a direction (vision) of the organisational activity, creation of the relation inspiring the community and encouraging its members to contribute to seeking the organization's goals, decisions that develop the school's professional capital and teacher leadership (Urick, 2016). The school principal's transformational leadership is associated with the ability to initiate and promote change (Navickaitė, 2013), introduce novelties by changing people's mindset and behaviours as well as the entire organisational culture. Elements of transformational leadership are needed for promotion of emergence of new phenomena in the organisation through constantly evolving organizational capacity. To ensure the school's main activity -the quality of education, leaders must be instructional, mobilizing teachers, creating conditions for the synergy of their competencies and activities (Urick, 2016), actively participating not only in administrative but also in the curriculum development processes themselves.
In the context of tasks for future education, leaders become responsible for translating requirements of international and national agreements into school practice (Ganon-Shilon and Schechter, 2017). Correspondence between existing school activities, educational practices and "required" teaching and learning practices is a major challenge for school leaders, encouraging to question usual educational processes, challenging the school's status quo (Kaniuka, 2012), requiring the search for the sense of educational ideas necessitating change and translation of these approaches into school practice through sensemaking processes.
Analysing the leader's role in creating the inclusive school, Setia et al. (2021) start namely with change in the mindset of the leader and community members, further distinguishing the roles that define the leader's actions: promotion of inclusive practices through various programmes, introduction of inclusive education elements in the teaching and learning process, maintaining the relationship with parents and local communities.
Research shows that leaders' attitude and mindset influence their behaviours; i.e., the choice how to address day-to-day problems and strategic decision making regarding organizational development (Hambrick and Brandon, 1988). Leaders' mindset that influences their behaviours and decisions is reflected in organizational outcomes (Moore, 2017); for example, leaders' approaches and behaviours (how they lead organizational learning, how they empower the organisation's members to learn from each other) are significantly related to teachers' work at school (Louis and Robinson, 2012).
The discussed situation actualises the analysis of the school leaders' role in the process of school change, especially bearing in mind that there are few studies analysing the leader's role in the systematic development of the inclusive school.
The research aim is to reveal the leaders' attitude and actions in the transformation process of the inclusive school.
Problem questions: What conception and values of inclusive education are followed by school leaders? What are their managerial actions and leadership in transformational processes taking place in the school while enhancing inclusive education?

Research methodology
The research was conducted using the generic qualitative research. Generic qualitative research is research based on socioconstructivist interpretivist epistemology, aimed at understanding how people interpret their experiences, how they create their worlds, and what meaning they give to their experiences (Merriam, 2009), using basic generic sampling, qualitative data collection and analysis techniques and not adhering to any methodologies based on established philosophical assumptions, such as phenomenology, ethnography, or grounded theory (Percy, Kostere, K., Kostere, S., 2015).
The research sample. Research participants were selected using the purposive sampling method. School principals of Lithuanian general education schools, responsible for the development of the school policy (principals or their deputies), who participated in the first stage of the 14 th programme "I Choose to Study -for School Change!", were interviewed. Data collection. Semi-structured interviews were chosen as the data collec tion method. According to the prepared structure of the interview, school prin cipals talked about the implementation of change in school during the project, directly or indirectly revealing their perception of the inclusive education con ception, its interpretation, their attitude towards strengthening inclusive edu cation at school and the experiences of change. The main themes of talks: • Personal attitude towards inclusive education and values: attitudinal change, attitude towards student diversity, equal opportunities.
• Inspiration and leadership: dissemination of the personal attitude towards inclusive education at school, sharing values, inspiring and encouraging others.
• Transformations and their implementation: decisions needed for enhance ment of manifestation of inclusive education.
Interviews were conducted in February-March, 2019. On average, one interview lasted 45 minutes. Each interview with the school principal involved two researchers. The interviews were recorded on a dictaphone and transcribed.
Data analysis. Data were systematized using the method of inductive qualitative content analysis (Kyngäs, 2020;Thomas, 2006). The interview transcripts were carefully read, significant lexical-semantic units were selected and coded, the system of partial categories was formed, and thematic groups describing the informants' personal attitudes towards inclusive education and interpretations of their managerial practices helping to strengthen inclusive education were identified. To increase the reliability of the study, the categories were discussed in the researchers' group.
Research ethics. General requirements for research ethics in social sciences were observed during the interviews: legality of the research, clarity of the research aims and their disclosure to interview participants, protection of the research participants' privacy and confidentiality, avoidance of deception and manipulation, scientific integrity. The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of research in the humanities and social sciences (Guidelines for Assessment of Compliance to Research Ethics, 2020).
Limitations of the research. The research results reflect the opinion of school leaders who have purposefully implemented inclusive education projects; therefore, they cannot be interpreted as characteristic of the whole system of education.

