Books by Jake Madden
Routledge , 2024
Drawing on ten years of research into whole-of-school teaching improvement, this engaging text ex... more Drawing on ten years of research into whole-of-school teaching improvement, this engaging text explains what teaching improvement requires, how it is achieved, and how to maintain it in your classroom and school.
Based on studies involving real schools and real teachers, The Teaching Improvement Agenda is focused on what really matters for teachers and leaders in today’s schools. The book begins with an examination of the education field to identify the fundamental elements which inform and generate teaching improvement. This lays the foundations for an instructive set of innovative, research-informed strategies which have been designed to empower the teacher and school leader to improve teaching across the whole school. The book closes with a series of case studies that demonstrate these approaches in action.
Answering the "what?" and "how?" questions of teaching improvement, this book is an essential guide for school leaders and teachers, as well as instructors and students in initial teacher education.
School leaders looking at re-organising their schools as a means to drive school improvement will... more School leaders looking at re-organising their schools as a means to drive school improvement will read this book through the lens of their own school’s journey. This book highlights the impact leaders can have on leading school improvement and ultimately raise student outcomes. While it is not expected that schools will adopt the Al Yasat School Improvement Model, but rather, understand the processes and the thinking that leaders need to undertake in order to make meaningful educational gains.
Education Systems across the globe are focusing their attentions on the quality of teaching and l... more Education Systems across the globe are focusing their attentions on the quality of teaching and learning that is occurring in their schools. The challenge for schools, their leaders and the teachers, ---‘the engine room’ so to speak of quality education provision--- is how to pragmatically and sustainably improve. While the published literature provides guidance and nominates effective leadership, opportunities for professional dialogue and collaborations and learning teaching content in context as potent strategies, Jake Madden argues that achievement in such agendas also requires the establishment in teachers, of what is termed, 'the teacher researcher capability'.
Jake Madden, an education leader and researcher of note, has pioneered the concept of Teacher as Researchers in various educational settings across the globe. In this book Madden provides a set of teacher researcher based case studies which demonstrate, not only the development of new classroom knowledge, but a viable means through which such new knowledge is actioned for student learning impacts.
Oxford Global Press (Publisher), 2015
From three of Australia’s leading teaching and teacher education researchers comes a book about c... more From three of Australia’s leading teaching and teacher education researchers comes a book about creating the outstanding school.
Lynch, Madden and Doe provide an easy to read text that is all about ensuring every student gets a quality education. Each chapter explains, in easy to read terms, a set of ideas and research-based strategies that schools and their teachers can employ to reform their school. The book identifies for the reader and then explains the key research-based elements that lie at the heart of creating the outstanding school. The book features the Collaborative Teacher Learning Model and the elements of ‘teaching,’ ‘leadership’, ‘coaching’, ‘mentoring’, ‘feedback’, ‘data driven decision-making’, ‘high impact instruction’ and the idea of ‘teachers as researchers’ as the embodiment of a school-based strategy for creating the outstanding school.
This book is compulsive reading for teachers and school leaders and those who care about our children’s education future.
Education across the world is seeing greater scrutiny on the role of the teacher as the focus on ... more Education across the world is seeing greater scrutiny on the role of the teacher as the focus on international measures like PISA, TIMMS and PiRLS offer comparative data on student achievement. The upshot of this spotlight is the identification and the subsequent examination of what effective teachers do to raise student attainment levels. Traditionally, teaching was concerned with the teacher controlling the learning environment; deciding the content, standing and delivering the learning, expecting to fill all students with the same knowledge, at the same time, using the same teaching tools.
Fortunately, education has evolved into a multifaceted array of pedagogies as we refocus our purpose for educating our children. The movement from the factory model of schooling1 through to the knowledge economy era and now into the learning to learn era2 has seen the necessity of the teacher continually learning new teaching pedagogies and skill requisites. The notion that all the teacher needs to know is taught at university has long disappeared. The onset of life-long learning practices, coupled with our graduated knowledge of how one learns, has forced the classroom teacher to keep up with new “technologies of and for learning”.
