Schools and pre-schools Books

Book SynopsisSchools need to have purchase on the curriculum: why they teach the subjects beyond preparation for examinations, what they are intending to achieve with the curriculum, how well it is planned and enacted in classrooms and how they know whether it’s doing what it’s supposed to. Fundamental to this understanding are the conversations between subject leaders and their line managers. However, there is sometimes a mismatch between the subject specialisms of senior leaders and those they line manage. If I don’t know the terrain and the importance of a particular subject, how can I talk intelligently with colleagues who are specialists? This book sets out to offer some tentative answers to these questions. Each of the national curriculum subjects is discussed with a subject leader and provides an insight into what they view as the importance of the subject, how they go about ensuring that knowledge, understanding and skills are developed over time, how they talk about the quality of the schemes in their departments and what they would welcome from senior leaders by way of support. We have chosen this way of opening up the potentially difficult terrain of expertise on one side and relative lack of expertise on the other, by providing these case studies. They are suggested as prompts rather than the last word. Informed debate is, after all, the fuel of curriculum development. And why Huh? Well, 'Huh?' may be John's first response when he walks into a Year 8 German class but, in fact, we chose 'Huh' as the title of our book as he is the Egyptian god of endlessness. As Claire Hill so eloquently comments in her chapter, “Curriculum development is an ongoing process; it’s not going to be finished, ever.” And we believe that 'Huh' captures a healthy and expansive way of considering curriculum conversations.

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Book SynopsisAll students expect to have equal access to a good education but this is not always the case. Research has shown that students who experience discipline that removes them from the classroom are more likely to repeat a grade, drop out of school, and become involved in the juvenile justice system. Black students, boys, and students with disabilities were disproportionately disciplined (e.g., suspensions and expulsions) in K-12 public schools. These disparities were widespread and persisted regardless of the type of disciplinary action, level of school poverty, or type of public school attended. Poverty can have a profound effect on academic outcomes and college readiness and students from low-income families are less likely to go to college. The low rates of degree attainment for low-income students raises questions about whether the students who wish to pursue higher education have access to courses that support their readiness for college. While most public high schools, regardless of poverty level, offered courses like algebra and biology, disparities in access were associated with school poverty level for more advanced courses like calculus, physics, and those that may allow students to earn college credit, like Advanced Placement (AP) courses.

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Book SynopsisAs this book cogently states this is an eclectic examination of current social problems using the lenses of literature, whether fiction or non-fiction, to open doors to understanding the potential for new and creative interventions that have the potential for transformative change. The beginning quote from Toni Morrison bringing light to those who don't always find themselves true ownership to the land to which they are rooted in is a climate system for readers of this book. James Agee and Walker Evans provide a clear and yet complex vision of how they came to study three families in Hale County, Alabama. Their work gives excellent details on how to enter cultures different from their own. Hillbilly Elegy, Appalachian Reckoning and Nickel Boys all written in the past three years yield description and rhetoric that inform social scientists of the human condition. Appalachian Reckoning disputes much of what J.D. Vance wrote. Furious Hours is an excellent source for data collection and analysis. Literature is not new to social commentary but these are contemporary works that can help scholar activists and public researchers who are doing research and publishing for the public. This is a major goal of this book. Educational issues and their intersection with crime and mental issues are key topics of this cogent book. Opportunity gaps, school to prison pipeline, anxiety and many more issues are fodder for scholar activists that are adumbrated in this forceful book. The community school is proffered as a hub of services for those thorny issues. The school is the place to offer services because so many are fractured in this country today and very likely to become more so. Systemic thinking is a key part of the interventions applied currently. A plus on this topic is that systems thinking is presented in a demystifying way. Vignettes are a strength of this book in that they are what happened and they give readers insight into what worked and what didn't. If you are a bridge player, one peak is worth two finesses. The people in these vignettes are as alive today as they were when these events took place.Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: On the Relevancy of Toni MorrisonPrologueArt, Science, and Value: University Assisted Community SchoolsOn Making Let Us Now Praise Famous Men a Valuable Social Science Tool for Understanding Poor People and PovertyCommunity Schools: What Are They? Important Scholar Activists SpeakA Novel Way to Examine Social Science Questions: Casey Cep and Colson Whitehead, Following the Tradition of James Agee and Walker EvansThe Past, Present, and Future of the Goals of Education for All: Some Personal AsidesHistorical Antecedents: What Roles for Universities in Community ChangeAppendixEpilogueReferencesIndex.

