School Effectiveness and Improvement

Effective schools are those schools that make a significant difference in student outcome growth. These schools identify reference points for improvement, and set targets to achieve above expected benchmarks. SchoolMate.NET schools achieve these targets on a regular basis employing a number of SchoolMate.NET analysis tools to reference growth and regression in identified areas.

SchoolMate.NET schools know that all students can and will learn.

To enable successful leaning, SchoolMate.NET schools continually refine and develop a number of ecosystems that support:

• an inclusive and future orientated mission

• an open and professional learning culture

• a dynamic and living learning community philosophy

• strong, collaborative and shared leadership

• knowledge management strategies that can take the intellectual capital and relationships within the school and transform the school in terms of knowledge capital

• a progressive learning platform

• a shared responsibility in terms of organisational 'continuous improvement', and

• a flexible and innovative technology platform.

These ecosystems are intended to serve not as a blueprint for effectiveness and improvement but as a set of guidelines to help SchoolMate.NET schools redesign (see figure 1).

Click here to view the diagram

SchoolMate.NET schools continually research 'best practice' in relation to current and future program initiatives. They determine a time each year when school programs and the degree of student outcomes achieved can be evaluated. SchoolMate.NET staff decide what to change to improve student learning in their school improvement plans mapping student outcomes against local, state, and national standards.

Reflective questions are posed to determine:

• which pupils achieve more in some areas of the curriculum than others

• the differences in rates of progress among pupils

• what influences progress

• how much is pupil achievement affected by the peer group

• do the attitudes and expectations of teachers make a difference

• how important are pupils' attitudes - to school, to teachers, to self

• how do we measure aspects of school life that are important but not easily quantifiable

• quality in program development and implementation

• equity in program development and delivery

• alignment and integration of program development and implementation

• program support and engagement

• how program progress will be assessed during implementation, and most importantly

• how will the school sustain renewal to assure continuous improvement.

SchoolMate.NET schools enable sustainable change when school leadership facilitates a process through which the school community analyses progress, reflects on what has worked, adjusts the improvement process accordingly, and determines next steps in an ongoing effort to improve student achievement.

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