Self-improving School Research Articles

Teachers as educational change agents: what do we currently know? Findings from a systematic review

Change agents are individuals who can successfully transform aspects of how organisations operate. In education, teachers as change agents are increasingly seen as vital to the successful operation of schools and self-improving school systems. To date, however, there has been no systematic investigation of the nature and role of teacher change agents. To address this knowledge gap, we undertook a systematic review into five key areas regarding teachers as change agents. After reviewing 70 outputs we found that current literature predominantly positions teacher change agents as the deliverers of top-down change, with the possibility of bottom-up educational reform currently neglected.

Teachers as educational change agents: what do we currently know? findings from a systematic review

Change agents are individuals who can successfully transform aspects of how organisations operate. In education, teachers as change agents are increasingly seen as vital to the successful operation of schools and self-improving school systems. To date, however, there has been no systematic investigation of the nature and role of teacher change agents. To address this knowledge gap, we undertook a systematic review into five key areas regarding teachers as change agents. After reviewing 70 outputs we found that current literature predominantly positions teacher change agents as the deliverers of top-down change, with the possibility of bottom-up educational reform currently neglected.

Using theories of action approach to measure impact in an intelligent way: A case study from Ontario Canada

There is now an impetus for schools to be more effective for more students, meaning that being able to measure impact effectively is vital. Simultaneously, if innovations are found to be impactful, it is reasonable they should be scaled-up to enable other schools to benefit. It is appropriate, therefore, that in networked and self-improving school systems, we should be attempting to link together approaches for measuring the impact of innovations with the means to enable their wider use. The aim of this paper is to aid this process by presenting an intelligent framework designed to support both the assessment of impact and the roll-out of effective pedagogic innovations. Specifically, the Dialogic Model of Impact (DMI) was designed with the purpose of evaluating the success of Renfrew County Catholic District School Board’s ‘Through their Eyes’ approach to teaching and learning. Also, to identify the potential value of ‘Through their Eyes’ for other Ontario school boards. Presented are both the genesis of the model and detail on its initial application, which draws on interview data from 10 district leaders and principals, and focus groups of 20 teachers. The paper illustrates how DMI represents an intelligent approach to assessing performance which simultaneously uses this assessment as a means to improve future performance. The data collected via DMI also, however, provides innovators with the information required to scale-up new approaches in new contexts. The paper concludes by illustrating how DMI has general applicability and encourages its more general take-up by school and system leaders.

School leaders’ perspectives on content and language integrated learning in England

ABSTRACT This article investigates school leader perspectives on Content and Integrated Learning (CLIL) based on findings from an empirical research study undertaken in three state secondary schools in England, to investigate (CLIL). The article argues the importance of the role of senior leaders in developing and sustaining CLIL initiatives. Perspectives about CLIL from 12 leaders are presented using semi-structured interviews from three schools where different models of CLIL are practised: headteachers, senior leaders responsible for the school oversight of such programmes and curriculum leaders responsible for developing the work in specific subjects. This article offers a unique contribution to the field by its focus on school leaders’ perceptions of and commitment to CLIL from their involvement in contrasting CLIL contexts in the self-improving school context of England. There are no existing studies that focus on senior leaders’ perspectives in the secondary sector. In spite of numerous limitations presented by the current national policy landscape, the findings reveal that school leaders perceive CLIL to make a potentially strong contribution to the pressing school improvement agenda through the acceleration of learner progress characterised by high levels of pupil concentration, effort, enjoyment and progress.

The logic of the marketplace and the ethic of co-operation: a case study of a co-operative school

ABSTRACTOver the previous decade, co-operative schools have emerged as a feature of, and resistance to, processes of marketisation in the English schools sector. The co-operative schools project, an education initiative of the UK co-operative movement, has been positioned as a ‘values-based alternative’ to the controversial academies programme. This paper examines the claim of the co-operative alternative and questions whether the co-operative schools project risks reproducing neoliberal values through a reliance on the ideal of the ‘self-improving school’. The discussion focuses on the evolution of one inner-city co-operative school. Through a close examination of its sociohistorical context, and with attention to the experiences of those involved, this case study explores the realities of a co-operative school striving to operate within a competitive system.