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Book SynopsisThe publication arises out of a research project of school education within South Africa and takes a school leadership perspective for imaginative possibilities resulting in school change. It illuminates the complexities associated with leading schools as they assume particular identities owing to specific categorizations. Its specific focus is on school leaders' lived experiences of addressing school challenges that brought about substantive change to school life. The book chapters collectively build on personally, professionally, and socially useful understandings of teaching, learning, governance, school finance and school-community partnerships in relation to wider social, political and cultural concerns, and across diverse contexts. Drawing on everyday real-life experiences, generated mainly through a range of narrative and arts-based practices and sources, the book communicates new voices, new insights, and imaginative possibilities for working with school challenges in contextually relevant and responsive attitudes to bring quality education to the doors of schools. The book, therefore, foregrounds school leaders from school principals through to teacher leaders' imaginative solutions to reimagining school life in each of their respective schools. Using a multi-perspectival theoretical lens, we offer portrayals of different dimensions of lived experiences of school life. The authors of the chapters (comprising both experienced and novice researchers) present critical descriptive accounts of different contextual realities of schooling juxtaposed against how they are categorized, for example: infrastructure (quintile rankings); financial (fee paying); geography (rural, urban, townships); poverty (feeding scheme) and performance.Table of ContentsPreface; Quality Education and School Experience in South Africa: How Far Have We Come?; Successful Rural Schools: Learning from School Principals Leadership Practices; Changing School Images: How Quintile One School Principals Turn Around Learner Performance in Their Schools within a Rural Context; Reimaging Schools for Improved Learner Performance; Responding to School Violence: Accounts of Heads of Departments towards Safe Schools; Making Visible Teacher Leadership Practices in Private and Public Schools; Its Just Not about the Funding : Artful Research Learning for Cultivating Creative, Reflexive, Ethical Ways of Thinking about Schooling, Quintile[ing] and Teachers Lives; The Entrepreneurial Leadership Role of Principals: Doing More with Less Financial Resources; The Conundrum of School Governance: Alternate Ways through the Maze; Crush the Chalk: School Leaders Co-Creative Networking for Enhancing Schooling, Relations and Life; About the Authors; Index.

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Book SynopsisFacing challenges in nowadays social life and future prospects

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Book SynopsisThere were over 150 private day schools in early nineteenth century Copenhagen. They were run by literate women who taught everything from the basic 3R''s to history, science and literature. This is the story of these schools, their teacher-owners, and the girls who attended them. It is also the story of the socialisation of middle class girls at the turn of the eighteenth to nineteenth century in Denmark.

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Book SynopsisOver the past 50 years, the federal government''s efforts to reform American public education have transformed U.S. schools from locally-run enterprises to complex systems in which federal, state and local actors jointly construct the educational environment of U.S. children. Through struggles over school integration, the growth of special education, the teaching of English learners and the rise of accountability politics, the federal role in U.S. education has meant a profound reconstruction of local expectations, roles and political alignments. Seeking to construct the federal schoolhouse - an educational system in which there are common national expectations and practices - has meant the creation of new modes of education within local institutions. The creation of this education state has also meant that federal educational initiatives have collided with - or reinforced - local political regimes in cities and suburbs alike. To the extent that all politics is local, the federal role in public schools has changed both the conduct and the norms of local educational politics. Building the Federal Schoolhouse examines how increasing federal authority over public education in the U.S. changes the practices of ''operational localism'' in education and how local regime commitments implement, thwart, or even block federal policy initiatives. The book examines these issues through an in-depth, fifty year examination of federal educational policies at work within one community, Alexandria, Virginia. The home of T.C. Williams High School, memorialized in the Hollywood movie Remember the Titans, Alexandria has been transformed within two generations from a Jim Crow school system to a new immigrant gateway school district with over 20 percent of its students English learners. Along the way, the school system has struggled to provide quality education for special needs students, sought to overcome the legacies of tracking and segregated learning and simultaneously retain upper-middle class students in this wealthy suburb of Washington, DC. Most recently, it has grappled with state and federally imposed accountability measures that seek to boost educational outcomes. All of these policy initiatives have contended with the existing political regime within Alexandria, at times forcing the local regime to a breaking point, and at times bolstering its reconstruction. At the same time, the local expectations and governing realities of administrators, parents, politicians and voters alike have sharply constrained federal initiatives, limiting their scope when in conflict with local commitments and amplifying them when they align. Through an extensive use of local archives, contemporary accounts, school data and interviews, Reed not only paints an intimate portrait of the conflicts that the creation of the federal schoolhouse has wrought in Alexandria, but also documents the successes of the federal commitment to greater educational opportunity. In so doing, he highlights the complexity of the American education state and the centrality of local regimes and local historical context to federal efforts to reform education.Trade ReviewMuch of what is written about education policy today is like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, touching pieces but missing how they fit together. In Building the Federal Schoolhouse, Douglas Reed pulls together the big picture of how multiple levels of government, and the politics within and across these levels, account for the policies and programs adopted and implemented today. * Jeffrey R. Henig, Professor of Political Science & Education, Teachers College, Columbia University *Table of ContentsPreface ; Chapter 1: The Local Politics of Federal Education Reform ; Part I: Race and Reform ; Chapter 2: Race and the End of a Regime ; Chapter 3: Racial Change, Conflict and the Incorporation of Interests ; Part II: The Local Politics of the Federal Commitment to Equality ; Chapter 4: The Politics of Exit ; Chapter 5: Special Education and the Politics of Services ; Chapter 6: From Arlandria to Chirilagua: English Learners and the Catch-22 Education State ; Part III: The Politics of Accountability ; Chapter 7: Local Activism and Accountability Politics ; Chapter 8: The Titans Meet the State: Federal Accountability and School Transformation ; Chapter 9: Conclusion: Learning from the Education State

