‘My school has been quite pushy about the Oxbridge thing’ : voice and choice of higher education

Whilst government policies are now pushing teachers to listen to pupils, this concern is largely framed within the school improvement agenda. This is not the only arena where listening to pupils counts. This article examines the ways in which two young people, making a significant choice about which university to attend, felt unable to discuss their interests and concerns with their teachers. In one case, this resulted in a young woman doing less well in her examinations in order to avoid getting her first preference of Oxbridge, and securing her ‘real choice’ at another Russell Group university. The other was not invited by his school to apply to Oxbridge, despite a desire to go there which he felt unable to articulate at school. We suggest that, given the current concern over widening participation, these two cases provide hints that all is not well with school gate-keeping and career guidance procedures.

Final report to the Illinois General Assembly : addressing the educational and related needs of children and youths who are parents, expectant parents, or survivors of domestic or sexual violence to ensure their ability to stay in school, stay safe, and successfully complete their education.

"June 2010."

Parent involvement on school advisory councils: A process evaluation at the middle school level

Increasing parental involvement was made an important goal for all Florida schools in educational reform legislation in the 1990's. A forum for this input was established and became known as the School Advisory Council (SAC). To demonstrate the importance of process and inclusion, a south Florida school district and its local teacher's union agreed on the following five goals for SACs: (a) to foster an environment of professional collaboration among all stakeholders, (b) to assist in the preparation and evaluation of the school improvement plan, (c) to address all state and district goals, (d) to serve as the avenue for authentic and representative input from all stakeholders, and (e) to ensure the continued existence of the consensus-building process on all issues related to the school's instructional program. ^ The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent and in what ways the parent members of one south Florida middle school's SAC achieved the five district goals during its first three years of implementation. The primary participants were 16 parents who served as members of the SAC, while 16 non-parent members provided perspective on parent involvement as “outside sources.” Being qualitative by design, factors such as school climate, leadership styles, and the quality of parental input were described from data collected from four sources: parent interviews, a questionnaire of non-parents, researcher observations, and relevant documents. A cross-case analysis of all data informed a process evaluation that described the similarities and differences of intended and observed outcomes of parent involvement from each source using Stake's descriptive matrix model. A formative evaluation of the process compared the observed outcomes with standards set for successful SACs, such as the district's five goals. ^ The findings indicated that parents elected to the SACs did not meet the intended goals set by the state and district. The school leadership did not foster an environment of professional collaboration and authentic decision-making for parents and other stakeholders. The overall process did not include consensus-building, and there was little if any input by parents on school improvement and other important issues relating to the instructional program. Only two parents gave the SAC a successful rating for involving parents in the decision-making process. Although compliance was met in many of the procedural transactions of the SAC, the reactions of parents to their perceived role and influence often reflected feelings of powerlessness and frustration with a process that many thought lacked meaningfulness and productivity. Two conclusions made from this study are as follows: (a) that the role of the principal in the collaborative process is pivotal, and (b) that the normative-re-educative approach to change would be most appropriate for SACs. ^

Parent involvement on school advisory councils: a process evaluation at the middle school level

