UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENCES IN ACADEMIC EFFECTIVENESS - PRACTITIONERS VIEWS

As part of a large-scale study of the ability of 94 secondary schools to promote academic achievement, case studies of six outlier schools w ere conducted and headteachers (principals) and their deputies were qu estioned about the processes of effectiveness. The analysis of their r esponses - grouped by the performance of their school (measured by val ue added analyses of three years of public examination results) as eff ective, ineffective or mixed - reveals considerable support for previo usly cited characteristics of effective schooling. Despite the limitat ions imposed by a reliance on the use of retrospective accounts, the s tudy takes forward the field of school effectiveness in its search for generalisable findings and coherent theory.