Louise Stoll suggests the following titles for readers who wish to explore school effectiveness and school improvement in more depth: Improving Schools From Within: Teachers Parents and Principals Make the Difference Barth, R (1990) San Francisco, Jossey Bass. Roland Barth describes his vision for school improvement and challenges the reader to identify their own vision and work from within to make it a reality.
The New Meaning of Educational Change Fullan, M (1991) London, Cassell. A thorough, comprehensive, theoretical, and yet practical, review of the change literature. Fullan examines partners in the change process and offers common sense advice on coping with change.
What’s Worth Fighting for in Your School Fullan and Hargreaves (1992) Buckingham, Open University Press. A very readable book, offering guidelines for teachers, heads and local education authorities to help promote school improvement through teacher learning, collaboration and professionalism.
Good School Bad School: Evaluating Performance and Encouraging Improvement Gray, J and Wilcox, B (1995) Buckingham, Open University Press. A range of issues are considered about judging school quality, including use of value added approaches and inspection.
The Empowered School: the Management and Practice of Development Planning Hargreaves, DH and Hopkins, D (1991) London, Cassell. This book rationalises development planning, offers a step-by-step guide to the process, and relates it to school effectiveness and improvement. In a sequel, Development Planning for School Improvement, edited by David Hargreaves and David Hopkins (London, Cassell, 1994), authors from Britain and elsewhere discuss current issues.
Pathways to School Improvement Harris, A and Russ, J (1995) School of Education, University of Bath. Looks at improvement strategies for secondary schools that add significant value to pupil performance and raise achievement levels.
School Improvement in an Era of Change Hopkins, D, Ainscow, M and West, M (1994) London, Cassell. Examines the theory and practicalities of school improvement, and provides vignettes from schools involved in the IQEA Project to illustrate six conditions of school improvement.
Improving the Urban High School: What Works and Why Louis and Miles (1991) London, Cassell. Many issues raised in these five case studies of American secondary schools are pertinent to British schools. Louis and Miles offer useful advice on dealing with problems.
Staff Relationships in the Primary School Nias, Southworth and Yeomans (1989) London, Cassell. Focusing on five primary schools, this book offers interesting insights on the influence of school culture.
Planning Matters: the Impact of Development Planning in Primary Schools MacGilchrist, B, Mortimore, P, Savage, J and Beresford, C (1995) London, Paul Chapman. This book describes the impact a school development plan can have on a school’s management and organisation, its teachers’ professional development and, most importantly, its pupils’ learning. Practical school improvement implications are explored.
School Matters: The Junior Years Mortimore, P, Sammons, P, Stoll, L, Lewis, D and Ecob, R (1988) Somerset, Open Books. (Reprinted in 1994, London, Paul Chapman.) The most comprehensive British study of primary school effectiveness. Implications for various partners involved in school improvement are discussed.
Learning to Succeed: Report of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation National Commission on Education 1993 London, Heinemann. This reports on the commission’s review of key issues in education and training, its vision to guide Britain’s policies and actions, and goals to realise this vision. A more recent update, Learning to Succeed: The Way Ahead (1995) is also available.
Research Matters.
Institute of Education, London. The Institute of Education’s School Improvement Network’s research bulletins summarising school improvement topics and posing questions for readers to reflect on.
School Effectiveness Research: Its Messages for School Improvement Riddell, S and Brown, S (1991) Edinburgh, So ED, HMSO. Papers summarising school effectiveness research and discussing development planning, schoolculture and developing success indicatorst.
Fifteen Thousand Hours: Secondary Schools and Their Effects on Schoolchildren Rutter, M, Maughan, B, Mortimore, P and Ouston, J (1979) London, Open Books. This study was the forerunner for many others and still offers important insights into secondary school effectiveness.
Watch out for the following books which will shortly be available: School Improvement in Practice: Findings of the Schools Make a Difference Project Myers, K (1995) London, Falmer Press. The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham’s secondary school improvement project is described from various different angles, including schools’ own perspectives.
Success Against the odds: Effective Schools in Disadvantaged Areas National Commission on Education (1995) London, Routledge. Stories of 12 schools that have demonstrated improvement.
School Improvement - What Can Pupils Tell Us?
Rudduck, J, Chaplain, R and Wallace, G (1995) London, David Fulton. Focusing on views of vitally important partners in school improvement, pupils, interesting insights are offered into teaching, learning and secondary school organisation.
Changing our Schools: Linking School Effectiveness and School Improvement Stoll, L and Fink, D (1996) Buckingham, Open University Press. This book assists people inside and outside schools to bring about change by helping them to define the purpose of their change, the processes to get there and the results they should expect.
Merging Traditions: the Future of Research on School Effectiveness and School Improvement Gray, J, Reynolds, D, Fitz-Gibbon, C and Jesson, D (1995) London, Cassell. Samples of recent work from those currently engaged in researching school effectiveness and school improvement.