The purpose of this book in short is to showcase not only the talented Al Yasat Private School teachers and how they are influencing the future generations but more importantly, how expert teachers use action research as a vehicle for effecting school improvement.
To create the outstanding school you need to have outstanding teachers. Research tells us that to... more To create the outstanding school you need to have outstanding teachers. Research tells us that to strengthen the teaching proficiency of staff, schools need to take a collective and collaborative approach to growing the professional capacity within their teaching force.
This book is full of vignettes illustrating how professional learning can be integrated into the day-to-day work of schools and, in doing so, focus on continuous improvement, enhancing teaching quality and raising student achievement. In presenting best practice exemplars to illustrate how professional learning can positively impact teaching quality and school improvement, this book will inspire each classroom teacher and school leader. It will support them in creating and sustaining a strong performance culture.
In an era of evidence based practice the spotlight is shining brightly on teacher performance. Consequently, professional learning opportunities where teachers engage in close collaboration with colleagues is essential for improving teacher’s knowledge about content, students, and pedagogy. Teachers become more skilful in planning for teaching and learning when they work with colleagues to put research into practice through supportive, sustained and continuous professional learning.
When teachers lead from the middle to action school improvement strategies, the impact upon school life is significant. Teachers who analyse and reflect on how students learn best and make changes to improve their own teaching practice is a sign of instructional leadership. Teachers as Researchers: Creating Outstanding Schools is evidence of instructional leadership in action. Each chapter explores an action research project that engaged Expert Teams in meaningful professional learning in a personalized and context-specific approach.
From three of Australia’s leading teaching and teacher education researchers comes a book about c... more From three of Australia’s leading teaching and teacher education researchers comes a book about creating the outstanding school.
Lynch, Madden and Doe provide an easy to read text that is all about ensuring every student gets a quality education. Each chapter explains, in easy to read terms, a set of ideas and research-based strategies that schools and their teachers can employ to reform their school. The book identifies for the reader and then explains the key research-based elements that lie at the heart of creating the outstanding school. The book features the Collaborative Teacher Learning Model and the elements of ‘teaching,’ ‘leadership’, ‘coaching’, ‘mentoring’, ‘feedback’, ‘data driven decision-making’, ‘high impact instruction’ and the idea of ‘teachers as researchers’ as the embodiment of a school-based strategy for creating the outstanding school.
Schools today face a different kind of world to the one that most teachers participated in when t... more Schools today face a different kind of world to the one that most teachers participated in when they were young. For example, the structure and character of families has changed from the nuclear family of the ‘home’ and the nurturing family assumed in much of the curriculum development today (REF). There are new patterns of employment and underemployment, greater mobility and new concentrations of poverty in both rural and urban settings. School systems and their students reflect such social and demographic changes and as society enters a fundamentally new era in human society---the Knowledge Age--- the pressure on schools to address these challenges intensifies (REF).
Over the past decade or so the schooling system has come into sharp focus as governments of all persuasions realize the need for a robust and effective education sector in an emerging knowledge based society. Government initiatives such as; ‘MySchool’; NAPLAN; the introduction of a national curriculum and various state based accountability mechanisms are signals for ‘change demands’ in the current schooling paradigm: at centre of this commotion is the school principal. In specific terms, the work of the principal, like that of teachers, has become more complex. There is a greater emphasis upon raising levels of student engagement and achievement for social and economic purposes. Consequently, assessing school performance through a range of formal accountability measures has now become common place (REF). As the emphasis upon rationalistic means-ends approaches to education has grown, models of school effectiveness have been characterised by segmented rather than holistic approaches to the education of students and many teachers have become disenchanted with teaching. Having now served as a school principal for close on twenty years, I can confirm such pressures for change.
This brings me to the purpose of the book. The book essentially is about my experiences in enhancing leadership capacity within the school. I decided to compile the book for two reasons. First, I wanted to share an approach that I used to build strong relationships between my role as principal and staff members which has proven to be a key factor in raising student standards in the schools that I have lead. Second, I wanted to present to fellow principals and those who aspire to same, an evidence-based case study into the principalship as a point for professional discourse and for strengthening the knowledge base around effective school leadership. The underlying theme in this book is a discourse the says ‘the school principal has a critical role in developing a school culture that is focused on enhanced learning outcomes and that teachers as leaders within the school is a powerful extension to the engendering of change and improvement within the school’.
