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1.
《Africa Education Review》2013,10(4):632-646
ABSTRACT

Strategic planning is crucial in facilitating sustainable development of schools. It enables schools to survive and cope with changes and challenges from government policies and market forces. There is broad agreement that all stakeholders need to be part of school strategic planning. In response to the lack of evidence suggesting stakeholders’ involvement – specifically that of Heads of Department (HOD) – in strategic planning in schools, and its value in ensuring that all stakeholders execute their duties, HODs’ experiences regarding their involvement in strategic planning were explored. Qualitative research was undertaken and semi-structured interviews were employed to generate data. The study reveals that the HODs were involved in some form of planning but there is no evidence suggesting their participation in substantive issues on strategic planning. Further, the study reveals that transparency-driven leadership and collaboration are key factors to ensure HODs’ participation in strategic planning. The findings suggest that the involvement of HODs is crucial towards improving teaching and learning.  相似文献   

2.
This article argues that the notion of distributed leadership and management has potential to illuminate school-level relationships, a significant area of school effectiveness and improvement research and development activity. It reports how research findings were used inductively to model effectiveness of senior management teams in British primary schools, which represent one form of distributed leadership and management. Difficulties in establishing effectiveness are reviewed; a heuristic model of team operation is put forward as a basis for identifying team effectiveness; relevant criteria employed by informants in research schools and inspectors are summarised in relation to the model, supported by findings from observation of meetings; and key findings and judgements of effectiveness are synthesised as a speculative contingency model of team effectiveness focusing on balancing contradictory beliefs in a management hierarchy and in equal contribution within the team. An agenda for research, practice and policy is suggested.  相似文献   

3.
ABSTRACT

This paper offers a practitioner's view of how continuing professional development (CPD) can help raise achievement in schools. It is one of four papers in this issue linked to a research project in Stoke-on-Trent seeking to raise attainment in schools in deprived communicates. Based on over 20 years’ experience working in and with different schools in the UK, this paper frames a head teacher's perspective, outlining seven strategies she believes are key to improving school performance. These strategies are providing CPD opportunities to all staff rather than just those involved in teaching, planning CPD activities in the light of school development priorities, mentoring and coaching between staff, forming inter-school networks and partnerships, team teaching, peer review and continual assessment of CPD impact.  相似文献   

4.
ABSTRACT

Current data indicate that there are six million young people of school age with disabilities in China. Of these, only about 50 per cent attend any form of schooling, with approximately 220,000 of them enrolled in special schools and classes. The remainder attend regular classrooms. This means that there are about three million students with disabilities who at present lack any access to education. In May 1996 it was declared that in order to improve this situation, over the next five years, China plans to provide school places for 80 per cent of its disabled youngsters. In order to achieve this goal, the Chinese central education authorities have announced a significant change in policy direction towards integration. Instead of their previous commitment to the establishment of increasing numbers of special schools, it is now planned that the current number of about 1,400 special schools will be increased to 2,000, so that all regions of the country have access to at least one. At that point, no more special schools will be built. The extra places needed to increase the school attendance rate of youngsters with disabilities will be created in regular classes in regular schools. This paper gives an overview of the curriculum arrangements in China's four types of special schools, including their historical development, subjects taught, teaching arrangements and management. A number of difficulties confronting China's special education policy‐makers are canvassed and reasons suggested for their increasing commitment to a strategy of integration. It is proposed that China enjoys three advantages in the pursuit of an integrated school system.  相似文献   

5.
The Search for Effective Schools   总被引:5,自引:1,他引:4  
In the light of external reform pressures, many schools have found it difficult to implement medium‐to‐long‐term plans. Development planning was supposed to be a means of refining both the planning and the implementation of strategic priorities. Some recent writers are now casting doubts on planning and development planning and they are using chaos theory to justify this sceptical stance. This article is, in turn, sceptical about the application of chaos theory to school planning and instead suggests that control theory clarifies important differences between short‐term and long‐term planning and provides positive and practical insights into how development planning can be used by self‐managing schools as part of school improvement.  相似文献   

