Product Description

This book is based on a well-known and well- documented research project that represents eighteen European countries. It includes practical tools for raising standards in schools and guidance on how to use them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #931242 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
'Teachers everywhere should read this book and act upon it' - Peter Mortimore OBE, Director of the Institute of Education, London on Schools Must Speak for Themselves

'Teachers everywhere should read this book and act upon it' - Peter Mortimore OBE

TES Book of the Week, 18th May 2001
'Provides one of the best self-evaluation toolkits on the market. It covers the things that matter to pupils, teachers and parents, and its strength lies in its simplicity ... Any school or education authority serious about self-evaluation should get hold of this story of change.' - Archie McGlynn, Times Educational Supplement

From the Back Cover
This is a unique book. It tells the story of one school seen through the eyes of a pupil, a parent, a teacher, a headteacher and a critical friend. The story is a compelling journey through the process of school improvement; theories of school effectiveness and school improvement are progressively clarified.
The book is based on a well-known and well documented research project that represents 18 European countries, which clearly sets it in a European Policy context. It includes a wealth of practical tools for raising standards for teachers and school managers to refer to, and guidance on how to use them.
Self-Evaluation in European Schools is a vital and useful source of good ideas, challenging insights and practical strategies for real schools.

About the Author
John MacBeath is Director of the Quality in Education Centre, University of Strathclyde, and author of the well received Schools Must Speak for Themselves for Routledge, Lars Bo Jakobsen works for the European Commission, Denis Meuret teaches at the University of Dijon and Michael Schratz teaches at the University of Innsbruck.

Customer Reviews

Vignettes on the exciting but scary world of self-assessment
John MacBeath has been an acknowledged leader in the field of school self-assessment. Now at the University of Cambridge, MacBeath was, for several years, the Director of the Quality in Education Centre at the University of Strathclyde. The development of school-based indicators in Scotland laid the foundation for further work by MacBeath in England and Wales (see review of Schools Must Speak for Themselves). More recently, he led a team of researchers in the Socrates project sponsored by the European Commission.

The Socrates project, reported in Self-Evaluation in European Schools, written with Michael Schratz, Denis Meuret and Lars Jakobsen, took place in 101 schools in eighteen countries. Each school first used the Self-Evaluation Profile [SEP] to assess twelve areas of school life which could then be used to open up discussion about its quality and effectiveness. This initial process led to the selection by the school of a limited number of areas for more in-depth study. Schools were supported in this process by a critical friend provided by the project.

The emphasis in this book is on process, rather than on content, not because the latter is less important, but because it will vary considerably from one context to another. Self-assessment makes sense of the various bits of content considered by making connections: "through a process which transforms a random maze into a sequenced and structured pattern" (p. 94). The emphasis on process is also justified by the need to explain how to get on with an assessment, rather than simply on what to focus. After all, as several authors have stated, self-assessment is a 'risky business;' relying on data, rather than 'gut' will inevitably produce surprises, not all of which will be pleasant ones.

One of the most powerful contributions of the report on the European study is that half the book is devoted to a narrative account of the project through the voices of five composite characters: a student, her mother, her teacher, her head teacher and the critical friend who worked with the school. Serena, the student, describes positive and negative school experiences in light of her initial class in geography in her first year in the 'big school' and a class in the same subject four years later. Her journey of disappointment from a class that provided students with them "excursions to places at the other end of the world" to one where "all the life and vitality had been squeezed out of it" (pp. 1-2) vividly portrays life in school, from a student's vantage point.

The other narratives provide similar insights into school and the process of assessment from the perspectives of different stakeholders. They serve, not only to enliven the presentation, but to remind us that school is not the same for everyone. It is experienced differently by each group, and by every individual within these groups. MacBeath's work provides significant evidence for the importance of a participative approach to the process of school self-assessment. The essence of school self-assessment is stakeholder participation and stakeholders will benefit greatly from the vignettes this book provides on the exciting but scary world of self-assessment.

An oustanding and original contribution to the filed.t
This is an impossible to put down read. It comes at the themes from an entiely original and refrshing angle. It si the first book on school improvement I have read that gets to the heart of the process in a lively and meaningful way.