Let me now outline the structure of the book. This book has two inter-related parts. Part One houses Chapters One through to Five and introduces the notion of teacher as leader and contextualises how such a notion enhances school improvement. This outline provides the reader with an understanding of the foundations on which the study into how the principal not only builds leadership capacities within each teacher but also how the distributing of leadership responsibilities positively impacts upon student learning.
Part Two of the book draws on a qualitative study into how principals nurtured teacher leadership and provides strong evidence for the discourse outlined in Part One as well as providing a way forward for leaders. Of interest to principals and school leaders are the four key research questions that guided the study. Answering these questions will I argue provides school leaders with a rich array of strategies to lead improvement in their own school settings. In essences the following questions are at the heart of what I think school leaders need to commit to when developing a culture for school improvement.
• What factors are perceived by staff to impact on school improvement experiences initiated by the school leaders?
• How do principals nurture the professional development of the school curriculum officer and teachers?
• What motivates teachers to remain committed to teaching and learning?
• How do principals engage teachers in the school reform process?
Part Two concludes with a number of practical stratagems for school leaders to consider when building a school improvement climate in their schools.
Book Chapters by Jake Madden
This article examines the premise of the Outstanding School. In dealing with such a premise, the ... more This article examines the premise of the Outstanding School. In dealing with such a premise, the paper examines what such schools have in common by detailing four key 'pillars'. Implicated in these pillars is the concept of leadership and the development of an appropriate school staffing culture. Building on the theme of leading change the article provides an insight into how 'change' can be successfully implemented in a school when leadership is focused on what matters.
Chapters in this book have provided an insight into themes which inform the improving teaching ag... more Chapters in this book have provided an insight into themes which inform the improving teaching agenda. This chapter condense key messages therein to generate an insight-an answer if you like-into 'how to' engender, support and sustain ongoing teaching improvement. To that end this chapter explores four key and inert-related elements: embedding of a research culture; the power of collaboration; the use and role of professional dialogue and the importance of improving teaching in context.
Chapters in this book have provided an insight into themes which inform the improving teaching ag... more Chapters in this book have provided an insight into themes which inform the improving teaching agenda. This chapter condense key messages therein to generate an insight-an answer if you like-into 'how to' engender, support and sustain ongoing teaching improvement. To that end this chapter explores four key and inert-related elements: embedding of a research culture; the power of collaboration; the use and role of professional dialogue and the importance of improving teaching in context.
This chapter is about a project designed to create the ‘outstanding school’. Lynch and Madden pro... more This chapter is about a project designed to create the ‘outstanding school’. Lynch and Madden provide an insight into a strategy that brings to bear current knowledge about effective teaching and learning into a cohesive whole of school strategy for teaching improvement. This strategy is termed the Collaborative Teacher Learning Model or CTLM and was developed and implemented in a ‘pilot school’ and now a number of ‘other’ schools globally. The results of this extraordinary project are detailed in this chapter.
The importance of preparing learners for the globalized world is being realized by school leaders... more The importance of preparing learners for the globalized world is being realized by school leaders, teachers, parents and national policymakers all around the world. The flow on impact has seen the introduction of international education programs in schools becoming increasingly popular as education agencies strive to increase their international assessment ratings. In a rapidly evolving, technology-mediated global world, students must not only possess strong skills in areas such as literacy, mathematics and science, but they must also be adept at skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, persistence, collaboration and curiosity. All too often, however, students in many countries are not attaining these skills. In this context, (ie countries with redundant teaching pedagogies, lack of teacher advancement and poor performance as identified by international assessments) this chapter offers insight into how schools are addressing the issue of skills gaps.
