Abstract
This article reports on a first cycle of a larger action research study conducted to determine how Circuit Teams could support School Management Teams of underperforming high schools towards whole-school development. Although it is a mandated requirement by the Department of Education, none of the four schools involved in the study had developed a school improvement plan, a necessary first step towards whole-school development. In this article we focus on the collaborative intervention we designed to meet the identified needs of the participants regarding the construction of a school improvement plan. A qualitative baseline study revealed the School Management Teams’ general disregard towards the school improvement plan as well as limited insight into what skills they needed to develop it, and their imperfect understanding of whole-school development. We explain the action research process we took to facilitate a clearer understanding of the school improvement plan and how to develop it. The data analysis revealed that the collaborative learning experience ignited feelings of empowerment, increased motivation to collaborate with the Circuit Teams towards whole-school development, and generally assisted the School Management Teams’ resolve to improve the management of their respective schools. These findings present evidence that suggests the value of an action learning approach to the professional development of School Management Teams, but the process could be equally useful to encourage sustainable change in varied contexts of continued professional development. Keywords : Action learning, action research, Circuit Team, school improvement plan, School Management Team(s), school self-evaluation, systems theory approach, whole-school development, whole-school evaluation.
Highlights
If planning is the primary management function that School Management Teams have to perform (Van Deventer & Kruger, 2009), how can schools progress towards whole-school development if many do not have a written plan in place to guide their continuous improvement? The plan referred to in this context is the school improvement plan
Thereafter we present the findings of the qualitative data analysis and discuss the significance of our findings for supporting School Management Teams towards whole-school development, as well as the significance of the action learning process for professional development in general
The action research design allowed a more participative relationship to develop between the School Management Team members of the four schools
Summary
If planning is the primary management function that School Management Teams have to perform (Van Deventer & Kruger, 2009), how can schools progress towards whole-school development if many do not have a written plan in place to guide their continuous improvement? The plan referred to in this context is the school improvement plan. The above question is posed in the light of reports that reveal a lack of understanding on the part of School Management Teams of the significance of school improvement plans in the context of school development in South Africa, as well as their lack of capacity to design and implement such plans (Department of Education, Eastern Cape, 2009). This report indicates that School Management Teams tended to have a very laissez-faire approach to strategic planning and that even if school improvement plans did exist, they were seldom implemented. The School Management Team has to ensure responsibility and accountability by adhering to the comprehensive planning to improve the school, use data to understand situations, identify root causes of problems, propose solutions and validate accomplishments by monitoring based on a clear set of indicators
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