WHAT MAKES A SCHOOL SUCESSFUL?

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has just published its 2009 results...

"One section of the hugely important report looks at how the issues of autonomy, evaluation, governance and choice interact in providing a framework in which schools are given the incentives and the capacity to improve. The PISA analysis for 2009 finds that:
• In countries where schools have greater autonomy over what is taught and how students are assessed, students tend to perform better.
• Within countries where schools are held to account for their results through posting achievement data publicly, schools that enjoy greater autonomy in resource allocation tend to do better than those with less autonomy. However, in countries where there are no such accountability arrangements, the reverse is true.
• Countries that create a more competitive environment in which many schools compete for students do not systematically produce better results.
• Within many countries, schools that compete more for students tend to have higher performance, but this is often accounted for by the higher socio-economic status of students in these schools. Parents with a higher socioeconomic status are more likely to take academic performance into consideration when choosing schools.
• In countries that use standards-based external examinations, students tend to do better overall, but there is no clear relationship between performance and the use of standardised tests or the public posting of results at the
school level. However, performance differences between schools with students of different social backgrounds are, on average, lower in countries that use standardised tests."

We should all read this important report and use it to continue to learn and develop wht we re doing to build a world class education and learning system for all our children and young people.
Chris