76 research outputs found
Making best practice standard - and lasting
No full textIf our schools were a research project, we’d say that while some aspects of our schools are highly valid, our overall academic systems aren’t reliable. If educators are to meet the challenge of leaving no child behind, schools will have to improve with much greater reliability. In the mid-1990s, a group of British secondary schools decided to work with three professors in a partnership to create High Reliability Schools, called HRS. This article summarizes the successful short- and long-term work of one of those groups, the secondary schools of Neath Port Talbot, Wale
Sustaining turn around at the school and district levels: the high reliability schools project at Sandfields School
No full textBeginning from 1 high-poverty, historically low-achieving secondary school's successful turnaround work, this article provides data relative to a successful school turnaround, the importance of external and system-level supports, and the importance of building for sustainable institutionalization of improvements. The evidence suggests the importance of creating a more nearly high-reliability set of reform supports at the school and district level
Improving secondary students’academic achievement through a focus on reform reliability. Four- and nine-year findings from the High Reliability Schools project
No full textFor two decades scholars have studied non-educational organisations where the demand to function correctly first time, every time is imperative. These organisations are known as high reliability organisations (HROs). They found that regardless of industry sector, HROs share a high number of characteristics. The High Reliablity School project demonstrates how HRO characteristics can be applied to shape whole school reform, and improve students’ academic achievement levels. This report summarises the four and nine year findings from a reform programme implemented across twelve secondary schools in Wales. The main aim of the program was to produce sustainable reform. The theoretical underpinnings of the High Reliability Schools project were based on twelve identified characteristics high reliability organisation (HRO) characteristics. These include*heightened awareness of the big picture*a clear and finite set of goals*constant and targeted professional development*aggressive recruiting of new staff *alertness to surprises or lapses The research shows that the twelve schools working with the HRO model since 1996 have made a substantial and sustainable gain in academic achievement
Opportunity and justice: building a valuable and sustaining educational experience for disenfranchised and disengaged youth
No full textBuilding a valuable and sustainable educational experience for disenfranchised and disengaged youth remains a challenge for secondary schools. This article examines successful schools located in areas of deprivation through the lens of Rawlsianism, particularly those ideas stated in A Theory of Justice (1971). Case studies from 16 schools located in England and Wales are examined for characteristics identified by heads, teachers and pupils which support their overcoming low performance, poverty and social disadvantage. The article reports both the 15-year quantitative outcomes of the schools on national performance measures and qualitative findings on strategies used by the schools and students to reach comparatively higher levels of success than students at more privileged schools reach. Central to these characteristics is the schools' ability to offer adequate basic rights or opportunities to all pupils. These schools were able to diminish social and economic inequalities for the least-advantaged students without diminishing these same opportunities for all students
Historic Pensacola
No full textPensacola was one of the earliest European settlement attempts in American history, and five flags have flown over the city since it was founded. Alternately abandoned and resettled, it served variously as a Spanish garrison, as a French outpost, and as the capital of the British colony of West Florida. It was the largest city in the state when Florida joined the United States in 1821 with Andrew Jackson presiding as provisional governor. Historic Pensacola is an excellent introduction to “The City of Five Flags” for residents and visitors alike. Alongside historic illustrations and contemporary color photographs, John Clune and Margo Stringfield guide readers from Pensacola’s hardtack beginnings in 1559 to the city’s tremendous growth in the early nineteenth century. They provide a unique look into the daily lives of the people who endured hardship, disease, and hurricanes to settle the Gulf coast frontier. This is a highly readable account of a city with a rich and fascinating past.BookPublishe
Doctors Tom and Sam Stringfield homes
No full textThis undated image showing Walnut Street with Doctor Tom Stringfield's (1872-1954) house on the left and his brother Doctor Sam Stringfield's (1881-1942) house on the right in the snow is part of the Sherrill Studio Collection. George Dexter Sherrill (1879–1931) opened the first photography studio in Haywood County on Depot Street in downtown Waynesville in 1902. In 1906 his studio became the first Eastman Kodak franchise west of Asheville and the third in North Carolina. Sherrill’s photography roots began in Jackson County where he learned the art from his brother-in-law, A. L. Ensley. Beulah Eloise Ashe Ensley (1899-1991) apprenticed with Sherrill in 1917 and worked in the studio with her husband, Sherrill’s nephew, Ralph Ensley (1894-1975) until Ralph’s death. The Ensley’s demolished the original studio in 1943, dug the site to street level, and built an International style building
Educational effectiveness research (EER): a state-of-the-art review
Get PDFResearch and scholarship into educational effectiveness research (EER) is comprehensively reviewed from the UK, The Netherlands, the US, Cyprus, Belgium, Sweden, France, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and other societies, dating from the field’s origins in the 1970s. Issues include its history, methodological and theoretical advances, scientific properties of school effects, processes at school and classroom level behind these effects, the somewhat limited translation of findings into policy and practice across the world, and future directions for research and practice in EER and for all of the discipline more generally. Future research needs are argued to be a further concentration upon teaching/teachers, more longitudinal studies, more work on possible context specificity, exploration of the cross-level transactions between schools and their teachers/classrooms, the adoption of “efficiency” as well as “effectiveness” as outcome measures, and a renewed focus upon the education of the disadvantaged, the original focus of our discipline when it began
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