This is a book about educational fads, why they arise, and how we might learn to live with them. Those working in schools are subject to perpetual waves of novelty in the name of school improvement. And yet, in the long term very little actually changes. Big ideas come and go, leaving only faint clues as to their existence. The trouble is that the appealing stories that take hold will never solve the fundamental problems of modern schooling. The school system is too complex, too diverse, and too uncertain to be fixed by any Big Idea. Before too long, the Next Big Thing replaces the Last Big Thing. The Next Big Thing in School Improvement brings together the unique perspectives of a policy analyst, a headteacher, and a classroom teacher, to explain why it is that the school system often resists our attempts to improve it. Drawing on the recent history of English education policy, a variety of disciplinary traditions, and the emerging field of complexity science, the authors present a new take on why the school system behaves in ways that defy our attempts to change it. This is a book about finding a better way to improve our schools. It is not the Next Big Thing, but it does explain why there will inevitably be one, and what to do when it arrives.

This book offers a detailed study of the school district of Philadelphia's first three years, revealing what the school of the future can teach us about high school redesign, public-private partnerships, and the use of technology in school reform.--[book cover].

Authentic School Improvement for Authentic Leaders charts a full improvement journey of a school from a ‘Requires Improvement’ Ofsted rating, through a second, to a resounding ‘Good’. It reveals the impact that a school leader can have on the motivation and engagement of teachers, parents and pupils and how this translates not just to their overall happiness, but on academic standards and systemic, long-lasting school improvement whilst maintaining their own well-being. Bringing together a wide range of accessible and relatable school improvement practices, the chapters cover all aspects of school leadership, from operational systems to academic standards and staff morale to pupil numbers. Full of strategies, takeaways, observations and anecdotes, the book illustrates that being authentic and leading with integrity is possible for all and provides tangible results that may support positive Ofsted outcomes but are not driven by them. Including a Foreword by Ross Morrison McGill, this is essential reading for all headteachers and senior leaders in primary and secondary, mainstream and specialist, maintained and academy schools.

There is a paradox at the heart of contemporary school improvement and system change in education. Why is it that despite the phenomenal increase in our recent knowledge about what works in schooling, standards still lag behind expectations and school level performance is far too variable? Unleashing Greatness addresses this paradox and concludes that, unless we focus unrelentingly on the quality of teaching in both our small and large-scale reform efforts, current practice will never meet society's expectations. Unleashing Greatness is a compilation of David Hopkins' writing into one concise manual to provide an eight-step strategy for unleashing greatness. Introducing a rational and conceptual framework for pedagogic improvement that has the potential for generating an increasingly specific language for teaching and learning, this book significantly aids consistency and precision in the quest for both excellence and equity for all students. Written for 'school improvement activists', particularly those who work in laboratory schools or who wish to emulate that ethos and way of working, the author himself has located his professional practice for over forty years, as well as this book, in the middle of that triangle bounded by the vertices of practice, research and policy.

Discover a fundamentally different way to improve schools. Learn best practices from successful schools that use next-generation school-improvement methods. Focused chapters guide you through the modified planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation cycle at the core of this school-improvement model. Specific strategies empower you to put the knowledge to use.

Teachers are the most important determinant of the quality of schools. We should be doing everything we can to help them get better. In recent years, however, a cocktail of box-ticking demands, ceaseless curriculum reform, disruptive reorganisations and an audit culture that requires teachers to document their every move, have left the profession deskilled and demoralised. Instead of rolling out the red carpet for teachers, we have been pulling it from under their feet. The result is predictable: there is now a cavernous gap between the quantity and quality of teachers we need, and the reality in our schools. In this book, Rebecca Allen and Sam Sims draw on the latest research from economics, psychology and education to explain where the gap came from and how we can close it again. Including interviews with current and former teachers, as well as end-of-chapter practical guidance for schools, The Teacher Gap sets out how we can better recruit, train and retain the next generation of teachers. At the heart of the book is a simple message: we need to give teachers a career worth having.

This book investigates the localised effects of reform by exploring the impact of a school improvement policy agenda on the work of three experienced principals. It presents three longitudinal case studies within a shared specific leadership context in Queensland, Australia. The case studies enable an exploration of the way the principalship in this context has evolved over time, providing deep insights into the practices and beliefs of three experienced school leaders working in a period of rapid and urgent systemic reform. The nature of global reform policy borrowing means that the research and the findings within this monograph are relevant for international audiences. The book describes a new way to understand and theorise the effects of reform policies and associated pressures on school leaders. Using post-structural theory, it provides a better understanding of the specific effects of reform policy ensembles, particularly when combined with an analysis of the ways policy and discourse work together at a wider level to create an environment that disciplines the principalship. Further, it sheds lights on the means of complying with or contesting policy influences and how the work of leaders has changed over time.