Case studies on good policy practices in the field of school leadership

European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) The proposed practice has very strong potential for sustainability as it does not demand much additional funding. Emphases are put on building synergies and partnerships and reorganization of the school’s practice. On another hand, widening partnerships with NGOs and engaging in multisectoral activities schools can attract more diverse sources of funding and even more extend their contribution to quality learning for students and development of the local community.

Meanwhile there is a need to incorporate results of the initiative in the policy at the national level what requires better coordination among several ministries (education, culture, regional development, social welfare etc.) and agencies. Schools and teachers need more authority and autonomy for planning and implementing diverse activities in the school and beyond.

13. Synergies Building synergies was very essential part of the initiative to promote shared responsibility, exchange of information etc.

Several partnerships have been extended that will contribute to the sustainability of the achieved results, especially with the Education Development Center (where the coordination is situated now), Latvian Rural Forum, Latvian Rural parliament etc. Successful cooperation has been developed with the Ministry of Regional Development as they are very interested in the extending of the role of the school in the community. Ministry of Education has been using examples developed within the initiative in searching for more efficient ways of school administration in the situation of the declining number of students.

14. Transferability Experience gained during the initiative already has been disseminated throughout Latvia. After studying examples of community schools in other countries it is clear that extending functions and cooperation networks is useful solution not only for the small or rural schools as openness of the school and partnership with the local community and wider society contributes are important for the quality of learning and applying gained knowledge, skills and attitudes in the real life situations.

To transfer the experience of the initiative main principles should be taken into account: needsbased holistic approach and building partnership with the vision of quality education and active citizenship at the core. Lessons learned from this initiative can be applied in any school (urban, rural, large or small number of students etc.); however in any case the context and specific needs should be taken into account and activities should respond and promote development, learning and cooperation in the LLL framework.

15. Relationship of good practice with wider educational issues and policy implications The many facets of evaluation of the initiative and school projects suggests that the community school has asserted itself in practice as a social and educational innovation with high potential, although, in Latvia for the time being, with insufficient political and financial support, which largely determines the sustainability risks of the model. The groups of schools involved in the initiative can be absolutely considered as one of small schools’ policy pilot projects which can be used for further development of the policy at the national level.

Experience, gained in Latvia, contributes to the collective knowledge about development schools into multifunctional community centres (know in different countries as expanded schools, community schools, full service schools etc.). Case of Latvia has revealed four main areas of activities: 1.

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