This article examines processes of educational reform and change in a post-Communist Eastern European country. Focusing on the experiences and challenges facing one geographical community in Sibiu County, Romania, an attempt is made to understand some of the macro and micro factors, influences and external policy drivers, shaping the organization…

This article considers a school community initiating change in pedagogical practices to complement new-build premises in the context of demands for school improvement, but constraints on autonomy. We investigate how school leaders planned the change towards enquiry-based learning in flexible spaces, and how teaching staff prepared for the coming…

In this article, the author presents a review of his extended research engagement with disadvantaged young people and their education. He challenges the dominant neoliberal model of school reform based on business values and the "managerial school" as alien to educational values. He introduces various stages of research he and his…

This article presents a model of teacher research supported by academic partners to develop a better understanding of the barriers to education faced by young people growing up in poverty. It critiques politicians' demands for teachers to "close the gap" for ignoring the cumulative intergenerational effects of deprivation. The…

This article presents a case study of a primary school that engaged with the Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievement in Schools (IDEAS) Project, and moved to the sustaining phase over a period of three years. It reports how the students, who were 98 percent English as a second language, improved their reading and numeracy during this time and…

Much has been written about what constitutes effective literacy teaching and learning, the power of effective "teacher talk" and the impact on student learning outcomes. There is a growing body of research into pedagogical change to improve literacy outcomes and the implementation of schoolwide approaches to teaching and learning,…

The term "schoolwide pedagogy" was once rarely heard and yet has now become a part of most discussions around school improvement. But what does it really mean and why is the presence of a schoolwide pedagogical framework important? Some would say that in their school the adoption of an authoritative approach such as Habits of Mind,…

Government schools in Abu Dhabi, as part of wide-scale educational reforms undertaken in the whole of the United Arab Emirates, have undergone massive school improvement developments over the past seven years. Over the course of these years, the reality of student life for those in government schools has been widely altered. This research explores…

This article describes the development and validation of a six-scale survey to assess school climate in terms of students' perceptions of the degree to which they feel welcome and connected, together with a scale to assess students' perceptions of bullying. The development of each survey involved a multi-stage approach, including: 1) an extensive…

This article connects arguments in the field of integrated and multi-professional working concerning the need to promote a strengths-based approach to children, childhood and children's services with writing about creativity in schooling. It utilizes strength-based and social justice approaches to encourage professionals who work with children and…

The contemporary attempts to tackle poverty and child poverty in the United Kingdom have been seriously hindered by the effects of the economic crisis (Hirsch, 2008a; Mooney, 2011). The prevailing discourses of the recession and intergenerational poverty can lead to a view that the effects of child poverty and the consequent detrimental impact on…

This article is concerned to respond to recent UK governments' attitudes to teachers, who are predominantly women, and who are denied a voice and sense of professionalism. It looks to the role of teacher research in school decision-making, including school improvement, historically in England, which set a pioneering example in years before the…

This article examines how, through uncovering collaborative leadership, the whole school staff is able to understand its common endeavours to support heterogeneous students' fluent learning paths. For this, a notion of distributed pedagogical leadership (DPL) is drawn upon. DPL concerns everyone in the school community, not only leaders and…

There has been much media speculation and general conversation about the crisis of masculinity, the lack of male role models--in particular, the lack of fathers, and how many boys are becoming a "lost" generation. An 2002 Australian House of Representatives report "Boys: Getting it right" investigated this issue in depth and made recommendations…

This article explores the challenge of education reform and presents an alternative to dominant approaches. In doing so, it draws on the work of three projects: first, the "Advancing Education Quality and Inclusion" initiative; second, the APREME (Advancing the Participation and Representation of Ethnic Minorities in Education) project which…