A Multi‐Level Analysis of School Improvement: Changes in Schools' Performance over Time

The improvement of schools takes place over extended periods of time. Consequently longitudinal studies which track successive cohorts of pupils through their schooling are required if estimates of the extent of improvement are to be established. To date, hardly any studies have collected the necessary data. Those studies which have had appropriate data have tended to emphasise the extent of stability of schools' effectiveness over time rather than the extent of any changes. A shift in conceptual framework is called for if improvements in schools' effectiveness are to be the central focus of concern.

The study is based on three successive cohorts of pupils passing through some 30 English secondary schools. It uses examination results as the outcome measure and includes a prior attainment measure amongst the variables used to control for differences between schools' intakes. A multi‐level strategy for conceptualising and modelling data on schools' changes in performance over time is offered.

In common with earlier studies the research shows that there is a good deal of stability in schools' effectiveness from year‐to‐year; only a small proportion of the schools in the study (between a fifth and a quarter) were improving or deteriorating in terms of their effectiveness. A particularly striking finding of the research was that whilst several schools improved in effectiveness only one initially ‘ineffective’ school did so consistently. The implications of the study for future research on school improvement are discussed.     

Exploring School Principals’ Leadership Styles and Learners’ Educational Performance: A Perspective from High- and Low-Performing Schools

School leadership is fundamental to the educational functioning of schools and their improvements of results. The study employed a qualitative approach to explore school principals’ leadership styles and the educational performance of learners in high- and low-performing schools in Vhembe District, Limpopo, South Africa. The participants were purposefully selected from 10 secondary schools in terms of their performance. Focus group interviews were conducted with five teachers from each school. The interview data was transcribed and analysed, and identical patterns of coded data were grouped together under emerging themes. The overall results of the study indicated that the democratic leadership style together with the transformational leadership style contribute to high educational performance of learners. School principals from high- and low-performing schools employ a democratic leadership style and differ only in the sense that the latter are permissive or lenient towards learners’ behaviours or conduct. The study recommends that school principals engage teachers as members of a disciplinary committee in order to deal with those learners whose conduct is not conducive to successful teaching and learning. It is recommended that school principals from low-performing schools strengthen their democratic leadership by not being lenient to learners’ behaviour which is not conducive to successful teaching and learning.     

Non‐executive Leadership in a Secondary School [1]

This enquiry sought to identify, in one secondary school, the day‐to‐day work that teachers below senior management level identified as being leadership tasks. Such approaches to non‐executive leadership are becoming more prevalent as schools move towards more open styles of management. This is accepted by practitioners, as well as being evident in the literature. In identifying these tasks it became possible to offer the teachers involved in the enquiry support and training in the skills necessary to perform these tasks.

     

The Implications of School‐Leaver Unemployment for Careers Education in Schools

’In particular I would urge that the Irish school system of the future should give freedom—freedom to the individual school, freedom to the individual teacher, freedom as far as may be to the individual pupiV. (Padraig H. Pearse [1916] Irish patriot, poet and educationist.)     

Primary Physical Science for Student Teachers at Kindergarten and Primary School Levels: Part II—Implementation and Evaluation of a Course

Interchange - This is the second of two papers on a novel physical science course for student teachers that develops and uses an imaginative approach to Primary Physical Science Education....     

School‐based peer mediation as a strategy for social inclusion

This paper focuses on the impact of peer mediation as a strategy for promoting social inclusion in primary school settings. Peer mediation constituted one of the interventions in the UK Government‐sponsored On Track programme and evaluative data from this project are reported. The paper reports on trends in bullying and anti‐social behaviour in nine schools where peer mediation was deployed. Quantitative results from ‘My life in School’ checklists and a questionnaire measuring teacher perceptions are reported. Qualitative evidence is also reported from focus groups undertaken with pupils. The benefits of mainstreaming and further dissemination of the approach are discussed.     

Effective Schools and Home‐School‐Community Partnership Roles: A Framework for Parent Involvement

The increased interest in parent involvement as a strategy for school reform stems from two bodies of parent involvement research. One set of studies examined family learning environments; the other investigated the impact on student learning of school‐initiated parent involvement programs. This article reviews these two bodies of research, which have influenced current discussions about home‐school partnerships, shows the relationship between practices of successful home‐learning environments and effective schools research, and uses this relationship to propose a typology of home‐school‐community partnership roles and activities. When the research on effective family practices is combined with effective schools research and placed within a typology of partnership roles, schools have a framework for examining current parent involvement practices and exploring strategies that will enhance student learning both at home and at school.

     

Integrated Science Education in Primary Schools in Rome: the Research Project of the ‘University‐School’ Group

In response to global climate change, loss of biodiversity, and the immense human impact on the carrying capacity of the earth systems, attention has been given to sustainable development worldwide. In this paper, we explore the emerging field of sustainability science within the context of the socio‐cultural milieu of Malawi, a sub‐Saharan African country. Through interviews in vernacular languages and observations in the field, our research explores how traditional agriculture practices of African elders may contribute to the sustainability of the environment and culture in Africa. Findings indicate that traditional farmers and food preservationists choose to practice indigenous ways of living with nature to live sustainably in a globalized economy. Further discussion elucidates how merging worldviews and hybridized knowledge and languages can be leveraged to create a third space for dialogue and curriculum development by connecting indigenous ways of living with Eurocentric science.     

