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A recent development in England is the emergence, under various names, of groups of schools working together in a variety of collaborative ways. Such diversification enjoys broad political support. In this paper, the author aims to argue that the trend is potentially a radical transformation of the school system as a whole. The concepts of coupling and capital are drawn on to show how these changes enhance capacity building at the level of the individual institution and, more importantly, at the system levels, both local and national.

The paper uses different conceptual schemes to throw light on the emerging phenomenon of partnerships between clusters of schools.

As this is not an empirical research paper there are no findings as such.

The paper is concerned with new policy directions, some of which are consonant with developments already taking place in England's education system. The analysis is intended broadly to support these changes but also to improve their design and implementation.

The conceptual analysis is original and has implications both for a theoretical analysis of inter‐school partnerships and for the practical issues of how such partnerships might evolve.

The purpose of this essay is to honor, position and reflect on key themes related to high school reform within the careerlong scholarship of Karen Seashore Louis. It is presented in relation to my own and others' key studies and book-length arguments regarding educational change, knowledge utilization, professional communities and innovation, over the past 30 years and up to the present time.

The article examines and interprets major works by Karen Seashore Louis and other educational change theorists that address repeated systemic failures, and episodic outlier efforts, at transformational change in high schools.

High school change has only failed if it is judged by the overarching criterion of system-wide transformation. Fair assessments of high school change must also examine accumulated incremental innovations. In light of the need for transformational aspirations in schools to mesh with transformational directions in society, the global pandemic and its aftermath may provide five key opportunities for long-awaited transformation.

There are different levels and degrees of innovation. Incremental innovation is as important as wholesale transformation. The growing number of networked outliers of innovation raises questions about the false equation of whole system change with bureaucratic state reform. Although the influential literature on whole system change is rooted in a small number of English-speaking countries, transformational change on a system-wide basis already exists in Northern Europe and parts of the Global South. Last, the pandemic and other major disruptions to the global social order have produced conditions that are highly favorable to transformational change in the future.

New fire‐resistant ducting A new ducting system designed to handle corrosive and flammable gases has been developed jointly by TBA Industrial Products Ltd., Rochdale (Turner & Newall) and H. Hargreaves & Sons Ltd., Bury (the air handling and engineering of S.E.G.L.)

The idea of what constitutes rationality has always been central to moral philosophy as well as to modern social science and economics; regardless of the fact that its meaning has also greatly changed during the last five hundred years. While for Aristotle and his followers, full rationality implied not only effective deliberation of means towards any given end, but also that such end had to be rationally selected with the guidance of reason or “practical wisdom”, since the age of Thomas Hobbes and David Humes, the concept of rationality has been reduced to one of seeking the best means to any particular end, wise or unwise. In the process, reason was relegated to mere “reckoning”, of adding and subtracting according to arithmetic rules. The good was simply what was desired, motivated by a physiological appetite for survival or otherwise. As could have been expected, such mechanical mode of reasoning readily provided the rudiments of contemporary computational theories of action, in particular game theory (see Cudd, 1993).

FINANCIAL fears are only less cruel than those of war, and lead men into extravagances which they would repudiate indignantly in their cooler moments. If the doings of the Economy Committee at Manchester in relation to children's libraries, as described in the article by Mr. Lamb in our last issue, are true, we have in them an example of a kind of retrenchment at the expense of the young which we hope is without parallel and will have no imitators. Some reduc‐tion of estimates we hear of from this or that place, but in few has the stupid policy which urges that if we spend nothing we shall all become rich been carried into full effect. Libraries always have suffered in times of crisis, whatever they are; we accept that, though doubtfully; but we do know that the people need libraries.

This study examines principal rotation in China to gain empirical insights from the policy analysis and succession strategies that principals employ to gain internal and external support in their new schools.

We employed document analysis and a case study approach. Interviews were conducted with officials in 5 local educational agencies and 40 principals from 5 different regions who were undergoing rotation. Thematic analysis was used to identify common patterns and themes in the interview responses.

We explored how the principal-rotation policy was implemented, including the goals, standards, targeted principals, tools and other aspects of the policy in China. The study revealed the challenges faced by the rotated principals and their succession strategies.

Our study contributes to the field of educational leadership by shedding light on the implementation and impact of principal rotation in mainland China.

The findings of the Steering Group on Food Freshness in relation to the compulsory date marking of food contained in their Report, reviewed elsewhere in this issue, has brought within measurable distance the Regulations which were, in any case, promised for1975. The Group consider that the extension of voluntary open date marking systems will not be sufficiently rapid (or sufficiently comprehensive) to avoid the need or justify the delay in introducing legislation.

Any scheme whereby the treasures of a public reference library are made more widely known is sure of the sympathetic consideration of all serious librarians, for it is a lamentable fact that reference libraries generally, and especially those in the provinces, are very sparingly appreciated. Their primary function is largely defeated by the ignorance of those most likely to be benefited. When there is displayed any considerable use of the facilities for research and study, analysis will often show it to be a mere prostitution by competition‐mongers and acrostic‐solvers; the genuine student is seldom much in evidence.

The connotations, associations, custom and usages of a name often give to it an importance that far outweighs its etymological significance. Even with personal surnames or the name of a business. A man may use his own name but not if by so doing it inflicts injury on the interests and business of another person of the same name. After a long period of indecision, it is now generally accepted that in “passing off”, there is no difference between the use of a man's own name and any other descriptive word. The Courts will only intervene, however, when a personal name has become so much identified with a well‐known business as to be necessarily deceptive when used without qualification by anyone else in the same trade; i.e., only in rare cases. In the early years, the genesis of goods and trade protection, fraud was a necessary ingredient of “passing off”, an intent to deceive, but with the merging off Equity with the Common Law, the equitable rule that interference with “property” did not require fraudulent intent was practised in the Courts. First applying to trade marks, it was extended to trade names, business signs and symbols and business generally. Now it is unnecessary to prove any intent to deceive, merely that deception was probable, or that the plaintiff had suffered actual damage. The equitable principle was not established without a struggle, however, and the case of “Singer” Sewing Machines (1877) unified the two streams of law but not before it reached the House of Lords. On the way up, judical opinions differed; in the Court of Appeal, fraud was considered necessary—the defendant had removed any conception of fraud by expressingly declaring in advertisements that his “Singer” machines were manufactured by himself—so the Court found for him, but the House of Lords considered the name “Singer” was in itself a trade mark and there was no more need to prove fraud in the case of a trade name than a trade mark; Hence, the birth of the doctrine that fraud need not be proved, but their Lordships showed some hesitation in accepting property rights for trade names. If the name used is merely descriptive of goods, there can be no cause for action, but if it connotes goods manufactured by one firm or prepared from a formula or compsitional requirements prescribed by and invented by a firm or is the produce of a region, then others have no right to use it. It is a question of fact whether the name is the one or other. The burden of proof that a name or term in common use has become associated with an individual product is a heavy one; much heavier in proving an infringement of a trade mark.

“Corporate planning” is the term which, perhaps more than any other, epitomises the adoption of business management techniques by the public sector. In Britain, with massive local government reorganisation in 1974, many librarians were forced to come to terms with such techniques whether they liked it or not. Of course, in its purest sense corporate planning applies to the combined operation of an entire organisation be it local authority, university, government department or industrial firm. However, in this paper I do not intend discussing “the grand design” whereby the library is merely a component part of a greater body. Rather, it is my intention to view the library as the corporate body. It is a perfectly possible and very useful exercise to apply the principles of corporate planning, and the management techniques involved, to the running of a library or group of libraries. Indeed, many librarians have already done this either independently or as their part in the corporate plan of their parent organisation.