Have done and CC'ed you in Mary. Have also made direct contact with a Principal currently undertaking a PhD in this field to drop by and contribute.

I'm in a mad rush- looking for a place to post an 'unshaped thought'-- it's around this big push for personalised learning and where strong understandings of inclusion and equitity sit as practical considerations for educator"

I'll shape it better later ciao   

Hi All

Very interesting issues raised around setting agendas, Some of my thoughts in light of  recent webinar and these issues.  

The original school improvement and school effectiveness movement was prompted by protest against conventional explanations of educational failure, particularly those used to explain low educational achievement by students who were socially and/ or economically disadvantaged.  It was argued that that schools can and should make a difference, regardless of social context. Subsequently, much of the school improvement / standards reform has become equated with improvement on narrow measures of achievement with measurable outcomes from standardised tests. The standard and accountability reforms have put high pressure on schools to achieve particular academic outcomes for all students and at the same time there have been parallel research movements in which university-school partnerships engage with schools in inquiry based approaches. Timperley, Earl, Ainscow and my own research over the last decade are all informed by this approach – with very positive outcomes for teacher professional learning as well as student learning.

 As emphasised in my recent webinar the basic premise of this approach is that university researchers, school leaders collaborate with teachers in cycles of evidence- informed inquiry to better understand issues in their school as well as to inform decisions about what’s working and where to go next. This means that while NAPLAN results might to audit outcomes for particular students and in particular curriculum areas and to inform further investigation teachers focus on other forms of evidence for the inquiry - A variety of practical assessment evidence and data that can easily be incorporated into classroom and school activities.

However – a key question for current research is what happens when inquiry based approaches get appropriated to serve accountability and standards reform purposes? Though accountability measures may have created opportunities for a conversation about students who have been historically marginalized, they have reduced school professionals’ understandings of families and students to narrow test scores that need to be obtained and surveyed in the name of equity. In some cases particular ‘voices’ are privileged which in turn shapes priorities and agendas and what is measured and how. This, in turn, will influence what is and is not discussed and reported.

 Thus my passion for ensuring that at the school context inquiry and other change strategies are informed by teachers, and other members of the school community. This does not mean that schools can not improve against ‘standards’- based reform measures but it does mean that they should not let standards reform determine the frame for their work nor be the sole measure for development.

Our evaluative evidence from the large-scale university-system partnerships involving networks of schools that I have lead have shown strong evidence that schools can develop an inquiry-informed agenda that has positive student learning outcomes on both NAPLAN as well as other school based measures of success (social competence, attendance along with teacher constructed measures of achievement that are more sensitive to learning with particular students).

The critical issue in my opinion is how do we ensure that schools use evidence and systematic inquiry in particular, in ways that constructively acknowledges the issues & strengths of their context and at the same time, can be used to identify critical differences that may potentially impede change efforts to improve teaching & learning, equity and outcomes for students across schools?