Co-operative schools: democratic values, networks and leadership

ABSTRACTFor over a decade, co-operative schools have struck a note of discord within the highly orchestrated context of English education policy. They encapsulate an old set of ideas but re-articulate them for new times by engaging with educational frameworks which are locked into the so-called global education reform movement (GERM) based upon on standards, standardisation, a mixture of centralised and devolved accountabilities, leadership, testing and accountability. Yet co-operative schools ostensibly aim to embed a set of wide-ranging values and principles: equality, equity, democracy, self-help, self-responsibility and solidarity as well as the principles of education, democratic control and community ownership, all of which echo the history of labour movements. The co-operative legal model not only adheres to co-operative values and principles but necessitates stakeholder involvement in the governance of schools: pupils, staff, parents, community and, potentially, alumni are all expected to play a role. These are compared to David Hargreaves’ ideas about a ‘self-improving school system’. I analyse the emergence of the co-operative network and the reasons for its dramatic growth alongside the complex problems it faced. In turn, these help us to understand the possibilities and contradictions inherent in attempts to build inclusive and democratic educational networks.

Inside a self-improving school system: Collaboration, competition and transition

The idea that school systems should become self-improving is a growing trend internationally. Put simply, this involves the strengthening of links between schools so that they can provide mutual support and challenge. So far, however, there is little research that throws light on what is involved in attempts to introduce this approach for the first time. Drawing on its authors’ privileged access over a 4-year period, this paper analyses what happened as one education system explored such a move. In particular, it looks at the challenges involved in strengthening collaboration between schools within policy contexts that continue to emphasise competition as a means of achieving improvements. It also examines the nature of the transitional arrangements that are required in order to move from existing organisational conditions to more collaborative ways of working. Drawing on lessons from these experiences, the paper concludes with a series of principles that are intended be useful to those in other policy contexts that are involved in introducing similar reforms.

'Students don't always tell teachers the truth very often, do they?' Reflections on the implications when teachers and students collaborate to investigate teaching practice

Informed by Martin Buber's notions of I-It and I-Thou relationships, this paper examines the problematic and contested issues of emancipation and empowerment in schooling. Specifically, it explores what happens when teachers and students collaborate when observing lessons and commenting on teaching practice in the imagined space of the self-improving school system. Within this space, it examines the challenges and complexities of establishing I-Thou teacher-student relationships, and the potential for creative dissonance in such situations. Finally, it explores the idea that the self-improving school could become a place where teachers and students create a space for mutual dialogue about collaborative research in the classroom – in other words, a place where classroom practice is democratically 'top-down' teacher-led and 'bottom-up' student-informed.

A self-improving school system and its potential for reducing inequality

After a brief review of some milestones in the story of how schools contribute to inequalities in student achievement, more recent work on how experience of collaboration between schools can help to narrow the gap is shown to underpin the new concept of a self-improving school system. The main focus is then on the principal features of a self-improving school system that have the potential to reduce inequalities and to raise questions about how the debate about schooling and inequality should now develop.

Local authorities and the school system

Coalition government policies have put into question the role of local authorities in a ‘self-improving school system’. In a number of local authorities new authority-wide partnership bodies are being set up involving all local schools, including academies, and controlled by headteachers. This article begins with an analysis of the new partnerships, differentiating their functions and the education policy leadership roles of headteacher-led and local authority-led partnerships. It then examines as a case study the evolution of a new partnership in Birmingham from the initial model proposed by the local authority through to the emergence of a headteacher-initiated model. The article proposes an analytical framework for the new partnerships, situating them in the wider theoretical context of network governance and the role of the state in local government theory and policy. It concludes with a discussion of the questions of educational principle about agency and purpose in local education policymaking which the new partnership developments raise.