Equal Treatment and Cultural Difference in Multi‐ethnic Schools: a critique of the teacher ethnocentrism theory

ABSTRACT

This paper considers claims that students from minority ethnic backgrounds are treated less favourably than their white peers in schools because their teachers make negative, ethnocentric judgements of their behaviour. The paper challenges the empirical basis of these claims and the implicit model of good practice on which they are based. It goes on to examine some of the implications for teacher practice of this discussion. The aim is to try to clarify the meaning of equality of treatment in schools, a right we expect all citizens to enjoy, and to examine the way this principle should be operationalised by teachers in multi‐ethnic schools.     

Improving Schools Through School‐Based Management: An Examination of the Process of Change∗

Data from twenty‐two case studies of schools in four North American school districts are examined to assess the process and outcomes of reform through school‐based management (SBM). The analysis is guided by a theoretical model that describes the process through which SBM can lead to school improvement. This model suggests that the formal change in governance reflected in a shift to SBM must first generate improvements in the decision making processes utilized at the school. Better decision making will enable schools to implement needed strategic and operational changes, and these together will help build an effective school culture. An improved culture, along with the strategic and operational reforms implemented at the school, will lead to changes in the behavior of staff members, which is necessary for there to be improvement in various outcomes that serve as indicators of school quality. The analysis of the case studies indicates that schools in our sample most frequently exhibited positive changes in two areas, namely, decision making processes and school culture. Strategic and operational changes were less likely to undergo positive change, as were individual behavior and school quality. However, the overall pattern of findings provides reasonable support for the general validity of the model. Furthermore, the data from this sample of schools suggest that SBM has considerable potential to elicit positive changes in schools. To help insure that such potential is realized, the findings indicate that school leaders must insure that all constituents have an opportunity to participate in school level decisions, that a vision regarding desired outcomes should be utilized to guide the implementation of strategic and operational changes, and that the process of change should be monitored in order to better identify problem areas and allow corrective action to be taken.

     

How to Teach and to Ensure a Good,Sound Religious Education through a Multi‐faith Approach at the Primary School Level

If Religious Education is to have an effective place in education and is not objectionable to younger pupils, there would appear to be a case for laying a foundation of knowledge, while the attitude to the subject is favourable and learning is thus easier to achieve. Then pupils are more likely to be in a well‐informed position to discuss religion at the top of the school, than if teaching has already begun at an age when, although they were intellectually ready and able to undertake open debate, prejudice had already closed teenagers’ eyes to the whole matter (Attfield, 1974)

The school should be a community within which children should learn to live the ‘good life’... By example at first hand children can learn to love and care for others, to be generous, kind and courageous. Good experiences in personal relationships in early life will make a most important contribution to an understanding of spiritual and moral values when children are older. (The Plowden Report, 1967, Vol. 1, p. 206, para. 568)     

An Investigation of Possible Correlation of General Anxiety with Performance in Eleven‐plus Scores in Year 6 Primary School Pupils

ABSTRACT This study focuses on measuring levels of anxiety experienced by 11‐year‐olds in their last year at primary school and aims to investigate the effect of anxiety on pupils’ performance in eleven‐plus tests. The Taylor Manifest Anxiety Test was used to determine individual levels of anxiety amongst a Year 6 cohort. Their final test scores in the eleven‐plus examination were used as a measure of their overall performance. Correlations were carried out to see if there was any link between levels of anxiety and performance in eleven‐plus for the group as a whole and in terms of gender. There appeared to be no significant link between levels of high anxiety and poor exam performance. However, although there seemed to be no apparent correlation, highly anxious boys performed well in the eleven‐plus examination, as did highly anxious girls.     

Chinese Primary School Mathematics Teachers’ Assessment Profiles: Findings from a Large-Scale Questionnaire Survey

This study investigated Chinese primary school mathematics teachers’ views on assessment in an effort to determine their assessment profiles. A large-scale questionnaire survey with 1101 teachers from 12 Chinese provinces and regions was carried out. The teachers reported to use assessment on a daily or weekly basis for different purposes. They recognized the importance of assessing different types of skills and knowledge and considered assessment useful for improving teaching and learning. To determine teachers’ assessment profiles, we used several latent variable modeling techniques. With exploratory factor analyses, we identified eight factors in the teachers’ responses: general instructional decision-making assessment purposes [1], specific instructional decision-making assessment purposes [2], assessment methods [3], diversity of assessment problem format [4], importance of assessing skills and knowledge [5], importance of assessing extra-curricular skills [6], Perceived usefulness [7], and acceptance of assessment [8]. When these factors were used to interpret the results of a latent class analysis, three distinct assessment profiles could be distinguished. One fifth of the teachers were in the Enthusiastic assessors profile. These teachers not only reported to use assessment frequently [3, 4] and purposefully [1, 2], but also highly endorsed its importance [5, 6] and usefulness [7, 8]. Around half of the teachers were in the Mainstream assessors profile; these teachers scored close to the mean on all factors. The remaining teachers held the relatively negative views on assessment and were therefore in the Unenthusiastic assessors profile. This profile characterization sheds light on Chinese primary school mathematics teachers’ assessment culture.