Increasing parental involvement was made an important goal for all Florida schools in educational reform legislation in the 1990's. A forum for this input was established and became known as the School Advisory Council (SAC). To demonstrate the importance of process and inclusion, a south Florida school district and its local teacher's union agreed on the following five goals for SACs: (a) to foster an environment of professional collaboration among all stakeholders, (b) to assist in the preparation and evaluation of the school improvement plan, (c) to address all state and district goals, (d) to serve as the avenue for authentic and representative input from all stakeholders, and (e) to ensure the continued existence of the consensus-building process on all issues related to the school's instructional program. The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent and in what ways the parent members of one south Florida middle school's SAC achieved the five district goals during its first three years of implementation. The primary participants were 16 parents who served as members of the SAC, while 16 non-parent members provided perspective on parent involvement as "outside sources." Being qualitative by design, factors such as school climate, leadership styles, and the quality of parental input were described from data collected from four sources: parent interviews, a questionnaire of non-parents, researcher observations, and relevant documents. A cross-case analysis of all data informed a process evaluation that described the similarities and differences of intended and observed outcomes of parent involvement from each source using Stake's descriptive matrix model. A formative evaluation of the process compared the observed outcomes with standards set for successful SACs, such as the district's five goals. The findings indicated that parents elected to the SACs did not meet the intended goals set by the state and district. The school leadership did not foster an environment of professional collaboration and authentic decision-making for parents and other stakeholders. The overall process did not include consensus-building, and there was little if any input by parents on school improvement and other important issues relating to the instructional program. Only two parents gave the SAC a successful rating for involving parents in the decision-making process. Although compliance was met in many of the procedural transactions of the SAC, the reactions of parents to their perceived role and influence often reflected feelings of powerlessness and frustration with a process that many thought lacked meaningfulness and productivity. Two conclusions made from this study are as follows: (a) that the role of the principal in the collaborative process is pivotal, and (b) that the normative-re-educative approach to change would be most appropriate for SACs.

The potential contribution of intermediary organizations for implementation of school mental health

Questions persist regarding implementation of mental health promotion, prevention, and early intervention initiatives in schools. To date, attention has targeted the ‘Whats’ and ‘Hows’ in design and implementation. Ongoing clarification of ‘Who’ the key proponents are working in this space receives less consideration. This paper presents outcomes from a national colloquium involving leaders from organizations committed to school-based mental health practice in Australia. The aim of the colloquium was to introduce the concept of Intermediary Organizations (IOs) examining this for its potential contribution to improved mental health and school improvement. The central challenge for IOs is implementation, that is, assisting in knowledge mobilization connecting research to policy and practice. The colloquium discussion was grounded in an understanding of public value as an organizing principle for improving public sector effectiveness. The participants evaluated the nature, role, and potential contribution of IOs. Three key issues emerged as being central to effective implementation: health promotion and prevention, relational ethics, and evidence-based practice.

Small rural school leadership: creating opportunity through collaboration

Leading a small rural school presents specific challenges for principals: there are fewer people to perform as many tasks as exist in larger schools; teaching consumes a greater percentage of leaders' time in multigrade, mixed-ability classes; there is often limited or no access to resources that are taken for granted elsewhere; and there is no dilution of stakeholder expectations regarding school improvement, policy accountability or student achievement outcomes. Small rural school leadership is complex, diverse and labour-intensive and the exigencies of life in small rural communities create unconventional leadership circumstances. Daunting as this may sound, many principals revel in small rural school settings, achieving success and professional enjoyment due in large part to the ways in which they address these particular challenges. They have recast contextual challenges as opportunities, which is the focus of this chapter.

School collaborations within the contemporary English education system: possibilities and constraints

This paper’s focus is on an alliance of schools in England that came together as part of the National Teaching Schools initiative. Drawing on interviews from Head Teachers within the alliance, the paper explores issues of school collaboration from a premise that such collaboration is paramount to school improvement within the current climate of increased school autonomy and increasingly rigid accountabilities. The Head Teachers highlight key factors that supported effective school-to-school collaborations associated with sharing their expertise and fostering active and cooperative connections. They also, however, highlight factors that undermined genuine collaboration associated with a prioritising of the performative demands and economic imperatives of the audit culture. The impact of this prioritising should, it is argued, be considered in any analysis of school collectives within the current English education system – particularly given their proliferation and the responsibility placed on them in terms of school improvement.