6.
ABSTRACT

This study aims to identify different applications of distributed leadership at high schools in the State of Kuwait from teachers’ perspectives. These applications include the supervision process, delegation of authority, school development, decision making and community partnership. A quantitative design has been employed, and data has been collected through questionnaires that included five main dimensions. The study sample consisted of 1210 high school teachers at six educational areas in Kuwait. The degree of practicing distributed leadership in Kuwaiti schools was low. The degrees of application related to distributed leadership in the supervision process and delegation of authority were medium. However, the degrees of application related to distributed leadership in the development of school, decision making and community partnership were also low. The study has concluded that training programs are needed for school leaders in Kuwait.  相似文献   

7.
ABSTRACT

This article focuses upon differential strategies for school development and improvement. It argues that much school improvement work has placed an emphasis upon systemic change and has neglected to consider the extent to which schools have different capacities for change and development. We suggest in this article that different improvement strategies and types of intervention are needed for schools at different stages of growth. Our position is based upon a substantial body of school improvement research which has demonstrated the importance of differential strategies for schools at various developmental stages. We hope that this article will stimulate further discussion, debate and enquiry about the importance of differential approaches to school improvement.  相似文献   

8.
Abstract

The perplexity that characterizes moral education was the motive for undertaking this study. A field selection of terminal and instrumental values served as its frame of reference. Two questions were posed by the investigators: Is there any difference in the degree of importance which parents, teachers and pupils attach to these values? Do different schools rate these values differently? A sample consisting of 531 pupils, 251 parents and 38 teachers, randomly selected from five Israeli high schools, were asked to rate the degree of importance they attach to each value and the degree to which they think each value is cultivated in school. All subjects rated instrumental values higher than terminal values. A striking consensus between parents, teachers and pupils was disclosed. Between school variance was significant for both terminal and instrumental values. The study of approaches to values found in schools may contribute to curriculum development and planning of teacher education programmes.  相似文献   

9.

This paper examines the school development planning process at Southlands Community College and considers that, while it has been a useful process to date, fundamental rethinking is now necessary. In particular, it advocates the utilisation of the concepts of 'strategic intent' and 'futures thinking' in order to enhance the capacity of self-managing schools to manage in an increasingly turbulent environment. The paper demonstrates, through a case example, how one school is meeting the challenge of developing new approaches to school planning.  相似文献   

10.
ABSTRACT

Reforms using market-style mechanisms of parental choice and competition between schools are intended to leverage change by compelling schools to diversify options and increase effectiveness. Yet, some research challenges those assumptions, suggesting that schools in competitive climates are more likely to focus on image management to attract a more desirable student intake than to engage in substantive innovations to improve student outcomes. This analysis examines school responses to competition in two local education markets representing a mix of public (including charter) and private school types. School promotional signals to consumers are studied in order to understand school perceptions and responses to underlying competitive incentive structures-incentives that reformers intended to encourage programmatic improvement and diversification of options along a horizontal axis of diverse consumer preferences. A review of marketing materials demonstrates that many schools are instead adopting marketing strategies designed to attract “better” students-often from schools considered to be successful, rather than from the failing schools reformers had targeted. These patterns of vertical differentiation suggest that schools may be acting in ways that reflect contradictory incentives shaping how schools engage the marketplace.  相似文献   

11.
ABSTRACT

Looking closely at lesson plans as mediating tools, this study examines preservice teacher learning. By using activity theory in our analysis of lesson plans and other data collected in a student-teaching course, we uncovered tensions within/across the contexts of university teacher education program and secondary school field placements. This study serves to further understandings of how new teachers learn to appropriate the genres of teaching and to explore contradictions between a university preparation program and secondary school contexts. Findings provide an account of the student–teachers’ lesson planning and an explanation of how disruptions in those plans provided insight into points of tension. By viewing these tensions as contradictions within/across activity systems, we identify them as opportunities to better understand teacher learning and ways we might support new teachers in navigating tensions in their classrooms and schools.  相似文献   

