School Improvement for Schools Facing Challenging Circumstances: A review of research and practice

School-to-school cooperation as a strategy for improving student outcomes in challenging contexts

“…But they suggest that, if the networks are to become a significant improvement strategy for all the schools involved, they will need also to become rather more rigorous arrangements. They voice particular reservations about the suitability of networks as improvement vehicles for schools facing challenging circumstances, pointing out that, in planning collaborative arrangements for such schools, internal capacity (Stoll, 1999), internal structures and practices (Potter, Reynolds, & Chapman, 2002), and particular external factors (Muijs, Harris, Chapman, Stoll, & Russ, 2004) would all need to be taken into consideration. Chapman and Allen (2006), in a report for the Specialist Schools Trust, concluded that targeted, collaborative approaches to support the development of a specialised school system were proving highly effective.…”

School leadership challenges along Kenya’s Borabu-Sotik border

“…In the UK, such contexts include schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas (Muijs et al, 2004), schools in urban and challenging contexts (Chapman, 2002b), schools in challenging contexts , schools facing challenging circumstances (Potter et al, 2002), schools in difficult and challenging contexts , schools in former coal mines ) schools facing exceptionally challenging circumstances (Reynolds et al, 2006). Most schools located in the above areas encounter a myriad of problems in simply getting to the starting line for improvement (Harris and Chapman, 2002;Stoll, 2002) and edging towards attaining titles and labels that denote them as successful schools and their principals as effective.…”

The impact of school culture on schools’ pupil well-being policy-making capacities

“…equally, innovative capacity is another indicator of schools' pupil well-being policy-making capacities. This reflects both the extent to which a school is able to successfully implement innovations (Geijsel 2001;Potter, Reynolds, and Chapman 2002), and the extent to which the school in question is capable of coping with changes, both those imposed by government and those originating from within the school itself (Geijsel, van den Berg, and Sleegers 1998;Thorburn 2015). A school with a strong innovative capacity is primarily characterised by a positive attitude towards innovations and by not being afraid to question common assumptions.…”