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book Synopsis From an elementary school principal and popular YouTube personality, inspiration and humor for educators to tackle the challenges they face day-in and day-outGerry Brooks is an elementary school principal turned YouTube celebrity who entertains K-12 teachers, administrators, and parents across the country. He tells jokes with the kind of mocking humor that gets a laugh, yet can be safely shared in school. After all, even great schools have bad days -- when lesson plans fall through, disgruntled parents complain, kids throw temper tantrums because they have to use the same spoon for their applesauce and mashed potatoes, and of course, dealing with...The Horror! The Horror!...dreaded assessments. Ranging from practical topics like social media use in the classroom and parent-teacher conferences to more lighthearted sections such as Pickup and Dropoff: An Exercise in Humanity and School Supplies: Yes, We Really Nee

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the impact of ''race'', class and gender on the interaction of pupils and their teachers in the classroom setting. It seeks to examine the extent to which these variables can account for differential rates of school exclusion between pupils from different ethnic/racial groups, socio-economic classes and genders.Table of ContentsSeries Editor Preface 1. Theoretical Overview 2. School Ethos and the 'Value' of Exclusion 3. Teachers and Pupils - Relationships of Power and Resistance 4. Interrelations of 'Race' and Gender in School 5. Gendering 'Race' 6. 'Race' and the Social Consequences of Exclusion 7. Future Prospects - Towards Inclusive Education for All

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Book SynopsisIn Teaching in Nature''s Classroom: Principles of Garden-Based Education, Nathan Kennard Larson shares a philosophy of teaching in the garden. Rooted in years of experience and supported by research, Larson presents fifteen guiding principles of garden-based education. These principles and best practices are illustrated through engaging stories from the field. The book features vivid paintings by mural artist Becky Hiller and connections to the research literature provided by Alex Wells and Sam Dennis of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Environmental Design Lab.

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Book SynopsisAs public schools in low income areas fell into disrepair and failed to meet the needs of disadvantaged and minority students, charter schools offered an alternative. These schools were born out of the idea that low income families should be allowed to choose where their children went to school, just the same as high income families. If the public school in the community was unsatisfactory, shouldn't they be allowed to seek out an alternative? The alternatives are surprisingly effective. Charter schools located in low income black and Latinx communities achieve results surpassing both traditional public schools in their areas, and also, in many cases, public schools in more affluent neighbourhoods. In Charter Schools and Their Enemies, celebrated conservative intellectual Thomas Sowell explores the surprising success of this model and the surprising backlash that threatens to dismantle it.Instead of being celebrated for their successes, charter schools are caught in political crosscurrents. In addition to uncovering the success of the charter school movement, Sowell pays careful attention to its adversaries to understand how these schools became such a contentious issue and why the controversy rages on. Teachers' unions, fearful of their hold over government-funded education, fund political candidates to oppose the charter school movement. Liberal educators also oppose charter schools, Sowell argues, because they believe that the school system should indoctrinate the young in progressive politics.Deeply researched and amply documented, Charter Schools and Their Enemies is essential reading for anyone concerned with debates over education in America.