12.
ABSTRACT

School effectiveness research has traditionally focused on basic cognitive pupil outcomes such as language and mathematics achievement. In this article however we address a research question that goes beyond this limited scope by studying both cognitive and affective outcomes of education in combination with each other. By looking at cognitive and affective outcomes at two different levels, i.e. school and the individual pupil, it is possible to make assertions about the relationship between the two outcome types at these levels. The main question in this study with respect to school effectiveness research is: ‘Can schools be both cognitive and affective effective?’

To answer this question a sample of 7,000 pupils in 212 primary schools in the Netherlands was used, providing information about cognitive, affective and pupil background variables. Firstly the relationship between affective and cognitive outcomes at pupil level is shown, using a LISREL model to show how these variables interact. Secondly the relative positions of schools with respect to their effectiveness in the cognitive and affective outcomes are compared in order to show the degree of consistency in the effectiveness of both outcome domains. These correlations appear to be small, but positive.  相似文献   

13.
Abstract

This case study of one urban school district in British Columbia, Canada, examines technology-related disruptions to the teaching plans of seven midcareer elementary school teachers over a 1-year period. Despite having relatively good access to current digital technologies and relatively strong experience in using them, teachers commonly experienced disruptions to their plans that necessitated the use of diverse problem-solving strategies and supports. We examine the types of disruptions teachers recalled experiencing, the strategies they chose to address them, and the perceived success of those strategies in allowing teachers to carry through with their plans for classroom technology use in ways that preserved their pedagogical intent. Implications are discussed with regard to ways that districts might more effectively support elementary teachers’ technology use. (Keywords: technology, lesson planning, disruptions, barriers, professional development)  相似文献   

14.
In June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review two related cases originating from school districts in Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington that involved voluntarily adopted racial integration plans. Concerned about the outcome of these cases, 553 social scientists submitted a social science statement to the Supreme Court summarizing the large body of social science research supporting the school districts’ policies relevant to the Court’s determination. The statement, reprinted here, supports three interrelated conclusions: (1) racially integrated schools provide significant benefits to students and communities; (2) racially isolated schools have harmful educational implications for students; and (3) race-conscious policies are necessary to maintain racial integration in schools. Because of the overwhelming amount of scholarly data, social scientists argued, as the lower courts had found, that the schools boards have a compelling interest to promote racial integration and prevent racial isolation through choice-based school assignment policies that consider race as a factor. On June 28, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the school assignment plans on the grounds that the plans were not narrowly tailored to the interests that the school districts had asserted. In addition to affecting the ability of school districts to maintain racially diverse schools, the decision has broad implications for researchers who seek to help school districts in these efforts.
Erica FrankenbergEmail:
  相似文献   

15.
Over the past two decades, the feminisation of primary school teaching has been identified by the media and government officials in Western countries as an important contributing factor to boys' academic problems. This panic, which has been criticised by feminists as a backlash and a form of recuperative politics, has promoted the development of research into gender and education, particularly studies related to the gendered culture of primary schools and on the masculinities of male teachers. However, male primary principals remain relatively under-researched in the literature, despite the importance of their structural position and increasing concern over the masculinisation of school leadership. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion by critically analysing the interpretive frameworks of 12 male primary school principals. The findings reveal not only the complex, contradictory and at times culturally specific gendered discourses that some male principals employ, but also their feminising and masculinising effects on the school workplace and leadership.  相似文献   

16.
ABSTRACT

This paper explores how six English primary school teachers enact assessment and attainment-focused policy and asks what this performative policy work does and whether it shapes or requires a new kind of primary teacher subjectivity. The paper draws on a small study of policy enactments in two primary schools in Greater London in order to discuss two dimensions of policy enactment that emerged from our data: first, shifting assessment regimes in primary schools which create an enactment environment of second-guessing policy; second, a shift in focus from the individual child to targeted groups that raises questions about more traditional primary school values. The paper concludes with a reflection on the effects of contradictory values and practices and how this policy context creates a form of ‘doing without believing’ in the English primary school.  相似文献   

17.

