Improving Schools : Performance and Potential. This item is unavailable.Improving Schools : Performance and Potential

* The government has made raising standards in schools a key priority. How have schools been responding?

* How rapidly have schools been improving and what strategies have they developed?

Based around a major research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Improving Schools looks at what has been happening across the country in recent years. It draws on unique data about changes in schools' effectiveness over time, exploring the reasons why exam results have continued to rise and what schools have been doing in the name of improvement.

Through a series of case studies the research looks at what happened over a five-year period in a wide range of schools facing very different challenges. Some served disadvantaged communities, others more affluent suburbs. Some had 'serious weaknesses' but overcame them; others were already doing well by anyone's standards but continued to improve.

What 'worked' in these schools? How far did they simply concentrate on matters of organization, planning and ethos? How many of them got round to tackling issues of classroom teaching and learning? What did they plan to do next? And what further challenges should they anticipate?

Teachers and researchers alike will find this a highly readable account of the limits and possibilities of school improvement in action.

John Gray is Professor and Director of Research at Homerton College, Cambridge. David Hopkins is Professor and Chair of the School of Education at Nottingham University. David Reynolds is Professor of Education at the University of Newcastle. Brian Wilcox is a Senior Research Fellow at Homerton College, Cambridge and Professiorial Research Fellow at Sheffield University. Shaun Farrell is a lecturer at Christ Church College, Canterbury. David Jesson is Visiting Professor at the University of York. Between them the authors have produced over 20 books, mostly on aspects of school effectiveness and school improvement. Their most recent include: Good School, Bad School (Open University Press), Merging Traditions (Cassell), Making Good Schools (Routledge), Models of Learning - Tools for Teaching (Open University Press) and Inspecting Schools (Open University Press).