Research results
Having performed the analysis of the data collected during the interviews, which reveal the diversity of attitudes and actions of school leaders in creating the inclusive school, four thematic groups were distinguished: 1) deconstruction of the phenomenon of inclusion, 2) personal readiness for strengthening inclusion, 3) leadership projections, and 4) organizational restructuring (see Fig. 1)

Figure 1
The attitude and actions of the leader in developing inclusive education at school: a schema of generalized research data

Deconstruction of the phenomenon of inclusion
Change requiring a change in a person's behaviour depends on how meaningful the idea of change is to the person (what sense the person has given to it). For school principals involved in the research, the meaningfulness of inclusive education is closely related to the values of inclusive education. Such statements as <...> just the nature of children should also be taken into account; i.e., what they bring from their families and everything else.
[V2], <...> the most important thing for me is equal opportunities [V1] testify to the fact that inclusive education for school principals is inseparable from acknowledgment of every student's individuality, creation of equal opportunities for each learner. According to Booth, Ainscow (2016), acknowledgment of individuality promotes respect for diversity and understanding that everyone can be a valuable member of the community, contribute to the community's growth by playing a positive role. Meanwhile, the prioritization of equality and equal opportunities is an essential condition of inclusive education and a value approach, the understanding and interpretation of which determines the choice of the direction of school change and ways of managing processes. Acknowledgment of students' individuality encourages school principals to think about different needs, opportunities, and achievements of students. With deeper perception and sense-making of the idea of inclusion, the condition for ensuring every child's progress and involvement is more strongly actualized: The most important thing is the child, his/her progress, well-being, the possibility to participate in all educational process according to his/her needs and abilities and to be together with everyone. <…> You won't do much through one activity. And there must be inclusion in the lesson so that every child is noticed, given the opportunities to work as he can best [V5]. (2015), which reflects the ideas of inclusive education, emphasizes the main and desired outcomes of the school's activitiesstudents' personal maturity, learning achievements corresponding to individual capabilities, and the continuous learning progress. Students' achievements are assessed taking into account not only the defined, programmatic educational goals but also every student's individual peculiarities and capabilities in seeking continuous personal progress at a pace suitable for the student. This document highlights the idea that the school should focus on the development of both general personal competencies and subject achievements. Perhaps following this progressive document and the currently updated curriculum guidelines (National Agency for Education, 2019), some leaders associated inclusive education with the importance of developing general competencies:

The Concept of the Good School
Inclusive education, at least for me, is really about general competences; i.e., when you stop putting academic learning of the subject above everything in the lesson, which by the way, is also very important. In today's context, we realize that general competencies are no less important and we increasingly more talk about harmony that must appear <...>. We prepare the child not for exams. <...> the teacher should not be the teacher of the subject, but the child's teacher [V2].
Leaders partly acknowledged that the school still lacks harmony between academic and other educational goals. Academic achievements are overemphasized and other abilities and skills important for an independent life in a democratic society are undervalued: to respect democratic values and based on them, to create the community's environment, feel social responsibility, take active actions when personal rights or the rights of another person as an individual are violated, successfully plan personal and professional life and become civil members of the society.

Personal readiness for strengthening inclusion
Analysing school principals' attitudes towards inclusive education, it is evident that during the course of the project strengthening inclusive education, principals raise the question of the sense of inclusive education; during the interviews, they talk about the internalization of the sense of change, the belief in the idea of inclusive education, considering it as their own value (In general, I believe in this. I liked the project very much because of many things <...> but basically because of the idea [of inclusive education]. First of all, that's probably why [V1].). Some principals notice a positive change in their attitude: When talking about the ideas of inclusive education not only at the conceptual level but also at the practical level about their feasibility, leaders acknowledge the challenges of change, critically assessing the actual situation: Teachers come to work with joy, children come to school with joy that it'll be good for them here ... I, as a leader, also come being happy and spend the whole working day joyfully and everyone is happy? But that's not really the case! You must understand that everyday life at school ... We make every effort to make every child feel good at school, but that is really difficult to do and I don't know if we will ever reach such level that everyone without exception will feel good... [V2].
In theory, inclusive education means attention to every child. Attention to each child is theoretical, but in practice it is very difficult to do that [V7].
<...> this is still a very big ambition, because we are not able to ensure everything yet -"oops" and everything is perfect in the lesson [V5].
First, certain scepticism of leaders about the feasibility of the inclusive education idea in practice can be envisaged, but in the context of change management, clear identification and acknowledgment of challenges of change should be treated as an important stage, which allows to assume leaders' serious and responsible attitude towards change. This may mean that principals do not look at introducing inclusive education attitudes and practices as at a superficial or "documentary" transformation that creates the illusion of an achieved result ("we are an inclusive school"). This indicates leaders' understanding that sustainable change in this area requires many more decisions that will affect and change the attitude, approaches and behaviours of the organization's members, which are reflected in the organizational culture, in order to become an agreed, meaningful identity of the organization members' mindset and behaviours (Robbins, 2004).