A case of intention deficit disorder? ICT policy, disadvantaged schools, and leaders

Since the mid-1990s, government policies in the USA, Canada, England, and Australia have promoted the need to produce an ICT skilled workforce in order to ensure national competitiveness in globalised economic conditions. In this article, we examine the ways in which these policy intentions in 1 state in Australia were translated into a techno-determinist and technocentric plan which focused primarily on getting wired up and connected. We summarise the findings from 2 projects: an investigation of a state-wide principals' professional development programme and an action research study investigating literacy, educational disadvantage, and information technologies. We found significant differences in the distribution of the physical and human capabilities between schools which made the task of engaging with ICT harder for some than others. Nevertheless, we suggest that some school leaders did develop innovative practice. We suggest that policy deficits made it difficult for school leaders to grapple with the dimensions of and debates about the kinds of educational changes that schools and school systems should be making. © 2006 Taylor & Francis.

Indigenous mathematics : creating an equitable learning environment

This chapter examines how a change in school leadership can successfully address competencies in complex situations and thus create a positive learning environment in which Indigenous students can excel in their learning rather than accept a culture that inhibits school improvement. Mathematics has long been an area that has failed to assist Indigenous students in improving their learning outcomes, as it is a Eurocentric subject (Rothbaum, Weisz, Pott, Miyake & Morelli, 2000, De Plevitz, 2007) and does not contextualize pedagogy with Indigenous culture and perspectives (Matthews, Cooper & Baturo, 2007). The chapter explores the work of a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics from the YuMi Deadly Centre who are turning the tide on improving Indigenous mathematical outcomes in schools and in communities with high numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Marginalised students and insider knowledge

One of the claims made for valuing the voices of marginalised students is that an insider perspective can be revealed on student issues and the ways in which education policies and systems impact on them. This chapter examines the ways in which participants in an Australian ‘students-as-researchers’ (SaR) project were able to raise knowledge of and address, to some extent, long-standing issues of racism in their schools. The SaR project has operated in more than thirty schools for periods of one to five years. Based on a participatory action research model, groups of secondary school students from schools serving socio-economically disadvantaged communities have worked with nominated teachers and university researchers to identify and research local issues relating to low academic outcomes and to develop and enact responses to the identified concerns. The voices of marginalised students quoted in this chapter illustrate that important insider knowledge can be revealed through the SaR process. Where student views have been acknowledged and acted on by the schools, significant change to student-teacher relationships and school culture has been achieved; the participants have been personally empowered and academic improvements across the schools have been noted. For such change to occur, however, a culture of mutual respect must be created in which teachers and school administrators value students’ views and are open to the possibility of unfavourable criticism.

Identifying engaging features of schooling : assessing the psychometric soundness of student generated research

In this article we report on data analysed from a student project about attitudes to school and student perception of engagement and disengagement. The data were collected by students in an Australian study that employed the Young People as Researchers Model. Middle years students devised and administered a questionnaire to students in grade eight, nine and ten at a secondary school in Australia. A total of 239 students completed the questionnaire. The students completed the initial analysis which was followed by a more detailed analysis by the authors of this paper. The findings support the work of American, British and Australian researchers about the factors that influence engagement and disengagement from schooling. The reported outcomes from the student work and the secondary analysis indicate that students do have the capacity to undertake valid and meaningful research and can make informed contributions to school improvement and student engagement.

Bayesian hierarchical models in statistical quality control methods to improve healthcare in hospitals

