What makes excellent schools

Second, in these schools, learning is seen as the central purpose of school and takes precedence over everything else. High expectations are set for student learning, whether in classrooms or other learning contexts. There is a deep belief in the ability of every student to learn and to achieve high standards with appropriate and sensitive teaching. Class time is used as learning time; classrooms are calm and busy, and interruptions to learning are discouraged.

Outstanding schools recognise and celebrate successful learning and high achievement. Third, in highly effective schools, teachers have a thorough and up-to-date knowledge of their subjects and a deep understanding of how students learn particular subjects. This understanding includes an appreciation of how learning typically proceeds in a subject and of the kinds of misunderstandings learners commonly develop. In these schools, teachers know their students well: their individual interests, backgrounds, motivations and learning styles.

These schools insist on the mastery of foundational skills such as reading and numeracy , and also work to encourage high levels of critical thinking, creativity, problem solving and teamwork. Teachers in highly effective schools encourage students to accept responsibility for their own learning and teach them how to continue learning throughout life.

Fourth, highly effective schools are characterized by outstanding school cultures. In these schools, students have a sense of belonging and pride. So all that stuff you tell yourself about reputation, discipline, gifted and talented programs etc.

The differences between most schools are largely cosmetic. The creation of good schools is a long-term process. A good school is an aggregation of good classrooms in which effective teaching and learning are taking place — quality of classroom learning:. Jane Caro suggests that the choices can be compared to supermarket shopping — the brand name products compared to the plain label — ignore the superficial marketing hype and fancy exteriors but carefully compare the contents — usually like schools the contents are equivalent.

When all factors are taken into account, there is a surprising lack of any significant relationship between different school types and levels of student achievement. Whatever the label, management and governance, most schools teach the same centralised curriculum with similarly trained teachers catering for mainstream students. Some schools work hard to satisfy deeply held but often dated beliefs about what makes a good school — beliefs held not only by parents but also by grandparents who are often a soft touch for school fees.

If you want to know how your child will turn out — look in the mirror! When choosing a school parents operate on two levels. They are concerned about the levels of student achievement in their chosen range of schools but, above this, they want to know about the social profile of the students already enrolled at each school. As parents, our concern about schools is often about who our kids will sit next to in class.

But there is no shortage of schools with special titles or labels that are apparently able to levitate student achievement, produce well-rounded citizens and ease our mounting anxieties as parents. There are endless debates about the merits of single-sex versus co-ed schools, public versus private, specialist versus comprehensive, religious versus secular, nearby versus distant, big versus small — and more recently, locally versus centrally controlled.

The real social and academic differences between our schools are grounded in the family and social profiles of enrolled students. There is nothing new about that, but it is concerning that such differences are widening in our quasi-market school system. Nor is it new that the achievement of students is primarily generated by home background; in this respect Australia resembles the pattern found across the OECD. But Australia is different in a key respect: far more of our disadvantaged kids go to schools alongside their peers, and most advantaged kids are in schools with other advantaged kids.

We are compounding, not reducing, the impact of socio-educational status. Any school can be a good school, one in which effective teaching and authentic learning are nurtured and constantly developed to help students achieve. The challenge for parents is to discover the real depth of student engagement and learning. In the process they have to reserve judgment about such things as raw test scores, student ranks, neat and full workbooks, docile students in neat rows and hours of homework.

Principals and teachers in good schools will talk about effective learning and what constitutes good teaching — in particular how professional teacher knowledge, practice and engagement works in their schools. Good teachers know their students and their subject matter, are themselves learners and work alongside colleagues to improve practice across the school. Dr David Zyngier was a teacher and principal, and now is a senior lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy at Monash University, Australia.

His research focuses on teacher pedagogies that engage all students but, in particular, how can these improve outcomes for students from communities of disadvantage. He is Co-director with Dr Paul Carr of the Global Doing Democracy Research Project, an international project examining perspectives and perceptions of democracy in education to develop a robust and critical democratic education with over 60 researchers in 20 countries.

A book based on that research, Can Education make a difference? These are my non-negotiables for schools today. However, there are also some additional requirements that I want for my children. At the end of the day, this is my list and it remains a work in progress.

We cannot accept schools as good schools based solely on test scores and school building ratings; there is so much more to a good school. The school must fit the child and the goals of the family. Barnes , student achievement , student success. Comments are moderated to facilitate an open, honest and respectful conversation. It would have done me good in my years as a principal to be invaded by parents asking these sorts of questions. If parents across Australia keep asking just the first three of these questions they would have a collective power to influence school change.

I advise parents not to ask superficial questions about homework answer: we give them lots , bullying answer: not in my school , misbehaviour here? I urge them to ignore the school glossies, My School, the media, the local rumour machine — and visit the school to discover how and what they feel. Jane Caro stresses that, as sources of information about schools, parents have a number of agendas, including the need to post-rationalise their own school choices. This means that common narratives about schools are rich with reasons to avoid some, while preferring others — the others especially including those which charge fees.

I suggest that it is possible to avoid these conversations by going straight to the real experts, the students. These might include:. In the process it is very useful to gently raise various issues and bust a few myths about schools. Here are a few suggestions:. Obviously schools need to address all these things but it helps to raise two issues: firstly schools cannot win these battles alone and secondly, what should be the priorities of schools and how should these be ranked? Schools today can look quite different and this alone can challenge preconceptions.

I like to ask parents to pass judgment on a range of school and classroom practices — and then showing them what the research suggests are most useful. Among the relatively useless practices are many prized by politicians, media and older generations. It is a fun thing to do. Parents also want to know about the relative worth of public and private schools or schools with various labels.