Developing and updating school improvement plans is an annual ritual for virtually all school principals and their school improvement committees. Still, large numbers of schools continue to produce disappointing outcomes. The authors believe that part of the problem is the result of plans that focus on the wrong targets and that rely on ineffective strategies for improvement. To help principals and their school improvement committees develop and implement plans with a greater likelihood of success, the authors offer a step-by-step process for school improvement planning. They go on to pinpoint specific school improvement goals, including raising reading and mathematics achievement, building robust school cultures, addressing the needs of English language learners, improving instruction, and reducing absenteeism and dropouts. For each goal, a variety of objectives and proven strategies is presented along with sample school improvement plans. The book addresses the differences in planning to turn around a low-performing school, planning to sustain improvements over time, and planning to move a good school to a great school.

The School Portfolio Toolkit is a book that includes over 300 tools, strategies, templates, and examples for use in building school portfolios and for planning, implementing, and evaluating continuous school improvement. The Toolkit was written to support school personnel with the mechanics of putting together a school portfolio, as well as to offer processes and strategies to move whole school staffs into and through continuous improvement. The tools in the Toolkit will help staffs create, implement, and maintain school portfolios and begin the journey of continuous improvement. Each chapter deals with one topic related to the school portfolio and comprehensive school improvement, with related documents and tools. The School Portfolio Toolkit book provides templates, tools, examples, and strategies that will help you analyze your school's data, create a vision that is truly shared by the school staff, build a continuous school improvement plan to implement the school vision, formulate a leadership structure to implement the vision, involve parents, community, and business in implementing the vision, embed up to forty different powerful professional development designs into your school plan, evaluate your continuous school improvement work, and create a School Portfolio that will organize and serve as a framework for the continuation of this work

Schools will not be able to continue to improve unless they move away from an over-concentration on the short-term and focus on the strategic nature of planning and development. The more targets, the less the effects - what we need is strategy and sustainability. This book links school improvement planning and strategic development for leadership enhancement as well as for management accountability. Short-term planning, in the form of target-setting plans aimed at improving standards, has gained increasing importance. While the book agrees that this is necessary, it puts forward the view that short-term planning is not sufficient for the longer-term development of the school. Sustainability and strategic development are of critical importance and for these the authors believe that a more holistic approach to planning is necessary. To that end, this book links short and longer-term planning in a framework, which supports the strategic development of the school. The authors are national experts in the field and in preparing this text have worked extensively with headteachers, deputy headteachers, governors and those participating in NPQH and masters programmes in educational leadership and management.

School improvement in recent years has largely focused on rapid improvement and quick fixes. Yet, genuine and sustainable school improvement is complex, gradual and incremental. It requires developing a culture and focusing relentlessly on teaching and learning. The Gradual Art of School Improvement is a comprehensive practical guide to school improvement, covering aspects such as improvement planning, staff development, the learning environment, dealing with outside pressures including inspection, curriculum design and the role of leaders at all levels. It includes: Detailed accounts of the steps that can be taken to create a positive learning culture over time Case studies and worked examples, concentrating on the practical aspects of school improvement from the perspective of an experienced and successful head teacher Ready-to-use practitioner resources that readers can adapt and use in their own settings Accessibly written and entertaining, this book is an invaluable resource for leaders at all levels and stages of their career.

As a field, education has largely failed to learn from experience. Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In Learning to Improve, the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than “implementing fast and learning slow,” they believe educators should adopt a more rigorous approach to improvement that allows the field to “learn fast to implement well.” Using ideas borrowed from improvement science, the authors show how a process of disciplined inquiry can be combined with the use of networks to identify, adapt, and successfully scale up promising interventions in education. Organized around six core principles, the book shows how “networked improvement communities” can bring together researchers and practitioners to accelerate learning in key areas of education. Examples include efforts to address the high rates of failure among students in community college remedial math courses and strategies for improving feedback to novice teachers. Learning to Improve offers a new paradigm for research and development in education that promises to be a powerful driver of improvement for the nation’s schools and colleges.

Classroom teachers moving to positions of increased responsibility often have very little formal training for their new role. This book provides guidelines for best practice in the necessary skills for success - planning, management and accountability.

Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement provides a new definition of school improvement, away from a singular focus on compliance, toward a true commitment to excellence. This book is a call to action. It is about inspiring schools and school districts to commit to continuous school improvement by providing a framework that will result in improving teaching for every teacher and learning for every student through the comprehensive use of data. A culmination of over 30 years of doing the hard work in schools and districts both nationally and internationally, Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement shares new, evidence-based learnings about how to analyze, report, communicate, and use multiple measures of data. The updated edition provides a wealth of tools, protocols, timelines, examples, and strategies that will help schools and districts become genuine learning organizations.