Education Innovation: Teachers as Researchers
Over the past 50 years global developments in education have transformed many societies (Lynch, 2... more Over the past 50 years global developments in education have transformed many societies (Lynch, 2012). These developments in education have occurred through the building of teacher professional capital (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012, p. 64), the introduction of testing regimes and teacher accountability frameworks and the development of corresponding teacher performance culture in schools (OECD, 2010)
Education Innovation: Teachers as Researchers, 2014
This chapter provides a modest examination of the benchmarking premise from an education systems ... more This chapter provides a modest examination of the benchmarking premise from an education systems perspective. The article begins with a defining of benchmarking, beginning with its history, before reviewing the Australian perspective on such findings. The chapter concludes with a discussion of benchmarking as a national policy initiative and how such impacts teacher practice and student learning.
Education Innovation: Teachers as Researchers, 2014
This article is about teaching and the pressures for changes that are encouraging schools to beco... more This article is about teaching and the pressures for changes that are encouraging schools to become more ‘student centred’. The motivation for the article lies in the implementation of a whole of school reform program known as the ‘Collaborative Learning Model’ (CLM) (Madden, 2014) which was developed and implemented in St. Augustine’s Primary School (SAPS) in 2009. The model embeds a collaborative approach to curriculum development and pedagogy. At the centre of this approach is a challenge for teachers to individualize their instruction. The concern for this article is one of context, where we seek to identify the impetus for such change, and as such, we examine the associated literature for keys of references.
In today’s classrooms the role of the teacher is more important than ever before with research (H... more In today’s classrooms the role of the teacher is more important than ever before with research (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012; Hattie, 2003; Schleicher, 2012) placing greater importance on the teacher as decision maker rather than simply a facilitator of the curriculum. Teachers need to be able to not only draw upon their curricula knowledge but also be able to discern appropriate pedagogical
strategies to meet the needs of the individual learner.
Teachers Talk About What's Important: Papers from 2012 International Teacher Education Dialogue Conference
"As governmental and educational authorities continue to focus on teacher practice as a vehicle t... more "As governmental and educational authorities continue to focus on teacher practice as a vehicle to improve student performance, the consequence is on schools to address/review their mechanisms for supporting teacher improvement. This chapter highlights the need for teachers to become more responsible for their own learning in order to meet the growing learning needs of their students. A new era of learning calls for new teacher skills to embrace a new pedagogy in the classroom. Consequently, this paper proposes an approach used by St Augustine’s Primary School to improve school outcomes guided by a comprehensive roadmap for focusing on implementing curriculum reform and the pedagogical underpinnings needed to achieve such reform. It also offers direction for assessment reform, employment of the 21st century teacher and the need for appropriate tertiary training strategies, the leadership development of staff, and the role of collaborative technologies in engaging professional learning. It argues the way forward for improving teacher practice, at the school level, requires a renewed look at how professional development is not only seen by educators but also how educational systems offer professional development."
In this chapter I provide an overview of the induction and support structures for beginning teach... more In this chapter I provide an overview of the induction and support structures for beginning teachers at St Augustine School in NSW. It is an exemplar of such approaches and is presented as an insight for the new-to-service teacher. It describes the kinds of things that a new teacher has to consider after an appointment is made.
Uploads
Books by Jake Madden
Based on studies involving real schools and real teachers, The Teaching Improvement Agenda is focused on what really matters for teachers and leaders in today’s schools. The book begins with an examination of the education field to identify the fundamental elements which inform and generate teaching improvement. This lays the foundations for an instructive set of innovative, research-informed strategies which have been designed to empower the teacher and school leader to improve teaching across the whole school. The book closes with a series of case studies that demonstrate these approaches in action.
Answering the "what?" and "how?" questions of teaching improvement, this book is an essential guide for school leaders and teachers, as well as instructors and students in initial teacher education.
Jake Madden, an education leader and researcher of note, has pioneered the concept of Teacher as Researchers in various educational settings across the globe. In this book Madden provides a set of teacher researcher based case studies which demonstrate, not only the development of new classroom knowledge, but a viable means through which such new knowledge is actioned for student learning impacts.