Leadership projections
The axis of the third theme describing the leader's role in the process of school change is the school principles' leadership. Management and leadership are key factors determining the implementation of the organization's mission. Both of them are related by the processes of influencing others, changing the behaviour of individuals or their groups. Good management is first of all associated with a clear goal, mobilization of resources necessary to achieve it, appropriate distribution of responsibility and transparent control mechanisms. Principals involved in the research accentuated the leader's special role in the first place while highlighting the school's value priorities, "declaring" them by personal example: The leader's example should not be just words or instructions. Personal invo lvement in the projects under implementation while building culture and policy of inclusive education are important: The leader must be involved, not shift work onto someone else. Not only to organize some working groups formally <...> but to keep those thin threads [V2]. For that work, that activity to take place, there must be someone who connects. I as the initiator, as the leader, initiated those meetings and am still initiating them [V14]. [leaders] support that culture, it means that surely time will come when everyone speaks in the teachers' room with respect for the child and realizes that this is not a market but the workplace here [V9]. You must notice absolutely every child and involve them in one or another activity directly and indirectly. [V11]. Thanks to leaders those children find their place, because not every child [suits] for every teacher and every class. And we are very sensitively looking for a class and environment for that child [V4]. This opinion of school principals coincides with the essential role of the school leader in creating school climate friendly for every student, emphasized in theoretical sources (Faas et al., 2018).

If I lead, I must get involved in that whole process: this encourages teachers not to lag behind [V14]. If there is at least one person who is stopping [a colleague's disrespectful talk about a student] and if we
According to the respondents who took part in the research, the principal's leadership is an integral part of the initiatives supporting and inspiring teachers. Principals emphasize the importance of empathy, trust in the teacher and understanding the teacher's situation: First of all, empathy, the realization that, in fact, we live in such a time period when teachers feel quite insecure for many reasons <. Culture of inclusive education is based on respect and attention to every member of the community. If building of new culture and policy is primarily the school principals' field of action, change in the educational practice is directly related to the teacher's and student's well-being, behaviour and interaction in the classroom. The opinion came to light that the teacher's emotional state determines the microclimate of the lesson and the relation created with every child while the teacher responds to the child's needs and educational opportunities.
According to school principals, the positive disposition of teachers to work in the paradigm of inclusive education is promoted by the following means: teacher support and acknowledgment of their professionalism, praise and motivating feedback when leaders notice that the teacher is taking precise professional steps towards the set goals. A share of school principals pointed out that opportunities for mutual emotional support could be found within the very community of teachers. Various teachers' clubs and morning talks are perfect for this: We have initiated those working groups that take care of teachers specifically. We have a community mobilization group that makes sure that teachers have some Such initiatives supported by leaders (teacher communion clubs, teacher community mobilisation groups, collective outings, etc.) improve teachers' emotional well-being and strengthen positive approaches towards social life in school.
Decisions enabling teacher leadership. When discussing leadership, there is an increasing tendency towards analysing organisational relationships: there is a retreat from the approach that the leader is only a leader who has distinctive features and who changes the organization by good will and persuasion to follow him. It is only the interaction between the organisation's members that ensures organisational development; therefore, leadership is an integral part of followers, and efficient/successful leadership as a phenomenon is increasingly often defined not only by the actions of the leader but also of the followers. Distributed leadership in school manifests itself when all members of the community are encouraged to self-develop leadership abilities, are given the freedom to show initiative, take responsibility for initiatives, decisions and their implementation. According to school principals, while creating the inclusive school, it is important to empower and encourage the community to discuss, think and act creatively to achieve shared goals: Our basis, like this, is agreements with teachers, listening to teachers, there can be no imposition if you want to achieve success at work [V10]. You organise groups, discuss, somehow bring them to that idea. In addition to that, other ideas come from teachers but, of course, teachers are involved, it must be something that the teacher has done, not that the principal imposed from above, but that it came from teachers [V5]. We [leaders]  The leadership of the empowered employee is both personal professional growth and awareness of the importance of ideas related to it, their dissemination in the organization as the process of influence, which includes colleagues' engagement, efforts to inspire and mobilize other members of the organization for change. Teachers who assume formal or informal leadership can be called agents of change that is increasingly needed in schools. The leaders' role is by using their experience and wisdom to understand when it is necessary to consciously "pause" their influence and dominance, refrain from giving advice, this way freeing teachers to take action and responsibility for their own initiatives: We have such people who have that leadership naturally. They say: we do this way. But unfolding of leadership necessitates a suitable managerial medium, because if you engage in asparagus policy there, you may cover and prevent growth. So, I think it is very important that once you notice that a person has a potential, allow it to unfold [V6]. Acknowledgment, appreciation of such teachers and provision of support for them may have a significant impact on organizational change.