This paper argues that traditional approaches to school planning no longer serve the needs of schools. In particular, it puts forward the view that strategy, as applied to school planning, is only of partial use. It argues that there should be a new way forward for schools seeking to meet the challenge of effective leadership and management in the new millennium. This would utilise the concept of 'strategic intent' encapsulated in a new model which replaces the limited 'school development planning' framework.  相似文献   

18.
Internationalisation is no longer a well-recognised feature unique to higher education. It has permeated K-12 education. However, little research has been done on internationalisation at the K-12 level, particularly on offshore schools. This study examines how Canadian and Chinese policies regarding offshore schools have developed over the years, what values and objectives underlie such policies, and how they affect present and future development of Canadian offshore schools in China. The study identifies in/consistencies and priorities in policy-making and implementation and uncovers the trend of policy development through comparing stipulations on international cooperation of both countries. It shows that both countries are making policies and action plans based on their national interest in the international context without giving adequate attention to the legal, political, and social cultures of the other country. This leads to inconsistencies and confusions in their international educational cooperation and creates potential hindrance to its further development.  相似文献   

19.
This paper reports on the initial stages of an empirical study of a new secondary school in New Zealand. The school vision and organisation reflect current international twenty-first-century learning discourse by confronting long-established beliefs concerning the nature of education and knowledge and the roles of teachers and students. The school's focus is on developing the dispositions and competencies of students through thematic, intersubject, inquiry-based learning. While these twenty-first-century ideas appear widely accepted worldwide, there is little research on the impact of these ideas on student learning. This study considers the challenges faced by the school in moving from aspirational vision to curriculum enactment during its first 18 months of operation. The focus of this paper is the curriculum design and development process. The issues faced by staff in this twenty-first-century school will be of interest to educationalists worldwide who are involved with the planning of new schools and curricular innovation within existing schools. Four key questions that arise from the study and that will form the focus of future research are identified.  相似文献   

20.
Background: There is worldwide interest in improving the effectiveness of teachers and teaching. This paper considers two strands of that interest. It revisits the impact of using enhanced feedback from teachers to pupils as a way of improving attainment, and it looks at the feasibility of teachers using research evidence to create their own interventions. Current evidence on the causal impact of effective feedback on learning is unclear: many studies have mixed results, are small in scale, lack randomisation or are not conducted in real classroom conditions. Purpose: The aim of this paper is to describe the experience of schools as they engage with research evidence to support their own enquiry into the effectiveness of feedback in the classroom. Research design: This study took place over one academic year, involving nine treatment schools in one local authority. The study involved teachers themselves using research findings to create an intervention, which took, as its focus, enhanced feedback in the classroom. Test results from these schools were compared to the results in 5 participating comparator schools, to the 49 other schools in the borough and to all state-funded primary schools in England. Results: Although teachers showed that they could engage with research evidence, the study indicated that the process was complex in practice. In addition, the independent impact evaluation suggested that enhanced feedback in itself does not necessarily lead to improved pupil test performance. Discussion and conclusions: The paper considers some of the challenges faced by teachers as they attempted to use research evidence, and discusses implications for schools wishing to use research evidence in practice. The findings of the study suggest that it may be feasible for practitioners to use research evidence to inform their own practice. However, to do it well would require clearer guidance, professional development and modelling of any strategies suggested. These findings have implications for policy on teacher development, and for the research community to make research outputs more comprehensible and accessible to research users.  相似文献   

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