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This book aims to demystify the principles and practice of school improvement by demonstrating how successful classroom and school improvement occurs. It outlines the conditions, strategies and approaches that promote sustainable improvement and provides an overview of the main theoretical perspectives in this area. This accessible text will be useful for practitioners working within schools and with schools, offering clear guidance for those keen to raise standards and improve achievement.The What's In It For Schools? series aims to make educational policy issues relevant to practitioners. Each book in the series focuses on a major educational issue. The author sets the issue in context, looks at how it impacts on the daily lives of schools and teachers, and raises key questions. The books are grounded in sound theory, recent research evidence and best practice, and will make an excellent addition to any staffroom bookshelf.

This best-selling book takes a practical look at how improvements can be made in any school.It cuts through the jargon of the specialist and shows how ideas and intentions can be turned into direct actions that will help a school improve its performance and effectiveness.As well as addressing headteachers and governors, the book will also provide invaluable guidance for all those who work in and with schools. There are chapters on:•effective schools and how they have achieved their goals•leadership within schools•teaching and learning effectively•making critical interventions to secure improvement•how schools involve others to aid improvement.This is a book that no school will want to be without. It is essential reading for anyone involved in education.Tim Brighouse is Chief Education Officer for Birmingham City Council and is a national figure in education. David Woods is a Senior Education Adviser at the DfEE.

First published in 1998. The research, practice and staff development activities in this book have come out of the Improving the Quality of Education for All project (IQEA), which emphases the importance of enhancing internal conditions in schools by building upon existing good practice. Materials developed to promote school-level conditions have already been described in a companion volume- Creating Conditions for School Improvement. It is, however, necessary to modify the conditions with the classroom, as well as those at the level of the school, if school improvement strategies are to have their full impact on student achievement. This book articulates a complimentary set of'classroom conditions;, and gives INSET providers the activity materials to implement them.

Schools now have to prove that they are effective learning organizations. To achieve this, management competences must evolve at the same time as staff development and training. This text provides useful tips covering all aspects of school management and individual effectiveness.

Success Against the Odds is an exciting book about effective schools in disadvantaged areas, written for a wide audience. The findings will be invaluable to headteachers, teachers, governors in all schools, and will also be of great interest to parents and indeed all those who are concerned about the future of our schools and our children.The best-selling report of the National Commission on Education, Learning to Succeed, published in 1993, achieved widespread attention, acclaim and influence. Success Against the Odds will do the same. This powerful new book picks up one of the key themes of its predecessor, namely how schools in disadvantaged areas can not only be particularly effective but can continue to improve.A dozen teams have undertaken to investigate a school which can be described as `succeeding against the odds'. Each team includes: • a leading educationalist, providing knowledge about effective teaching and learning and expertise in school improvement; • someone from the business world, offering a fresh insight into the successful management of the school as an organisation, and its interaction with the world of work; • someone working in the regeneration of deprived areas, providing a perspective that places education not in isolation, but as an interdependent part of the life of a local communityThe teams have visited a range of successful schools in disadvantaged areas to identify and analyse the key features of their effectiveness, or of their improvement. The schools between them cover a broad spectrum: primary, secondary and special; inner city, town and rural; local education authority maintained, voluntary and grant-maintained. What all the schools have in common is proven experience of overcoming difficult circumstances.In the case of each school, in-depth investigations of the life and work of the school have taken place, and the teams have attempted to explain the success of these schools. Some are detailed accounts of the life and work of the school, drawing on the views of pupils, parents and teachers to show what lies behind the consistent effectiveness of the school. Others are stories of schools that were'turned round'from being failing schools to being schools on a long-term improvement path.In the concluding chapter, the National Commission on Education show that all schools have lessons to learn from these schools.