Lynch, Madden and Doe provide an easy to read text that is all about ensuring every student gets a quality education. Each chapter explains, in easy to read terms, a set of ideas and research-based strategies that schools and their teachers can employ to reform their school. The book identifies for the reader and then explains the key research-based elements that lie at the heart of creating the outstanding school. The book features the Collaborative Teacher Learning Model and the elements of ‘teaching,’ ‘leadership’, ‘coaching’, ‘mentoring’, ‘feedback’, ‘data driven decision-making’, ‘high impact instruction’ and the idea of ‘teachers as researchers’ as the embodiment of a school-based strategy for creating the outstanding school.
This book is compulsive reading for teachers and school leaders and those who care about our children’s education future.
Fortunately, education has evolved into a multifaceted array of pedagogies as we refocus our purpose for educating our children. The movement from the factory model of schooling1 through to the knowledge economy era and now into the learning to learn era2 has seen the necessity of the teacher continually learning new teaching pedagogies and skill requisites. The notion that all the teacher needs to know is taught at university has long disappeared. The onset of life-long learning practices, coupled with our graduated knowledge of how one learns, has forced the classroom teacher to keep up with new “technologies of and for learning”.
The purpose of this book in short is to showcase not only the talented Al Yasat Private School teachers and how they are influencing the future generations but more importantly, how expert teachers use action research as a vehicle for effecting school improvement.
This book is full of vignettes illustrating how professional learning can be integrated into the day-to-day work of schools and, in doing so, focus on continuous improvement, enhancing teaching quality and raising student achievement. In presenting best practice exemplars to illustrate how professional learning can positively impact teaching quality and school improvement, this book will inspire each classroom teacher and school leader. It will support them in creating and sustaining a strong performance culture.
In an era of evidence based practice the spotlight is shining brightly on teacher performance. Consequently, professional learning opportunities where teachers engage in close collaboration with colleagues is essential for improving teacher’s knowledge about content, students, and pedagogy. Teachers become more skilful in planning for teaching and learning when they work with colleagues to put research into practice through supportive, sustained and continuous professional learning.
When teachers lead from the middle to action school improvement strategies, the impact upon school life is significant. Teachers who analyse and reflect on how students learn best and make changes to improve their own teaching practice is a sign of instructional leadership. Teachers as Researchers: Creating Outstanding Schools is evidence of instructional leadership in action. Each chapter explores an action research project that engaged Expert Teams in meaningful professional learning in a personalized and context-specific approach.
Lynch, Madden and Doe provide an easy to read text that is all about ensuring every student gets a quality education. Each chapter explains, in easy to read terms, a set of ideas and research-based strategies that schools and their teachers can employ to reform their school. The book identifies for the reader and then explains the key research-based elements that lie at the heart of creating the outstanding school. The book features the Collaborative Teacher Learning Model and the elements of ‘teaching,’ ‘leadership’, ‘coaching’, ‘mentoring’, ‘feedback’, ‘data driven decision-making’, ‘high impact instruction’ and the idea of ‘teachers as researchers’ as the embodiment of a school-based strategy for creating the outstanding school.
Over the past decade or so the schooling system has come into sharp focus as governments of all persuasions realize the need for a robust and effective education sector in an emerging knowledge based society. Government initiatives such as; ‘MySchool’; NAPLAN; the introduction of a national curriculum and various state based accountability mechanisms are signals for ‘change demands’ in the current schooling paradigm: at centre of this commotion is the school principal. In specific terms, the work of the principal, like that of teachers, has become more complex. There is a greater emphasis upon raising levels of student engagement and achievement for social and economic purposes. Consequently, assessing school performance through a range of formal accountability measures has now become common place (REF). As the emphasis upon rationalistic means-ends approaches to education has grown, models of school effectiveness have been characterised by segmented rather than holistic approaches to the education of students and many teachers have become disenchanted with teaching. Having now served as a school principal for close on twenty years, I can confirm such pressures for change.
