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"Stringer, Patricia"
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Capacity Building for School Improvement
his is an easy to read and enjoyable book, but, one that digs deep into practice. The researcher spent over a year working with the staff, board and parents of this school discovering and recording authentic information about this school's successful journey to success. For the researcher, this was an exciting experience; one that needs to be shared with the wider educational community. A must read book.
eBook
Capacity building for school improvement : a case study of a New Zealand primary school
Capacity building is now mentioned synonymously with school improvement in much of the literature with an absence of debate on the implications of political, social and economic trends. This article explores capacity building in one low decile, multicultural, New Zealand primary school. The research, positioned within an interpretivist paradigm, utilises a case study and grounded theory approach to explore four aspects: processes that enhance improvement; internal and external influences on capacity building; wider societal factors that influence the development of capacity; and links between capacity building and improvement. The article suggests that capacity building for school improvement is time and context dependent and is unique to the setting. It occurs in response to individual, collective and systemic need in ways that sustain equilibrium while moving towards improvement. The article explores key attributes of capacity building: vision; stakeholders as change agents; school culture; professional development. Practices that are examined include knowledge production and utilisation; division of labour; roles and responsibilities; a switching-on mentality. These groups of factors lend themselves to a discussion of four important themes in the capacity building and school improvement process: situated activity; connectedness; leadership, governance and management; outcomes. The article concludes that the confluence of these contributing factors enables tensions and needs of context to be managed in ways that ensure equilibrium of people, school and system while moving in the direction of improvement. [Author abstract]
Journal Article
Capacity Building for SchoolImprovement: Revisited
At a time when there is a high demand for capacity building in schools, many administrators and practitioners find little if any empirical studies on how this can be achieved in practice. Through the eyes of an experienced researcher, schoolteacher, senior administrator and university lecturer, this book captures how a low decile school in New Zealand successfully built its capacity for improvement. Dr. Patricia Stringer allows the reader, who could be anyone with an interest in education, leadership and school development, to identify contextual problems and difficulties that limit capacity building and suggests pathways to overcome them. This is an easy to read and enjoyable book, but, one that digs deep into practice. The researcher spent over a year working with the staff, board and parents of this school discovering and recording authentic information about this school's successful journey to success. For the researcher, this was an exciting experience; one that needs to be shared with the wider educational community. A must read book.
eBook
Home–school relationships: a school management perspective
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) is in the process of initiating major education reform designed to improve schools. Parental involvement in support of student learning ranks high on the reform agenda. This study explores managerial aspects of implementing home–school relationships in seven primary Public Private Partnership (PPP) schools in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Participants involved in this study were principals, social workers, teachers, parents, and students. Managerial aspects discussed in this paper relate to: (a) benefits of home–school relationships; (b) roles and responsibilities of stakeholders; (c) home–school communication; and (d) constraints and challenges faced in the management of home–school relationships. The findings elicit recommendations for improvement which may inform the work of policymakers, principals, social workers, teachers and parents in their continued efforts to build home–school relationships.
Journal Article
School Attribute: School Culture
Since the 1980s researchers have emphasised culture as a way of improving schools (Stoll, 1999; Hopkins et al. 1994). Mulford, Silins and Andrew (2003) contend that any or all school reforms are likely to fail in the face of cultural resistance. Daft (2002) advises that, when an organisations’ culture is not in alignment with the needs of the external environment and the values and ways of doing things may reflect what worked in the past, cultural gaps occur making enactment and actualisation of reform doubtful.
Book Chapter
School Attributes: Stakeholders as Change Agents
Leadership in today’s complex environment requires the efforts of many rather than a few to create change (Harris & Lambert, 2003; Fullan, 2002). Contemporary models of leadership for school improvement indicate movement away from leader-centrism and heroism towards shared, collective, collaborative and collegial practices with norms of mutual influence and community (Evans-Andris, 2010; Gronn, 2002).
Book Chapter