Organisational restructuring
Implementation of the inclusive education policy means that it is aimed to consolidate the ideas of inclusive education in all school documents. When the school is implementing the policy that promotes everyone's involvement and participation, change is strategically planned, any assistance is provided based on the inclusion principles (Booth, Ainscow, 2016). School principals involved in the research emphasized the importance of formalizing internal procedures and agreements: Now we began to speak about those children loudly. We even described them in our internal documents, and we even have in our plans this year that we have to name who that rejected child is in our school the way we imagine and how to involve all those children one hundred percent in some activity [V11]. What is important to everyone in the school, everybody must know what is happening, must be introduced to all our documents [V13].
In the processes of implementing the inclusive education policy, attention to the assistance system and the creation of conditions for acknowledgment of every child's abilities are of particular importance. A part of informants shared their school experience how important it was to establish internal procedures ensuring equal opportunities and to look for assistance possibilities for stu dents who had various needs: We replaced selection with clubs. Let's say music, dance... let's say you don't have voice, but you want to sing so much and you sing. And you know, not bad at all: we adjust, and the teacher corrects that voice, maybe he will perform some part [V5]. Each child has his own niche. Let's say the one whose achievements are not high, who has behaviour problems, he is good at school equipment, is a DJ, helps to organise events, connects equipment [V4]. The mother is Belarusian, the father is Arab, which means what: that the child speaks Arabic, Russian, understands German, because he has been in Germany. He fell into our environment. We, principals, are thinking together [how to help the child]. Imagine that child, how it is for him, because neither terms nor anything is clear. How will he start getting used to communicate in the class? And there were problems [V2].
A properly developed inclusive education policy increases the school's accessibility and openness for every learner, when any manifestations of selection and segregation are avoided, activities are organized without dividing learners according to their abilities, achievements, disabilities (Booth, Ainscow, 2016).