Quality oriented management systems and methods have become the dominant business and governance paradigm. From this perspective, satisfying customers’ expectations by supplying reliable, good quality products and services is the key factor for an organization and even government. During recent decades, Statistical Quality Control (SQC) methods have been developed as the technical core of quality management and continuous improvement philosophy and now are being applied widely to improve the quality of products and services in industrial and business sectors. Recently SQC tools, in particular quality control charts, have been used in healthcare surveillance. In some cases, these tools have been modified and developed to better suit the health sector characteristics and needs. It seems that some of the work in the healthcare area has evolved independently of the development of industrial statistical process control methods. Therefore analysing and comparing paradigms and the characteristics of quality control charts and techniques across the different sectors presents some opportunities for transferring knowledge and future development in each sectors. Meanwhile considering capabilities of Bayesian approach particularly Bayesian hierarchical models and computational techniques in which all uncertainty are expressed as a structure of probability, facilitates decision making and cost-effectiveness analyses. Therefore, this research investigates the use of quality improvement cycle in a health vii setting using clinical data from a hospital. The need of clinical data for monitoring purposes is investigated in two aspects. A framework and appropriate tools from the industrial context are proposed and applied to evaluate and improve data quality in available datasets and data flow; then a data capturing algorithm using Bayesian decision making methods is developed to determine economical sample size for statistical analyses within the quality improvement cycle. Following ensuring clinical data quality, some characteristics of control charts in the health context including the necessity of monitoring attribute data and correlated quality characteristics are considered. To this end, multivariate control charts from an industrial context are adapted to monitor radiation delivered to patients undergoing diagnostic coronary angiogram and various risk-adjusted control charts are constructed and investigated in monitoring binary outcomes of clinical interventions as well as postintervention survival time. Meanwhile, adoption of a Bayesian approach is proposed as a new framework in estimation of change point following control chart’s signal. This estimate aims to facilitate root causes efforts in quality improvement cycle since it cuts the search for the potential causes of detected changes to a tighter time-frame prior to the signal. This approach enables us to obtain highly informative estimates for change point parameters since probability distribution based results are obtained. Using Bayesian hierarchical models and Markov chain Monte Carlo computational methods, Bayesian estimators of the time and the magnitude of various change scenarios including step change, linear trend and multiple change in a Poisson process are developed and investigated. The benefits of change point investigation is revisited and promoted in monitoring hospital outcomes where the developed Bayesian estimator reports the true time of the shifts, compared to priori known causes, detected by control charts in monitoring rate of excess usage of blood products and major adverse events during and after cardiac surgery in a local hospital. The development of the Bayesian change point estimators are then followed in a healthcare surveillances for processes in which pre-intervention characteristics of patients are viii affecting the outcomes. In this setting, at first, the Bayesian estimator is extended to capture the patient mix, covariates, through risk models underlying risk-adjusted control charts. Variations of the estimator are developed to estimate the true time of step changes and linear trends in odds ratio of intensive care unit outcomes in a local hospital. Secondly, the Bayesian estimator is extended to identify the time of a shift in mean survival time after a clinical intervention which is being monitored by riskadjusted survival time control charts. In this context, the survival time after a clinical intervention is also affected by patient mix and the survival function is constructed using survival prediction model. The simulation study undertaken in each research component and obtained results highly recommend the developed Bayesian estimators as a strong alternative in change point estimation within quality improvement cycle in healthcare surveillances as well as industrial and business contexts. The superiority of the proposed Bayesian framework and estimators are enhanced when probability quantification, flexibility and generalizability of the developed model are also considered. The empirical results and simulations indicate that the Bayesian estimators are a strong alternative in change point estimation within quality improvement cycle in healthcare surveillances. The superiority of the proposed Bayesian framework and estimators are enhanced when probability quantification, flexibility and generalizability of the developed model are also considered. The advantages of the Bayesian approach seen in general context of quality control may also be extended in the industrial and business domains where quality monitoring was initially developed.

Professional practice research : ensuring teacher development through a critical approach to professional learning

Currently the development of a national system for the ongoing enhancement of teacher professionalism across Australia is underway. The initiative led by Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) on behalf of the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (now SCSEEC) is progressing rapidly with a finalised set of Professional Standards for Teachers and a set of Professional Standards for Principals approved by Ministers in 2011. It is clear that there is an inextricable link between the newly proposed professional standards and the professional education of teachers and principals across Australia. Further, it is imperative that the education sector will need to work in a unified manner through ongoing consultations to ensure the standards truly reflect what teachers and principals desire of the profession, in terms of teacher preparation, professional learning and training, and professional recognition.