Search results

This article traces the impact of educational policy on the role of primary head teachers in Britain spanning the end of the New Right and the start of the New Left policy implementation processes. It is based on the reported perceptions of a sample of primary school head teachers who have been in post over the entire seven year period. It is argued that the conceptual framework derived from the early work on headship in the UK is still appropriate to an analysis of the role of the primary school head as both leading professional and chief executive but that the emphasis has shifted from one in which heads are selected from aspects of their role to one in which heads are now required to extend their involvement in school management across the main aspects of both parts of their role.

The Kenyan Government, being concerned about the quality of school education, is attempting to increase teacher effectiveness and student learning. To achieve these goals, current in‐service programs need to be improved for all head teachers and teachers. Also, the role of the head teacher in promoting relevant teacher development requires greater recognition and administrative training. Organizations such as the Kenya Education Staff Institute need to be more involved in providing up‐to‐date staff development for all educational administrators and other educators. More attention also must be paid to effective induction, internships, strategic staff placements, financing, collaboration among provider organizations, and opinions of teachers concerning in‐service needs. Head teachers can do much to improve teaching and learning by using professional formative evaluation of their teachers.

Investigates how high school department heads may play a role in the alignment of teachers with a principal’s vision for the school. A survey study based on a theoretical position of the high school as a loosely‐coupled system consisting of departments with distinct subcultures and department heads who are influential leaders is reported. As expected, principal components and multiple regression analyses suggest that behaviours of the principal which emphasise and reinforce the school vision, predict the extent to which teachers support the principal’s vision. However, the congruence of department heads and the principal, in terms of school vision, is a much stronger predictor of teachers’ support for the vision. To a lesser extent, stronger structural coupling between departments also contributes to teachers’ support of the school vision.

To provide an overview of the various ways in which performance management is being implemented in England's primary schools.

A combination of documentary analysis, participant observation and audio‐taped interviews with primary school headteachers, deputy headteachers, teachers and school governors.

Information is provided on the following aspects of performance management in primary schools: the meaning and purposes of performance management in primary schools; education and training for performance management; formulation and content of performance management objectives; measuring the performance of heads and teachers; the effects of performance management on teachers' professional development; and perceptions concerning the appropriateness and reality of performance related pay.

Owing to the relatively small number of research participants, the findings might not be entirely representative of the opinions and experiences of primary school headteachers, teachers and governors throughout England as a whole. The value of introducing performance management into primary schools remains an area for further research.

A useful paper both for managers who are reviewing the operational effectiveness of performance management within their own schools, as well as for organisations that are considering the introduction of performance management into their school system.

This paper might be of particular value to national governments and smaller organisations that wish to consider how to evaluate the effectiveness of the various options before introducing a system of performance management into their whole primary school network.

This chapter draws on the school improvement research of EducAid, a small NGO with schools in Sierra Leone. We review the challenge of school improvement in the context of a low-income country still emerging from the aftermath of civil war, historically low expenditure on education as a per cent of GDP, low levels of trust between people and the government and lack of a reliable evidence base on which to plan school improvement. As predictable consequences of these challenges, the Ministry of Education recognises weaknesses in teacher recruitment and training, resulting in low student attainments. In a critique of adaptations of Hood's (1998) social cohesion/social regulation matrix we argue that it may not provide a coherent framework for understanding the process of school improvement in a low-income country such as Sierra Leone. Specifically, high social cohesion, when focussed on educational improvement, is likely to be necessary for school improvement, but the concept of social regulation is more complex. Although the structure is hierarchical, both at national and local levels, implying high social regulation, lines of accountability seldom work effectively, resulting in low social regulation. The picture is further complicated by evidence that socioeconomic status may be less influential in predicting students' attainments in low-income countries than in those with high and middle incomes. We argue that a professional learning network for head teachers is a necessary starting point for head teachers to stimulate debate on change strategies within their own schools.

The purpose of this paper is to explore teachers’ and head teachers’ perceptions of the implementation of intercultural education within the 13 intercultural primary schools (IPSs) in Greece.

The research methodology adopted is a mixed-method approach. It has been employed to add breadth and depth to the analysis and to achieve a better understanding of the issue examined. The research methods used include questionnaires administered and interviews conducted with teachers and head teachers.