This brings me to the purpose of the book. The book essentially is about my experiences in enhancing leadership capacity within the school. I decided to compile the book for two reasons. First, I wanted to share an approach that I used to build strong relationships between my role as principal and staff members which has proven to be a key factor in raising student standards in the schools that I have lead. Second, I wanted to present to fellow principals and those who aspire to same, an evidence-based case study into the principalship as a point for professional discourse and for strengthening the knowledge base around effective school leadership. The underlying theme in this book is a discourse the says ‘the school principal has a critical role in developing a school culture that is focused on enhanced learning outcomes and that teachers as leaders within the school is a powerful extension to the engendering of change and improvement within the school’.
Let me now outline the structure of the book. This book has two inter-related parts. Part One houses Chapters One through to Five and introduces the notion of teacher as leader and contextualises how such a notion enhances school improvement. This outline provides the reader with an understanding of the foundations on which the study into how the principal not only builds leadership capacities within each teacher but also how the distributing of leadership responsibilities positively impacts upon student learning.
Part Two of the book draws on a qualitative study into how principals nurtured teacher leadership and provides strong evidence for the discourse outlined in Part One as well as providing a way forward for leaders. Of interest to principals and school leaders are the four key research questions that guided the study. Answering these questions will I argue provides school leaders with a rich array of strategies to lead improvement in their own school settings. In essences the following questions are at the heart of what I think school leaders need to commit to when developing a culture for school improvement.
• What factors are perceived by staff to impact on school improvement experiences initiated by the school leaders?
• How do principals nurture the professional development of the school curriculum officer and teachers?
• What motivates teachers to remain committed to teaching and learning?
• How do principals engage teachers in the school reform process?
Part Two concludes with a number of practical stratagems for school leaders to consider when building a school improvement climate in their schools.
Book Chapters by Jake Madden
strategies to meet the needs of the individual learner.
Based on studies involving real schools and real teachers, The Teaching Improvement Agenda is focused on what really matters for teachers and leaders in today’s schools. The book begins with an examination of the education field to identify the fundamental elements which inform and generate teaching improvement. This lays the foundations for an instructive set of innovative, research-informed strategies which have been designed to empower the teacher and school leader to improve teaching across the whole school. The book closes with a series of case studies that demonstrate these approaches in action.
Answering the "what?" and "how?" questions of teaching improvement, this book is an essential guide for school leaders and teachers, as well as instructors and students in initial teacher education.
Jake Madden, an education leader and researcher of note, has pioneered the concept of Teacher as Researchers in various educational settings across the globe. In this book Madden provides a set of teacher researcher based case studies which demonstrate, not only the development of new classroom knowledge, but a viable means through which such new knowledge is actioned for student learning impacts.
Lynch, Madden and Doe provide an easy to read text that is all about ensuring every student gets a quality education. Each chapter explains, in easy to read terms, a set of ideas and research-based strategies that schools and their teachers can employ to reform their school. The book identifies for the reader and then explains the key research-based elements that lie at the heart of creating the outstanding school. The book features the Collaborative Teacher Learning Model and the elements of ‘teaching,’ ‘leadership’, ‘coaching’, ‘mentoring’, ‘feedback’, ‘data driven decision-making’, ‘high impact instruction’ and the idea of ‘teachers as researchers’ as the embodiment of a school-based strategy for creating the outstanding school.
This book is compulsive reading for teachers and school leaders and those who care about our children’s education future.
Fortunately, education has evolved into a multifaceted array of pedagogies as we refocus our purpose for educating our children. The movement from the factory model of schooling1 through to the knowledge economy era and now into the learning to learn era2 has seen the necessity of the teacher continually learning new teaching pedagogies and skill requisites. The notion that all the teacher needs to know is taught at university has long disappeared. The onset of life-long learning practices, coupled with our graduated knowledge of how one learns, has forced the classroom teacher to keep up with new “technologies of and for learning”.
The purpose of this book in short is to showcase not only the talented Al Yasat Private School teachers and how they are influencing the future generations but more importantly, how expert teachers use action research as a vehicle for effecting school improvement.
This book is full of vignettes illustrating how professional learning can be integrated into the day-to-day work of schools and, in doing so, focus on continuous improvement, enhancing teaching quality and raising student achievement. In presenting best practice exemplars to illustrate how professional learning can positively impact teaching quality and school improvement, this book will inspire each classroom teacher and school leader. It will support them in creating and sustaining a strong performance culture.