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Book Synopsis"[The authors] artfully piece together important essays ineducational policy and philosophy. . . . The book deals in detailwith such issues as teacher professionalization, moralresponsibility of public schools, accountability, and ethical codesof practice. Must reading for teachers, administrators, andprofessors in schools and departments of education." --ChoiceTrade Review"[The authors] artfully piece together important essays in educational policy and philosophy.... The book deals in detail with such issues as teacher professionalization, moral responsibility of public schools, accountability, and ethical codes of practice. Must reading for teachers, administrators, and professors in schools and departments of education." (Choice)Table of ContentsON THE NATURE AND COMMITMENTS OF TEACHING AS PROFESSION. The Occupation of Teaching in Schools (John I. Goodlad). The Rhetoric of Teacher Professionalization (Roger Soder). The Limits of Teacher Professionalization (Barry L. Bull). Some Moral Considerations on Teaching as a Profession (Gary D.Fenstermacher). THE MORAL MISSION OF EDUCATION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE TEACHINGPROFESSION. The Moral Responsibility of Public Schools (WalterFeinberg). The Legal and Moral Responsibility of Teachers (Kenneth A.Strike). Accountability, Trust, and Ethical Codes of Practice (HughSockett). The Teacher and the Taught: Moral Transaction in the Classroom(Christopher M. Clark). The School as a Moral Learning Community (Bruce R. Thomas). Society, Schooling, Teaching, and Preparing to Teach (Kenneth A.Sirotnik).

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Book SynopsisThis work examines the links between educational failure and future offending behaviour. It contains the stories of inmates' schooldays told in their own words as they try to answer the question "could anything have been done to prevent you being in custody now?" The book ends with suggestions on action schools might take towards redressing social, cultural and educational disadvantage and intervening to help limit future offending behaviour.Trade Review'If you are in any doubt about the links between poor education, crime and recidivism, read it':Marcel Berlins The Guardian.'This book is of considerable public importance on a subject which calls for attention. I believe that in prison life the status of education needs to be raised for the high percentage of offenders who have failed at school and come from broken families, and are soon to be discharged into the community':Sir Stephen Tumim, former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons

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Book SynopsisWhile considerable evidence indicates that school leaders are able to make important contributions to the success of their students, much less is known about how such contributions are made. This book provides a comprehensive account of research aimed at filling this gap in our knowledge, along with guidelines about how school leaders might use this knowledge for their own school improvement work. Leadership practices known to be effective for improving student success are outlined in the first section of the book while the remaining sections identify four “paths” along which the influence of those practices “flow” to exercise an influence on student success. Each of the Rational, Emotional, Organizational and Family paths are populated by conditions or variables known to have relatively direct effects on student success and also open to influence by effective leadership practices. While the Four Path framework narrows the attention of school leaders to a still-considerable number conditions known to contribute to student success, it leaves school leaders the autonomy to select, for improvement efforts, the sub-set of conditions that make the most sense in their own local circumstances. The approach to leadership described in this book provides evidence-based guidance on what to lead and flexibility on how to lead for purposes of improving student learning. Table of Contents1. Introduction; Kenneth Leithwood, Jingping Sun and Katina Pollock.- Section One: The Nature of Successful Leadership.- Section introduction.- 2. A Model of Successful School Leadership from the International Successful School Principalship Project; David Gurr.- 3. The Ontario Leadership Framework; Kenneth Leithwood.- Section Two: The Rational Path.- Section introduction.- 4. Leadership and Learning: Conceptualizing Relations between School Administrative Practice and Instructional Practice; James Spillane.- 5. Effects of Distributed Leadership on School Academic Press and Student Achievement; John Malloy and Kenneth Leithwood.- 6. Towards Sustaining Levels of Reflective Learning: How Do Transformational Leadership, Task Interdependence, and Self-Efficacy Shape Teacher Learning in Schools?; Arnoud Oude Groote Beverborg, Peter J. C. Sleegers, Maaike D. Endedijk and Klaas van Veen.- Section Three: The Emotional Path.- Section introduction.- 7. Leadership Effects on Student Learning Mediated by Teacher Emotions; Jingping Sun and Kenneth Leithwood.- 8. Principals, Trust, and Cultivating Vibrant Schools; Megan Tschannen-Moran and Christopher R. Gareis.- 9. Generation X School Leaders as Agents of Care: Leader and Teacher Perspectives from Toronto, New York City and London; Karen Edge.- Section Four: The Organizational Path.- Section introduction.- 10. Complexity and Volume: An Inquiry into Factors that Drive Principals’ Work; Katina Pollock, Fei Wang and David Cameron Hauseman.- 11. Creating Communities of Professionalism: Addressing Cultural and Structural Barriers; Joseph Murphy.- 12. Effects of Principal Professional Orientation towards Leadership, Professional Teacher Behavior, and School Academic Optimism on School Reading Achievement; Roxanne Mitchell and John Tarter.- 13. Leading Teacher Learning in China: A Mixed Methods Study of Successful School Leadership; Shengnan Liu and Philip Hallinger.- Section Five: The Family Path.- Section introduction.- 14. Effects of Family Educational Cultures on Student Success at School: Directions for Leadership; William Jeynes.- 15. Changing the Educational Culture of the Home to Increase Student Success at School; Kenneth Leithwood and Penny Patrician.- 16. Conclusion; Kenneth Leithwood, Jingping Sun and Katina Pollock.- References by Section introduction and Chapter.

