scholarly journals Soft Skills of Leaders and School Improvement in High Performing Schools

2015 ◽  
Vol 191 ◽  
pp. 2127-2131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tang Keow Ngang ◽  
Siti Huwaina Mohamed ◽  
Somprach Kanokorn
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
High Performing

The Practical Relevance of Accountability Systems for School Improvement: A Descriptive Analysis of California Schools

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinrich Mintrop ◽  
Tina Trujillo
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
High Growth ◽  
Practical Relevance ◽  
Accountability Systems ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Low Performing Schools ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
California Schools

In search for the practical relevance of accountability systems for school improvement, the authors ask whether practitioners traveling between the worlds of system-designated high- and low-performing schools would detect tangible differences in educational quality and organizational effectiveness. In comparing nine exceptionally high and low performing California middle schools, the authors conclude that if such travelers expected to encounter visible signs of an overall higher quality of students’ educational experience at the high-performing schools, they would be disappointed. Rather, they would have to settle on a narrower definition of quality that is more proximate to the effective acquisition of standards-aligned and test-relevant knowledge. High-growth schools tended to generate internal commitment for accountability and consider it an impetus for raising standards.

scholarly journals PEDAGOGICAL INFLUENCE IN THE INTEGRATION OF SOFT SKILLS AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (42) ◽  
pp. 329-344
Author(s):  
Ilangko Subramaniam
Keyword(s):  
High School Students ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
School Students ◽  
Problem Solving Skills ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Teamwork Skills

Soft skills are non-academic competencies that complement a student's academic achievement to face the world of work in the future. This study aims to identify ways of implementing soft skills and the kind of soft skills emphasized in the teaching and learning of the Malay language among secondary school students in nine selected schools in Kedah, Penang, and Perak. The study involved focus group interviews and individual interviews consisted of 119 students and 26 Malay language teachers. The findings show that soft skills apply directly and indirectly through various learning activities in Malay Language subjects. Respondents from normal schools received less exposure to soft skills compared to respondents from high-performing schools (HPS). Among the soft skills identified in this study are teamwork skills, self-confidence, communication, critical thinking, leadership, influencing skills, critical and creative thinking skills (CCTS), and problem-solving skills. Communication skills and teamwork skills were among the most detected soft skills in the three high-performing schools involved in this study. Meanwhile, the activities carried out to apply soft skills are group discussions, presentations, acting, poetry recitation, storytelling, public speaking, forums, and question and answer. Although this study is not comprehensive in terms of the number of schools and respondents, the findings of this study are important to explain the real scenario of the level of mastery and integration of soft skills, especially in the nine cases of this study.

The emotional ecology of school improvement culture

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
pp. 488-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Demerath
Keyword(s):  
School Culture ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Collective Efficacy ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Feedback Loops ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
Content Type ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Staff Members

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand how high-performing schools develop and sustain improvement culture. While school culture has consistently been identified as an essential feature of high-performing schools, many of the ways in which culture shapes specific improvement efforts remain unclear. The paper draws on new research from social cognitive neuroscience and the anthropology and sociology of emotion to account for the relative impact of various meanings within school culture and how school commitment is enacted. Design/methodology/approach The analysis here draws on three years of ethnographic data collected in Harrison High School (HHS) in an urban public school district in River City, a large metropolitan area in the Midwestern USA. Though the school’s surrounding community had been socioeconomically depressed for many years, Harrison was selected for the study largely because of its steady improvement trajectory: in December, 2013, it was deemed a “Celebration” school under the state’s Multiple Measurement Rating system. The paper focuses on a period of time between 2013 and 2015, when the school was struggling to implement and localize a district-mandated push-in inclusion policy. Findings Study data suggest that the school’s eventual success in localizing the new inclusion policy was due in large part to a set of core interlocking feedback loops that generated specific emotionally charged meanings which guided its priorities, practices and direction. Specifically, the feedback loops explain how staff members and leaders generated and sustained empathy for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, optimism in their capabilities and motivation to help them learn and flourish. Furthermore they show how school leaders and staff members generated and sustained confidence and trust in their colleagues’ abilities to collaboratively learn and solve problems. Originality/value The model of the school’s emotional ecology presented here connects two domains of educational practice that are frequently analyzed separately: teaching and learning, and organization and leadership. The paper shows how several key features of high-performing schools are actually made and re-made through the everyday practices of leaders and staff members, including relational trust, academic optimism and collective efficacy. In sum, the charged meanings described here contributed to leaders’ and staff members’ commitment to the school, its students and each other – and what Florek (2016) has referred to as their “common moral purpose.”

scholarly journals How do Principals of High Performing Schools Achieve Sustained Improvement Results?

