Louise Stoll

Improving schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas? A review of research evidence

Schools in difficult and challenging circumstances have received increasing policy and to some extent research attention in recent years. Improving schools in these circumstances is likely to prove a difficult process. This literature review has attempted to collect research on improving schools in these areas. Themes emerging from the literature include: a focus on teaching and learning, leadership, creating an information-rich environment, creating a positive school culture, building a learning community, continuous professional development, involving parents, external support and resources. The crucial issue of sustaining improvement is also discussed.

Linking School Effectiveness Knowledge and School Improvement Practice: Towards a Synergy

ABSTRACT A survey is undertaken of the ‘paradigms’ of the academic communities of school effectiveness and school improvement researchers, practitioners and scholars. It is argued that the two ‘paradigms’ are very different, and that this has hindered the improvement of educational practice. Examples are given of programmes which are a ‘blend’ of the two different approaches, and detail is given as to how the school effectiveness and school improvement communities can meet the knowledge needs necessary for improving the quality of schooling.

Improving schools in challenging contexts: Exploring the possible

This article outlines the findings from a small-scale research study that explored how a group of secondary schools in challenging contexts had improved and raised attainment successively over a 5-year period. The study points to the importance of external factors and how they influence a schools ability to improve and to sustain improvement. The study also identified certain strategies for improvement that schools found to be successful in securing improved performance. The article argues that more highly differentiated improvement approaches to school improvement are needed for schools in such circumstances. It concludes by suggesting that while schools in challenging contexts can raise attainment and performance through their own efforts, the external environment remains an important influence upon a schools ability to improve.

School and System Improvement: A Narrative State-of-the-Art Review.

Over the last 4 decades, the school effectiveness and school improvement research bases have gained prominence and recognition on the international stage. In both a theoretical and empirical sense, they have matured through a wide range of well-documented projects, interventions, and innovations across a range of countries, describing how efforts to help schools become increasingly effective learning environments for the full range of their students have been more or less successful. This review presents evidence of the effects of reform efforts at the school and system levels, through articulating 5 phases: Phase 1 – understanding the organisational culture of the school; Phase 2 – action research and research initiatives at the school level; Phase 3 – managing change and comprehensive approaches to school reform; Phase 4 – building capacity for student learning at the local level and the continuing emphasis on leadership; Phase 5 – towards systemic improvement. The review concludes by reflecting on how the phases evolve and overlap and offers 3 concluding thoughts about how to identify those levers that together provide more powerful ways to enhance the learning and achievement of our students within a systemic context.

Creative leadership: a challenge of our times

In times of constant change, teachers need to be flexible, adaptable and creative. This article argues that promoting creativity of staff to enhance twenty-first century learning is a fundamental challenge for school leadership today. Drawing on the findings of a research and development project involving senior leadership teams and a local authority team, the nature of creative leadership is explored along with conditions leaders establish to support colleagues’ creativity. The concept of creative leadership also raises questions about context, levels of creativity, the nature of risk taking, and measuring impact, among others. Such issues require further investigation.

School Effectiveness and School Improvement: Voices from the Field

ABSTRACT In 1986, the Halton Board of Education in Ontario, Canada initiated an Effective Schools Project. In previous papers we have described the evolution of this project in detail (Stoll and Fink, 1988, 1989a, 1989b, Fink and Stoll, 1992). Our intent in this paper is to provide a retrospective of the past few years to provide some helpful insights into the change process in school systems. To develop this article, we went back to our original work (Stoll and Fink, 1988). This was probably a mistake. If not a mistake, at least it was humbling. What seemed so crystal clear when we started has changed remarkably by 1993. Our work has been somewhat of an odyssey. In the years since we began, we have altered directions, shifted ground, abandoned ‘brilliant’, but unworkable models, and learned an incredible amount about school effectiveness and school improvement. In this article we will review the project briefly, outline some key results, describe what we have learned about school effectiveness and improv...

The Effects of School Membership on Pupils' Educational Outcomes.

Abstract The article reports some of the major findings of a large‐scale longitudinal study of the progress and development of an age cohort of pupils during the junior years of education. The pupils attended a stratified random sample of 50 Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) primary schools during the period 1980‐84. The focus of the paper is an investigation of the existence and size of the effects of school membership upon these pupils’ progress in a variety of cognitive outcomes (reading, writing and mathematics), attainment in oracy (which was measured only on one occasion), and upon several non‐cognitive outcomes (attendance, attitudes, behaviour and self‐concept). Particular attention is paid to the identification and separation of the effects of school membership from those attributable to background factors, sex and age. For the analysis of the effects of school upon pupils’ progress in cognitive areas, initial attainment in the relevant area is controlled and acts as the baseline against wh...

Connecting Learning Communities: Capacity Building for Systemic Change

Piecemeal educational reform is yesterday’s news. The environment is characterised by increasingly rapid change and complexity. Meanwhile, intractable challenges of quality and equity persist in numbers of jurisdictions, and standards have plateaued in several systems promoting centralised strategies.

Effective School Improvement — Ingredients for Success: The Results of an International Comparative Study of Best Practice Case Studies

Although school effectiveness research and school improvement efforts are often different or even opposing paradigms, they can be combined in Effective School Improvement (ESI) programs. In the project, best practice school improvement cases in 8 European countries were described and analysed using a scheme based different effectiveness and improvement theories. This analysis resulted in a framework for effective school improvement which includes the factors that might foster or hinder improvement. Finally, it is explained how the ESI-framework can be used in practice, policy and research.

Improving Schools in Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Areas: An Overview of Research

Schools in difficult and challenging circumstances have received increasing policy and to some extent research attention in recent years. Improving schools in these circumstances is likely to prove a difficult process. This literature review has attempted to collect research on improving schools in these areas. Themes emerging from the literature include: a focus on teaching and learning, leadership, creating an information-rich environment, creating a positive school culture, building a learning community, continuous professional development, involving parents, external support and resources. The crucial issue of sustaining improvement is also discussed.