School governance and management

Practical Research for Education, 39, May 2008, pp. 57–62 (reprinted with permission)

Fires in schools can be emotionally devastating for students and staff and highly disruptive to school functioning and student learning. This small-scale British study looks at the impacts of school fires and the lessons to be learnt.

This companion article to “Enabling students to lead the way” explores the rationale for using a whole-school approach to health and wellbeing, and the connection between this approach and the revised curriculum. Some possible changes that could occur to school actions in regard to health and wellbeing are discussed. The article also explores some of the benefits and challenges of whole-school approaches.

This is an account of Red Beach Primary School's experience in using the power of student voice to record development of the students as lifelong learners and to guide decision making.

A series in which we ask a leading researcher to distil three key ideas from their work over the years.

The first year of teaching is a critical stage in a teacher's professional life. Many beginning teachers are employed in short-term positions, but we know very little about how employment status affects first-year teachers' feelings of self-confidence, or their attitudes towards their second year of teaching. This article explores these issues in relation to first-year primary teachers.

What are the challenges for schools in creating effective change, and what are the factors that support its success?  This is a description of how four secondary schools and a school cluster implemented locally-designed curriculum innovations.