Development of the collegial learning system. When strengthening
inclusive education in schools, it is inevitably necessary to pay attention to educators' professional and competence development. The European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (2020) defines teacher professional development for inclusive education as reflective practice and the development of personal competencies of teachers, assistance professionals and other related staff, assistance to each other and working together while acknowledging and accepting student diversity. Emphasis is placed on the importance of competence improvement of all employees participating in the education process, their mutual collaboration as part of the professional development. School principals involved in the research also talk about the importance of developing the system for communication among educators, experience sharing and collaboration: The content analysis of school principals' interviews revealed that leaders treated their role as important in enhancing social interaction between teachers, which allows creating common knowing about every student's learning needs and opportunities, and took the initiative to promote teachers' collegial learning. The statements of school leaders reveal that when introducing this form of improvement of teacher competence in school, it is important that there is managerial will to create the system of collegial learning in school. There must be planning and administration of learning by observing other teachers' lessons, ensuring diverse communication, collaboration of teachers and acting together.
Traditional ways of improving teacher competencies when educators participate in courses or seminars aimed at acquiring specific knowledge turned out to be ineffective or even hindering the development of inclusive education (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2021). It is observed that the principals who took part in the research also do not name courses and seminars as the most effective form of improvement but see more advantages in practical learning in the community of practitioners: I have noticed that teachers need very specific methodical advice. The greatest impact is made when the teacher has specific information, first of all, about the child, and the second thing, when there are specific scenarios or specific assistance tools that he knows: who with he can talk to, who has certain recipes. They just need very specific practices, experiences [V6]. These things -they move quite slowly in general, because these are the kinds of changes that are related to teacher competencies. And despite the fact that teachers receive training courses on inclusive education, have [knowledge], let's say, it is still necessary to do that consistently so that some method, tool, I don't know, something else turns into a system. This has to happen continuously, constantly, not just once a week or once a month, but constantly [V2].
By learning in the community of practice as one ambitious professional team, teachers achieve higher individual and collective outcomes because they learn together and from each other, share experiences, discoveries, ideas, observe colleagues' lessons and provide collegial feedback. However, improvement of teacher competence in the communities of school practice requires that school principals develop new professional development policy and administrative decisions enabling teachers to act as members of the community of practice.
Another important aspect of the leaders' role is mobilization of resources. When organizing inclusive education, it is recommended that all possible material and human resources are discovered and used to promote and support equal learning and participation of all students (Booth, Ainscow, 2016). According to school leaders, a possible resource for ensuring the quality of inclusive education is collaboration of child assistance specialists and teachers: Because it used to be so: teachers -here, assistance specialists -here. And then they bring the child to the [specialist's] room and say: work with him. And now, we work together: even the class meeting is conducted jointly by the specialist and the form tutor [V9]. Kugelmass and Ainscow (2004) emphasize that one of the most important factors of leadership for inclusive education is promotion of collaboration and teamwork. It is maintained that namely here the school leader plays the most important role. The managerial pursuit to make a more effective use of child assistance specialists' work in the classroom, reducing the exclusion of children who have special educational needs in the educational process, is also attributed to mobilization of resources enabling educators to work together. Mobilisation and collaboration are also often promoted by employing ICT tools and digital environments, which bring teachers together for joint work with every student: During the interview, it was identified that purposefully administered work of teachers in virtual and real school spaces created favourable conditions for communication and collaboration of teachers in making collegial decisions regarding every child's education and progress assurance in the classroom. School leaders also understand the importance of administrating teachers' working time outside of classroom and of establishing a formal collaboration structure: We have decided that we meet namely on that one day a week, when (these are the scheduling logistics solutions) all the teachers can come because the schedule allows them. This way certain time is set when we all meet first. Well, so to say, a certain structure, and [teachers] prepare for those meetings [V4].
Such policy and initiated agreements regarding the development of a formal structure of collaboration can increase teacher interaction, information sharing, collaboration and promote transformational processes in school while seeking quality education for every child. Lambrecht et al. (2020) indicate that a clear structure of collaboration has a positive impact on practices of planning and implementation of assistance for students. Changing teachers' approaches. As it has already been mentioned, the creation of the inclusive school is a never-ending process requiring not only the implementation of individual initiatives but also a systematic and purposive action of the entire community, which can hardly be expected without a change in the attitude and mindset. Naturally, moving the existing status quo evokes negative emotions and resistance; therefore, school leaders talk about the constant need to work with teachers' approaches and mindset: According to principals, enhancement of inclusive education is a complex, consistent and long-term process requiring the analysis of managerial decisions taken and reflection on mistakes made. Leaders talk about the commitment to constantly search for individual solutions and ways of impact, which would help change the specific teacher's approaches enabling change in his teaching practice while seeking quality education of every student: We tried to come up with methods of how to do it and how to invite teachers to small groups, to organize change of those approaches, how to help them empathize with that child and see: so maybe something is missing from that, after all [V9]. Lack of competence, however. Let's say a fifty-year-old, sixty-year-old teacher finds it already difficult to change, it's difficult to prepare for that, to change. And we have several teachers, again, who find it difficult to work with different students. He works well with, let's say, strong, gifted students, with those who have average abilities, but he has a very hard time working with those exceptional students who have different abilities. We talk, we discuss, send them to other colleagues, for some reason others succeed working with that class, but that particular [senior] teacher doesn't [V7].
The European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (2021) points out that the efforts of school leaders to help teachers change are very important, as it is observed that some schools and teachers still divide and segregate students, while others successfully educate students with diverse and highly individual needs. Rouse (2008) states that teachers are more likely to apply inclusive education practice when they believe that every child can learn, and accordingly, teachers are more likely to believe that every child can learn if they are able to apply knowledge of inclusive education in practice. Both of these conditions are important for success.