In an era of evidence based practice the spotlight is shining brightly on teacher performance. Consequently, professional learning opportunities where teachers engage in close collaboration with colleagues is essential for improving teacher’s knowledge about content, students, and pedagogy. Teachers become more skilful in planning for teaching and learning when they work with colleagues to put research into practice through supportive, sustained and continuous professional learning.
When teachers lead from the middle to action school improvement strategies, the impact upon school life is significant. Teachers who analyse and reflect on how students learn best and make changes to improve their own teaching practice is a sign of instructional leadership. Teachers as Researchers: Creating Outstanding Schools is evidence of instructional leadership in action. Each chapter explores an action research project that engaged Expert Teams in meaningful professional learning in a personalized and context-specific approach.
Lynch, Madden and Doe provide an easy to read text that is all about ensuring every student gets a quality education. Each chapter explains, in easy to read terms, a set of ideas and research-based strategies that schools and their teachers can employ to reform their school. The book identifies for the reader and then explains the key research-based elements that lie at the heart of creating the outstanding school. The book features the Collaborative Teacher Learning Model and the elements of ‘teaching,’ ‘leadership’, ‘coaching’, ‘mentoring’, ‘feedback’, ‘data driven decision-making’, ‘high impact instruction’ and the idea of ‘teachers as researchers’ as the embodiment of a school-based strategy for creating the outstanding school.
Over the past decade or so the schooling system has come into sharp focus as governments of all persuasions realize the need for a robust and effective education sector in an emerging knowledge based society. Government initiatives such as; ‘MySchool’; NAPLAN; the introduction of a national curriculum and various state based accountability mechanisms are signals for ‘change demands’ in the current schooling paradigm: at centre of this commotion is the school principal. In specific terms, the work of the principal, like that of teachers, has become more complex. There is a greater emphasis upon raising levels of student engagement and achievement for social and economic purposes. Consequently, assessing school performance through a range of formal accountability measures has now become common place (REF). As the emphasis upon rationalistic means-ends approaches to education has grown, models of school effectiveness have been characterised by segmented rather than holistic approaches to the education of students and many teachers have become disenchanted with teaching. Having now served as a school principal for close on twenty years, I can confirm such pressures for change.
This brings me to the purpose of the book. The book essentially is about my experiences in enhancing leadership capacity within the school. I decided to compile the book for two reasons. First, I wanted to share an approach that I used to build strong relationships between my role as principal and staff members which has proven to be a key factor in raising student standards in the schools that I have lead. Second, I wanted to present to fellow principals and those who aspire to same, an evidence-based case study into the principalship as a point for professional discourse and for strengthening the knowledge base around effective school leadership. The underlying theme in this book is a discourse the says ‘the school principal has a critical role in developing a school culture that is focused on enhanced learning outcomes and that teachers as leaders within the school is a powerful extension to the engendering of change and improvement within the school’.
Let me now outline the structure of the book. This book has two inter-related parts. Part One houses Chapters One through to Five and introduces the notion of teacher as leader and contextualises how such a notion enhances school improvement. This outline provides the reader with an understanding of the foundations on which the study into how the principal not only builds leadership capacities within each teacher but also how the distributing of leadership responsibilities positively impacts upon student learning.
Part Two of the book draws on a qualitative study into how principals nurtured teacher leadership and provides strong evidence for the discourse outlined in Part One as well as providing a way forward for leaders. Of interest to principals and school leaders are the four key research questions that guided the study. Answering these questions will I argue provides school leaders with a rich array of strategies to lead improvement in their own school settings. In essences the following questions are at the heart of what I think school leaders need to commit to when developing a culture for school improvement.
• What factors are perceived by staff to impact on school improvement experiences initiated by the school leaders?
• How do principals nurture the professional development of the school curriculum officer and teachers?
• What motivates teachers to remain committed to teaching and learning?
• How do principals engage teachers in the school reform process?
Part Two concludes with a number of practical stratagems for school leaders to consider when building a school improvement climate in their schools.
strategies to meet the needs of the individual learner.