Education policy views School-Based Curriculum (SBC) leadership as instrumental in the development and implementation of a curriculum within schools, whilst ensuring alignment between local contexts and national quality educational standards. Although school-based curriculum leadership is deemed to influence learner performance, leading to a quality educational experience for all learners, the application of these practices varies greatly between schools. The major problem in literature is that research that explores specific factors influencing SBC development in both performing and underperforming schools within the South African context remains underexplored. This study adopted a qualitative multiple case research design underpinned by the interpretivist paradigm to explore the factors that contribute to SBC development in both performing and underperforming schools. Eight principals (four from performing secondary schools and four from underperforming secondary schools) across the North-West province were randomly selected, and data were collected through structured interviews. Results from the study revealed that SBC is sufficiently developed in performing schools, whereas it is not adequately developed in underperforming schools. It was also indicated that effective SBC is constituted of factors aimed at improving learner performance, such as the integration of diverse streams, ensuring appropriate content delivery, and addressing the gaps in poor-performing in performing schools. On the contrary, underperforming schools believe that the Department of Basic Education’s and not the schools, is responsible for the development of SBC. Drawing on these findings, it can be concluded that performing and underperforming schools understand the concept SBC differently. The varied understanding presumably explains the differences in the different SBC practices and performance, and resultant learner performance across schools. This study recommends that curriculum leaders need support and training on developing and implementing school-based curriculum to better align educational outcomes goals with their local context.

Keywords: School-based curriculum, curriculum leadership, learner performance, performing schools, underperforming schools.