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Book SynopsisWhile considerable evidence indicates that school leaders are able to make important contributions to the success of their students, much less is known about how such contributions are made. This book provides a comprehensive account of research aimed at filling this gap in our knowledge, along with guidelines about how school leaders might use this knowledge for their own school improvement work. Leadership practices known to be effective for improving student success are outlined in the first section of the book while the remaining sections identify four “paths” along which the influence of those practices “flow” to exercise an influence on student success. Each of the Rational, Emotional, Organizational and Family paths are populated by conditions or variables known to have relatively direct effects on student success and also open to influence by effective leadership practices. While the Four Path framework narrows the attention of school leaders to a still-considerable number conditions known to contribute to student success, it leaves school leaders the autonomy to select, for improvement efforts, the sub-set of conditions that make the most sense in their own local circumstances. The approach to leadership described in this book provides evidence-based guidance on what to lead and flexibility on how to lead for purposes of improving student learning. Table of Contents1. Introduction; Kenneth Leithwood, Jingping Sun and Katina Pollock.- Section One: The Nature of Successful Leadership.- Section introduction.- 2. A Model of Successful School Leadership from the International Successful School Principalship Project; David Gurr.- 3. The Ontario Leadership Framework; Kenneth Leithwood.- Section Two: The Rational Path.- Section introduction.- 4. Leadership and Learning: Conceptualizing Relations between School Administrative Practice and Instructional Practice; James Spillane.- 5. Effects of Distributed Leadership on School Academic Press and Student Achievement; John Malloy and Kenneth Leithwood.- 6. Towards Sustaining Levels of Reflective Learning: How Do Transformational Leadership, Task Interdependence, and Self-Efficacy Shape Teacher Learning in Schools?; Arnoud Oude Groote Beverborg, Peter J. C. Sleegers, Maaike D. Endedijk and Klaas van Veen.- Section Three: The Emotional Path.- Section introduction.- 7. Leadership Effects on Student Learning Mediated by Teacher Emotions; Jingping Sun and Kenneth Leithwood.- 8. Principals, Trust, and Cultivating Vibrant Schools; Megan Tschannen-Moran and Christopher R. Gareis.- 9. Generation X School Leaders as Agents of Care: Leader and Teacher Perspectives from Toronto, New York City and London; Karen Edge.- Section Four: The Organizational Path.- Section introduction.- 10. Complexity and Volume: An Inquiry into Factors that Drive Principals’ Work; Katina Pollock, Fei Wang and David Cameron Hauseman.- 11. Creating Communities of Professionalism: Addressing Cultural and Structural Barriers; Joseph Murphy.- 12. Effects of Principal Professional Orientation towards Leadership, Professional Teacher Behavior, and School Academic Optimism on School Reading Achievement; Roxanne Mitchell and John Tarter.- 13. Leading Teacher Learning in China: A Mixed Methods Study of Successful School Leadership; Shengnan Liu and Philip Hallinger.- Section Five: The Family Path.- Section introduction.- 14. Effects of Family Educational Cultures on Student Success at School: Directions for Leadership; William Jeynes.- 15. Changing the Educational Culture of the Home to Increase Student Success at School; Kenneth Leithwood and Penny Patrician.- 16. Conclusion; Kenneth Leithwood, Jingping Sun and Katina Pollock.- References by Section introduction and Chapter.

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Book SynopsisWell-being and learning of elementary school students during the Covid-19 pandemic.- School in lockdown: Experiences of families during the COVID-19 pandemic.- Being a child in times of Corona.- Parental perspectives on daycare and school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.- Digital, multilingual, and in transition: International preparation classes during the pandemic.- It's still vacation, isn't it? Findings from a student survey on remote learning.- Between challenge and coping: pandemic-related homeschooling phases from the perspective of first graders.- Alienation of adolescents.

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