Conclusions
The leaders involved in the research maintain that the conception and meaningfulness of inclusive education are closely related to such values of inclusive education as acknowledgment of every student's individuality, creation of equal opportunities for each learner. Acknowledgment of students' individuality promotes leaders to think about different needs, possibilities, achievements of students and the importance of ensuring each child's progress and participation.
School principals' personal preparation for strengthening inclusion is closely related to internalization of the sense of change, belief in the idea of inclusive education, considering it personally valuable and important. The approaches of leaders towards inclusive education at the conceptual and value level are positive, but there is more scepticism and criticism when it comes to the practical realisation of inclusion.
School leaders who participated in the research emphasized the special role of the principal as the organization's leader in highlighting and clearly defining the school's value priorities, making sense of them and implementing them by personal example and involvement in the solution of relevant problems, positive support for teachers' professionalism to work in the paradigm of inclusive education, and motivating feedback. In creating the inclusive school, it is important to empower and encourage the community to discuss, think and act creatively in seeking shared goals, support teacher leadership.
Leaders understand their role and responsibility in developing and implementing the inclusive education policy in school. This is sought by initiating new agreements of the community, grounded on the principles of equal opportunities, and formalizing them in internal procedures, mobilizing resources and creating a system of collegial learning in the organization. Ensuring effective processes for practical implementation of new agreements and managing possible resistance, emphasis is placed on the necessity to constantly look for individual solutions and methods of impact, which would help change the specific teacher's approaches, encourage change in his/her teaching practice to provide quality education for every student.

Summary
The article analyses the attitudes and actions of school leaders in implementing a project enhancing inclusive education, chosen by a school. The implementation of the project in Lithuania is supported by the programme "I choose to teach -for school change!", which aims to increase inclusive education as a focus on each child and the child's continuous learning progress.
The discussed situation actualises the analysis of the school leaders' role in the process of school change, especially bearing in mind that there are few studies analysing the leader's role in the systematic development of the inclusive school.
The research aim is to reveal the leaders' attitude and actions in the transformation process of the inclusive school. Problem questions: What conception and values of inclusive education are followed by school leaders? What are their managerial actions and leadership in transformational processes taking place in the school while enhancing inclusive education?
The research was conducted using the generic qualitative research. Generic qualitative research is research based on socioconstructivist interpretivist epistemology, aimed at understanding how people interpret their experiences, how they create their worlds, and what meaning they give to their experiences (Merriam, 2009), using basic generic sampling, qualitative data collection and analysis techniques and not adhering to any methodologies based on established philosophical assumptions, such as phenomenology, ethnography, or grounded theory (Percy, Kostere, K., Kostere, S., 2015).
Research participants were selected using the purposive sampling method. School principals of Lithuanian general education schools, responsible for the development of the school policy (principals or their deputies), who participated in the first stage of the 14 th programme "I Choose to Study -for School Change!", were interviewed.
Semi-structured interviews were chosen as the data collection method. Data were systematized using the method of inductive qualitative content analysis (Kyngäs, 2020;Thomas, 2006). The interview transcripts were carefully read, significant lexical-semantic units were selected and coded, the system of partial categories was formed, and thematic groups describing the informants' personal attitudes towards inclusive education and interpretations of their managerial practices helping to strengthen inclusive education were identified. To increase the reliability of the study, the categories were discussed in the researchers' group.
The leaders involved in the research maintain that the conception and meaningfulness of inclusive education are closely related to such values of inclusive education as acknowledgment of every student's individuality, creation of equal opportunities for each learner. Acknowledgment of students' individuality promotes leaders to think about different needs, possibilities, achievements of students and the importance of ensuring each child's progress and participation.
School principals' personal preparation for strengthening inclusion is closely related to internalization of the sense of change, belief in the idea of inclusive education, considering it personally valuable and important. The approaches of leaders towards inclusive education at the conceptual and value level are positive, but there is more scepticism and criticism when it comes to the practical realisation of inclusion.
School leaders who participated in the research emphasized the special role of the principal as the organization's leader in highlighting and clearly defining the school's value priorities, making sense of them and implementing them by personal example and involvement in the solution of relevant problems, positive support for teachers' professionalism to work in the paradigm of inclusive education, and motivating feedback. In creating the inclusive school, it is important to empower and encourage the community to discuss, think and act creatively in seeking shared goals, support teacher leadership.
Leaders understand their role and responsibility in developing and implementing the inclusive education policy in school. This is sought by initiating new agreements of the community, grounded on the principles of equal opportunities, and formalizing them in internal procedures, mobilizing resources and creating a system of collegial learning in the organization. Ensuring effective processes for practical implementation of new agreements and managing possible resistance, emphasis is placed on the necessity to