Growing Together: School Effectiveness and School Improvement in the UK

2007 ◽  
pp. 207-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Stoll ◽  
Pam Sammons
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
School Effectiveness ◽  
The Uk

(In)effective leadership? Exploring the interplay of challenges, goals and measures in the context of school improvement

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Böse ◽  
Stefan Brauckmann-Sajkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
School Effectiveness ◽  
School Quality ◽  
School Principals ◽  
School Context ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Government

PurposeThis study aims to explore the extent to which schools principals serving disadvantaged communities in Germany are able to set appropriate goals and choose suitable measures for improving their schools according to the specific challenges they face. The authors determine whether principals are able to identify their schools' challenges or whether they merely follow “universal recipes” of the school effectiveness research paradigm regardless of their particular school context. This effectiveness-driven accountability approach requires an in-depth evaluation of the school and its stakeholders and might lead to a new attitude toward failure that sees it as an essential part of developing effective school improvement plans.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted descriptive and correlative analyses as well as exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using longitudinal data of 164 school principals. Through cross-sectional analyses, the authors investigated the connection among challenges, goals and measures and how they correlated with (self-reported) improvements.FindingsFrom a leadership perspective, priorities for school improvement should be aligned with the school-specific challenges they identify and the goals they set to address them.Research limitations/implicationsThe extent to which legislation concerning individual school quality development programs can translate into feasible and effective actions is unclear. Caution should be taken when interpreting the findings of this study, as they reflect school principals' self-selected evaluation measures and therefore might be biased.Practical implicationsIn future research, emphasis should be placed on school management processes, in particular, the development of strategic decision-making, structuring of target perspectives and derivation of steps in school improvement and instructional development. The authors recommend the government offer school principals appropriate and adequate training and support services to prevent them from overburdening their staff.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to a deeper understanding of processes concerning strategic leadership, as opposed to operative management, of schools by revealing context-sensitive considerations.

School Reform in England

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Nuttall ◽  
Edward Podesta
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
School Reform ◽  
School Effectiveness ◽  
Complex Needs ◽  
Performance Training ◽  
Accountability Measures ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Successful School ◽  
The 19Th Century

School reform in England, under the guise of school improvement and school effectiveness, is not new. Existing policy directions and trajectories for school reform in England seemingly continue to follow industrial drivers of the 19th century, promoting a highly regulated and regimented schooling system. This direction is underpinned by neoliberal forces which emphasize the relationship between education, business, and economy. Critiques of this model of school reform point to key issues around lack of response to key societal challenges and a reductionist approach to increasingly complex needs of diverse societies and cultures. Such reductionist school reform policies, in combination with stringent accountability measures, generate and consolidate differences between schools which are particularly detrimental for schools that serve students and families in poverty. In England, “success” in schools and educational outcomes is drawn from narrowly defined measures of quality with a privileging of quantitative data and testing outcomes above all other indicators. Within these measures, schools in poor, disadvantaged communities are more likely to be labeled “failing” and subjected to further intrusive monitoring, inspection, and sets of performance training in mandated methods of teaching. In these externally driven and policy-focused school reform strategies, teachers become victims of change with their voices censored and their students viewed as deficient in some way. In contrast, more meaningful school reform may be effected by recognizing that schools have the capacity to improve themselves. This improvement should be driven by those closest to the school: teachers, students, and their families. Above all, authentic school reform programs should be context specific, inquiry driven, and rooted in research and theory. Teachers should not be expected to reinforce a single hegemonic version of the “successful” school, notably in England, but should be able to engage in genuine school reform which is emancipatory and empowering.

Science mapping the knowledge base in educational leadership and management: A longitudinal bibliometric analysis, 1960 to 2018

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Hallinger ◽  
Jasna Kovačević
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Citation Analysis ◽  
School Effectiveness ◽  
Intellectual Structure ◽  
Science Mapping ◽  
Leadership And Management ◽  
Leadership For Learning ◽  
1960S And 1970S

This review employed science mapping methods to analyze the evolution of the knowledge base in educational leadership and management from 1960 to 2018. Descriptive trend analysis, citation analysis, co-citation analysis, and visualization of similarities were used to document growth and change in the ‘intellectual structure’ of the educational leadership and management knowledge base as it evolved through the decades. The review analyzed a database comprised of 22,492 articles published in 21 Scopus-indexed journals over six decades. The authors found that contributions to the knowledge base have evolved from primarily Anglo-American male scholars up until 2000 to increasing gender and geographic diversity in the past 20 years. The review identified several ‘schools of thought’ that emerged across four generations of EDLM scholarship. These include: Leadership for Learning, Leading Change, Leading Teachers, and School Effectiveness and School Improvement. The review also documented a broader evolution in the field’s intellectual structure from a focus on ‘administration’ during the 1960s and 1970s to the embrace of ‘leadership for learning’ as the dominant theme during recent generations. This paradigm shift has not only reshaped the focus of research but also the identity of educational leadership and management as a field of study.

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