As well as undertaking the education reviews of schools and early childhood services, ERO produces broader evaluative information on significant educational issues and publishes reports on education sector performance and good practice. This information is used by education agencies and policy makers to determine the effectiveness of current initiatives and to establish future priorities. ERO’s national evaluations and reports of good practice are also made available to schools, sector groups, parents, communities and professionals in the wider field of education to raise their awareness of education issues and practice. Schools find the reports and the appendices useful in planning and implementing their own self review.
An analysis of the content and findings from over 30 national evaluations and reports of good practice published between 2007 and 2010, where the focus was on schools and school related matters, highlighted some key characteristics of effective schools. These were consistent across reports whether the focus of the evaluation was on a curriculum area, the implementation of a new policy initiative, the provision of a particular service or a general area of interest.
Reports throughout this time have focused on topics as broad as operational funding, assessment, mathematics teaching, bullying, Māori student achievement, gifted and talented students, career guidance, health and physical education, students at risk of not achieving, boys’ education, social studies, and engagement with families, whānau and communities (see the references for the full list). While we acknowledge that the national evaluations of the last four years have not covered every element of school policies, programmes and practice, the picture that they produce of what makes an effective school are consistent with current research and recent best-evidence syntheses.
The five characteristics that crossed the boundaries of school type, location, decile rating and philosophy were:
- a focus on the learner
- inclusive leadership
- effective teaching
- engaged communities
- coherent policies and practice as part of continuous self review.
Of course these five characteristics do not exist in isolation from each other but play out in an interconnected web that is the complexity of everyday activity in a school setting. They are discussed individually in this report for the sake of clarity.
Schools may like to use the information in this report to examine their own practice and policies. Further information can be found in each individual national evaluation listed in the references. All are available on request from info@ero.govt.nz or on www.ero.govt.nz.
This synthesis also informs ERO’s Evaluation Indicators for School Reviews (2011a) and the Framework for School Reviews (2011b).
This synthesis is structured on the five key characteristics of effective schools with important ideas and summaries drawn from relevant national evaluations. Real life examples and case studies supplement the synthesis to make it a practical tool for professional reading and discussion. Full references are given so that readers can find out more about each idea or example from the original report.