The results indicate that great importance is attributed to the use of cooperative learning, group work and the interdisciplinary approach to implementing intercultural education. The findings provide suggestions for the creation of a school environment in which the intercultural dimension will be promoted, so as to meet the educational needs of native, foreign and, repatriate pupils attending both intercultural and mainstream primary schools.

The research study focusses on primary education. Nonetheless, some of the findings may be applicable to secondary education.

The contribution of this study to the topic examined is significant since this is a country-scale research conducted among the 13 IPSs – and there has been no previous research conducted in all 13 IPSs in Greece – and different pupil populations. Therefore, teachers’ views and practices allow international readership to be informed of the Greek intercultural context as well as to reflect a variety of teaching approaches and methods that can be well adopted by intercultural practitioners and which in turn can contribute to the improvement of the entire spectrum of pedagogy and pursue further research.

One of the most debated policy discourses that have engaged the attention of countries as well as the donor community is the varied pathways in improving the delivery of education through decentralisation and community participation. A key policy expectation is that through the active participation of the community, education quality and related outcomes would improve. The purpose of this paper is to explore the policy and practices of community and school partnership and the extent to which the “social contract” between communities and schools has been executed. It also explores the challenges they face as they engage in the governance of schools and how such engagement shapes education delivery.

This research was guided by a semi-structured interview schedule focused on two selected basic (i.e. primary and junior secondary) schools and their communities within a Municipality in a Coastal Region of Ghana as a single case for the study. Data were read thoroughly to identify common themes which included the multiple perspectives of participation, teacher management, conflicts and tensions, the role of community elites in school-community partnerships, capacity constraints, parental roles, and issues about the “social contract” among others.

Drawing on case study data, the paper argues that although decentralisation policies aim at strengthening local democracy and participation, they do not fully consider the conditions under which this might be achieved. Furthermore, in community–school partnership discourses, the impression has often times been given that the policy of education decentralisation is about what communities could do to support schools located within them. The fact of it being a two-way relationship is often not stressed, thus, diminishing the role the school plays or could play in the life of communities.

The study reinforced the point that the relationship was a two-way one based on reciprocity, and that it was the fulfilment of the expectations of both parties that shaped the relationship between them and determined the nature of communities’ participation in the governance of its schools. Anything to the contrary thus weakens the relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the data available and their use by Kenyan secondary school teachers and head teachers.

Using a qualitative case study design, this study utilised interviews and documentary evidence to explore the data available and their use within Kenyan schools.

The data available in Kenyan schools were similar except for context data which had slight variations between schools. Head teachers mainly used school-level data to monitor school functioning, plan and develop school-level policies which mainly focused on school and curriculum improvement but little on teacher improvement. Teacher improvement attempts were mostly via benchmarking. The results also show that Kenyan head teachers hide inspection reports from teachers and that some head teachers used data creatively than others. For example, one head teacher used data to start a feeding programme to support economically disadvantaged students. Teachers, however, mostly used classroom-level data to plan lessons and monitor students’ progress.

The study results may be used for data use comparative studies between developing and developed countries.

Based on the findings, data use training is needed to help Kenyan schools use data to improve teachers and teaching.

Accountability and data use are at the centre of many school improvement efforts the world over. The last two decades, for example, show pressure on schools to account for the resources invested and for the education they provide to children mainly in the form of data. Regrettably, studies pay little attention to data use in schools within developing countries such as Kenya.

Many studies have underlined data use for school improvement. However, these are mainly based on developed countries; studies on data use are still lacking on developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate data use in Indonesian primary schools. This study is based on a conceptual framework focusing on kinds of data, purposes of data use and factors promoting or hindering data use in schools.

The authors employed a mixed-method research design, with a total of 194 teachers and 28 heads of schools from 60 schools participating in the survey. Based on the survey analysis, six schools were purposively sampled for a multiple-case study approach.

The results show that Indonesian primary schools have similar kinds of data available and most data are used for accountability purposes only. These findings might be explained by the government trying to counter-balance the schools’ autonomy, so that the focus of data use seems to be more on accountability than on school development and instructional purposes. The results also reveal that the factors had a different influence for each data use purpose: high data use schools provided insight into promoting factors, while the low data user schools provided an understanding of hindering factors.

This study makes a scientific contribution by offering understanding of data use in a different context. Indonesia has become decentralized in most state functions, including education. Therefore, this study can be used as a guideline for future studies of data use in other developing countries context in supporting the decentralization of educational systems.