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As part of the work leading to the development of the National Healthy Schools Scheme, an audit was carried out of existing healthy schools schemes in England. This, together with an evaluation of healthy schools activities within eight pilot healthy schools partnerships throughout England funded by the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Employment, formed part of the research underpinning the creation of a National Healthy Schools Standard. Principles for effective working are identified, as well as difficulties likely to be encountered in creating and promoting such a standard.

Health‐related research and evaluation in school settings have grown in recent years as the needs to demonstrate accountability and effectiveness in health education and promotion have increased. The evaluation of the Wessex Healthy Schools Award (WHSA) scheme and its effectiveness in secondary schools took place between 1995 and 1998. Outlines what was planned and describes what actually happened and how the research team responded to unforeseen changes in the study design and implementation. Lists several recommendations for health or education personnel contemplating, or about to start, school‐based health education and promotion, arising from the WHSA evaluation experience.

It is argued that schools will need to adapt their management structures in order to meet the changing demands brought upon the education service by new legislation. In the same way as colleges of further and higher education, polytechnics and universities have all had to find new structures, schools will need to do the same in the 1990s.

Explores ways in which employers can be actively involved as equal partners in the processes of ensuring quality in education. In this case the focus is the Accreditation of Records of Achievement as developed by the Oxford Consortium for Educational Achievement. Using as case studies examples of practice within the consortium, examines the issues and philosophy behind such an approach. Recognizes that employers view education from a different, but no less valid, perspective. While this may be challenging, in the context of the OCEA accreditation process, it is not perceived as threatening by those involved in education. Concludes that the OCEA Accreditation Process for Records of Achievement provides a model for active collaboration between education and employment in such a way that the gap between them is bridged constructively and effectively.

This paper charts the progress of the health‐promoting school concept in Wales from a pilot project to a key component of mainstream health‐promotion activity. The paper particularly focuses on Wales’ participation in the European Network of Health‐Promoting Schools and on the current initiative, the Welsh Network of Healthy School Schemes. It also identifies the key lessons learned from the work in Wales, including the need to gain the support of the schools’ senior management, to appoint an enthusiastic school co‐ordinator and to plan clearly a limited number of actions, with achievable timescales.

This article presents the summary and main recommendations for companies, local partnerships and networks, primary schools, education authorities and initial teacher education institutions, of the RSA project “Industry Matters”.

Aims to guide teachers responsible for drugs education through Circular 4/95: Drug Prevention and Schools, which the Department for Education has recently sent to all schools, as well as through two other documents which the Department has made available: Drug Education: Curriculum Guidance for Schools, produced by the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority, and A Digest of Drug Education Resources for Schools. Poses questions for teachers to answer and suggestions for them to follow so that teachers may formulate a policy, design a programme and decide on methodology and resources appropriate to their individual institutions. Should be read in parallel with the documents, as it makes many references to them.

The purpose of this paper is to report a qualitative study exploring how parents have been included in school governance in Hong Kong and in what ways their roles have been evolving in state education.

The qualitative method was adopted in this exploratory study, the findings of which help provide insights for conceptualization of phases of progression of the development of how parents have been included in state education in Hong Kong. The method of exploration is two‐fold. First, evidence was obtained through examining Hong Kong's educational policy documents with regard to parent‐school relations in the last two decades and taking reference to the literature and research studies on parent involvement in Hong Kong. Second, two focus group interviews were conducted with parents and teachers respectively, in order to obtain data of development of the relationship between home and school in times of reforms.

Derived from the findings, four phases of development of how parents are included in school governance are conceptualized. They are: parents as unwelcome guests – separate responsibilities; parents as volunteers – encouraging participation; parents as clients: accountability approach; and parents as school governors – shared responsibilities. The issue of whether including parents in school governance is reality or rhetoric emerging from the data was discussed.

The findings of this study contribute to the international studies on parent involvement in school governance, so as to formulate an effective policy that helps facilitate parents as “real” but not “rhetorical” school governors.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of mixed methods research in a major three year project and focuses on the contribution of quantitative and qualitative approaches to study school improvement. It discusses the procedures and multiple data sources used in studying improvement using the example of a recent study of the role of leadership in promoting improvement in primary and secondary schools’ academic results in England. Although the definition of improvement used was based on robust analyses of data on students’ academic outcomes, the mixed methods design enabled a broader perspective to be achieved.

The study illustrates how the multilevel analysis of students’ national assessment and examination results based on national data sets for primary and secondary schools in England were used to investigate the concept of academic effectiveness based on value-added methodology. Using three successive years of national results a purposive sample of schools were identified that could be classified as both effective and improving over the period 2003-2005. In addition, surveys and interviews were used to gather evidence of the role of stakeholder perceptions in investigating school improvement strategies and processes.

National student attainment data sets were used for the identification of improving and effective schools and revealed the importance of considering their different starting points in their classification of three distinctive improvement groups. The combination of quantitative survey data from headteachers and key staff with qualitative case study data enabled a range of analysis strategies and the development of statistical models and deeper understanding of the role of leadership.

The limitations of a focus on only academic outcomes and “value-added” measures of student progress are discussed. The challenges and opportunities faced in analysis and integration of the different sources of evidence are briefly explored.

The study contributes to the knowledge base on the identification of school improvement and use of performance data. The findings on strategies and processes that support improvement are of relevance to policy makers and practitioners, especially school leaders.

The mixed methods design adopted in the study enabled the research to combine rigorous quantitative and in-depth qualitative data in new ways to extend and make new claims to knowledge about the role of school leadership in promoting school improvement based on the study of effective and improved schools’ experiences.

Seeks to explain the survival of the Local Education Authority (LEA) as an organizational form despite the significant reform of UK education that created a hostile environment for them.

Adopting a historical perspective and drawing on neo‐institutional sociology, analyses the structuration of the educational field and the survival strategies of three LEAs, from 1988 to the mid‐1990s. The evidence base is some 100 semi‐structured interviews conducted between 1993 and 1997 with local education officers, head teachers and members of Boards of Governors.

The paper shows that LEAs have been able to continually transmute structures and reproduce social systems that secured their continued and major involvement in education. Coping strategies were designed that reduced their own bureaucracy, built partnerships and new patterns of coalitions with schools, and discouraged a broadening of the organizational field.

Although the evidence comes from just three LEAs, survival strategies appear to have been adopted across the country, but there may be regional variations that could be further explored. In addition, parents were not interviewed, and issues of parent power and the nature of relationships between parents and other participants in the organizational field would be fruitful areas for future research.

In practice the system of education remains dominated by the producers of education, although the head teacher has more and the LEA less power than previously.

The historical perspective offers an understanding of institutional context by focusing on changes over time and generates insights on how organizations behave and develop.