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In England, systematic school self-evaluation (SSE) began as model for school improvement. However, since 2000, and in the context of increasing moves toward ‘new public management’, it has become a policy priority for the Government which is inextricably linked to the inspection regime and risks becoming more closely associated with accountability than improvement. Such policies can, paradoxically, compromise school improvement (Fuhrman, 1993). This chapter will explore ways in which teachers and school leaders have attempted to engage in school self-evaluation in ways that allow them to maintain control of the evaluation agenda and retain the focus on improvement and pupils’ learning. It illustrates attempts by schools to engage with and reduce the negative side-effects of target-driven policies and the drive towards competition between schools. In particular, it will consider the benefits and challenges of inter-school collaboration through networking. It should certainly not be read as an endorsement of current policy developments in England and does not seek, as other chapters do in this volume, to address the key question of what kind of society we want? It offers a pragmatic exploration of some schools’ creative responses to the context in which they currently operate aimed at being more conducive to public rather than private good, that is meeting the needs of the ‘knowledge society’ as opposed to the ‘knowledge economy’ (Hargreaves, 2003).

There is no exaggeration in the claim that abstract-deductive political economy in pre-Tractarian Oxford was driven by Richard Whately and hence centred at Oriel College. At this time Oriel was defined by a group of intellectuals now commonly referred to as the Oriel Noetics, of whom Whately was one, and the nature of Oxford political economy in the opening decades of the nineteenth century (including William F. Lloyd's contribution to it) cannot be understood outside the context of the intellectual tradition established by the Oriel Noetics. The Noetics were unconventional reformist clerics (one could not use the slippery mid-Victorian word ‘liberal’, as they were predominantly conservative Whigs or reform-minded Tories of the Pitt mould, in which order and tradition were maintained through moderate, but not radical, change); admired rational thought and absent-mindedly tested social conventions with their speech; were unafraid to question religious shibboleths if they deemed them bereft of scriptural foundation (such as Sabbatarianism); deployed logical processes to bolster their religious beliefs, which they held in an unsentimental fashion, and thereby to some extent practised that most contradictory of creeds, a logical faith; and, most importantly for this chapter, constructed a Christian Political Economy by dichotomising knowledge into a theological domain, in which they inferred from scriptural evidence that individuals should pursue the ends of attaining specific virtues (not utility!), and a scientific domain, in which they deduced scientific laws that would enable individuals to achieve the ends of attaining these virtues. They looked upon the rising Romantic Movement in general and the spiritualist yearnings of the Oxford Tractarians in particular with simple incomprehension, if not disgust. They deplored with equal measure the Evangelicals' enthusiasms, willing incogitency and lack of institutional anchor, yet sought to establish a broader national church that included dissenters (but not Catholics). They were most prominent in the 1810s and 1820s before colliding violently in the 1830s with, and being sidelined by, the Tractarians, many of whom they had, ironically enough, mentored and promoted.²

Computer-aided/assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) supports qualitative and mixed methods researchers to organize, analyze, and explore data in a meaningful, and efficient, way. Successfully utilizing CAQDAS software can be challenging, particularly for the novice researcher. To assist all researchers 21 CAQDAS dilemmas are articulated. These relate to choosing, using, and getting started with the software, as well as writing about CAQDAS use. These dilemmas suggest there is no right way to use CAQDAS programs, rather the specific research project, along with researcher experience and philosophy, should drive the extent to which any project utilizes the extensive CAQDAS capabilities, while also encouraging the researcher(s) to drive their ideas and exploration beyond what they initially thought possible.