Effective Schools
Another year, another connected educators month 2016, another #EdbookNZ challenge to connect with others. Another opportunity to learn – like #edchatNZ MOOC 2016, and FLAT Connections Global Educator project – another opportunity to hack my learning through a blog on effective schools, thank you @vanschaijik. The buzz words of Effective Schools, or highly effective schools, have been around for twenty or so years and it is timely to give these words a prod. After twenty or so years of implementing effectiveness, there has not been a landslide in take-up or in outcomes. And, for some leaders being part of an effective school is engendering a weariness, tedium even victimhood of the politics of it all. It would appear that ultimately the effective schools movement has not changed the learning cultures in our schools, or our mind frames. The Effective Schools movement attempted to define the characteristics of those schools that successfully educated students of all backgrounds, in any community, in any country, by trying to isolate the philosophies, policies and practices that were successful[i]. These characteristics then became models for developing an effective school. These effective school characteristics resulted in school leaders using strategies such as – visioning, strategically planning, goal setting, and inspiring teaching troops to march in the same direction – storming, norming and forming. Dr Wendy Kofoed
@newmarketschool
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