Narrowing the gap: reducing within-school variation in pupil outcomes
by Members of NCSL’s Leadership Network
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Overview
This UK-based research from the National College of School Leadership is extremely relevant to work currently being done in New Zealand, particularly in the light of international assessments that show New Zealand having very wide disparity of student achievement within schools. There is, however, a lot of reading in the research report. Readers should select case studies that are relevant to situations they are facing.
The report includes an explanation of what ‘within-school variation’ is. It provides case studies from a range of different schools, and synthesises these to provide recommendations for developing strategies to address the issues that face schools. It also provides a description of how to measure within-school variation, and an audit proforma for schools to use.
The case studies could provide schools with a basis for facilitating workshops to raise the issues with staff. This would be followed up with diagnostic work to indicate the specific concerns facing individual schools. One of the strengths of the case studies is the way in which they show the benefits of productive teacher discussion across learning areas and levels, so that good practice in one area can be spread around to other areas. Models of strong in-school professional learning communities are provided.
Reflective questions
These reflective questions might guide you in your reading of this article:
- Make use of the ‘audit tools’ on page 40 (or 41) of the article to analyse the situation in your school. These could be the basis for a leadership team meeting, or a whole staff meeting. From them, develop some priorities for action over the next year.
- What resources and additional help would you need to implement a programme to reduce within-school variation in student outcomes? What would be the best ways to acquire this support?
- What kinds of data would you need to collect in order to evaluate the success of implementing your approach? In what ways would qualitative data, such as narratives of teacher and or student experiences be useful to an evaluation?
Further reading
Lambert, L. (2003). Leadership capacity for lasting school improvement. London: Cassell.
References
Narrowing the gaps: Reducing within-school variation in pupil outcomes. (2006). A research report from the National College of School Leadership. Nottingham. UK.
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