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 133-149
Author(s):  
Lewes Peddell ◽  
David Lynch ◽  
Richard Waters ◽  
Wendy Boyd ◽  
Royce Willis
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Shared Vision ◽  
Effective School ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Foundational Principle ◽  
High Achieving Schools ◽  
Ace Model ◽  
Improvement Programs

Education systems across the globe have enacted national testing regimes to monitor and report student achievement progress as an outcome of teaching performance. This paper reports on an investigation of strategies that Principals of high achieving schools use to achieve school results, based on NAPLAN reports (the National Assessment Program in Australia) and interpreted via the Alignment, Capability and Engagement (ACE) model of organisational readiness. Our findings identified specific Principal behaviours, actions and attitudes as necessary for effective school-wide improvement programs, as well as the existence of commonly shared strategies and approaches that help to explain why these particular Principals have been successful in their pursuit of school improvement. These include a shared vision for improvement, use of data-driven decision making, and building positive, “transparent” relationships to encourage teacher buy-in. Importantly, these findings identified “organisational readiness”, a foundational principle of the ACE model, as a fundamental requisite to effective school improvement.

Can schools meet the promise of continuous improvement?

2017 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 54-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Elgart
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Implementation Capacity ◽  
Real Progress ◽  
Strong Relationships

Continuous improvement is “an embedded behavior within the culture of a school that constantly focuses on the conditions, processes, and practices that will improve teaching and learning.” The phrase has been part of the lexicon of school improvement for decades, but real progress is rare. Based on its observations of about 5,000 institutions a year, AdvancEd Improvement Network has found that there are strong relationships between effective continuous improvement practices and the following characteristics of high-performing schools: a clear direction, healthy culture, high expectations, impact of instruction, resource management, efficacy of engagement, and implementation capacity.

scholarly journals Under What Conditions Do Rural Schools Learn From their Partners?

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 65-81
Author(s):  
Hilde Forfang ◽  
Jan Merok Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Small School ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
Collective Case Study ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Learning Capacity ◽  
External Sources ◽  
Administrative Units ◽  
Collaborative Structures

This case study was designed to explore the strategies and actions that high performing schools with sustainable results employ at the district level in a rural part of Norway. The district subjected to the study is characterised by small municipalities and a scattered population, with a few small school administrative units, which might be a challenging context for sustainability and improvement. In response, the districts developed collaborative structures to increase collective learning capacity. The research design involved a collective case study, and it draws on data from interviews with school leaders at the municipal level and local school policy documents. The findings suggest that Norwegian school district actors can facilitate school improvement by shaping collaborating cultures, inter-organisational learning processes and educational infrastructures. Furthermore, the findings highlight the schools’ ability to recognise and value new knowledge from external sources, such as academic institutions and partner schools, assimilate novelties across boundaries and, eventually, utilise these for strategic or operational ends to enhance an organisation’s absorptive capacity. Finally, the findings indicate that superintendents can play important roles through boundary-spanning and gatekeeping activities.

Has the Allocation of Certain Teachers Impacted Student Achievement and Upward Economic Mobility? The Case of Forsyth County, NC Elementary Schools

2020 ◽  
pp. 001312452097267
Author(s):  
Zachary D. Blizard
Keyword(s):  
Elementary Schools ◽  
Economically Disadvantaged ◽  
Local System ◽  
Experienced Teachers ◽  
Economic Mobility ◽  
High Performing Schools ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Disadvantaged Children ◽  
Forsyth County ◽  
Inexperienced Teacher

Forsyth County, North Carolina has one of the lowest rates of upward economic mobility in the entire United States. Researchers find that one of strongest correlates of upward mobility is the quality of schools in the local system. Using 2018 and 2017 NC Public School Report Card (SRC) data for Forsyth County elementary schools, I find that the percentage of experienced teachers at a school is a significant predictor of school performance. At high-performing schools, a much larger share of their faculties consist of highly experienced and educated teachers, compared to low-performing schools that predominately serve economically disadvantaged children. Experienced and high-quality teachers can have significant long-term impacts on elementary school children, especially those who come from underprivileged families. Yet in Forsyth County, schools with greater shares of economically disadvantaged children have lower percentages of teachers with these characteristics. I argue that the Forsyth County school system can assist in reversing low mobility rates by allocating more experienced teachers toward low-performing elementary schools that serve mostly disadvantaged children. This will insure that these schools have higher experienced-to-inexperienced teacher ratios, while also helping to reduce teacher turnover.

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