Heading towards excellence - John R Rowling

This book identifies the ways to make good practice in school management exceptionally good. The headteacher of a secondary school in northern England has set out the processes by which he and his management team, pastoral and departmental heads, teachers and others members of the staff, and the students and governors, worked to evaluate and improve their practice. Working initially from the documented good practice in management, they moved towards developing their own model of evaluation. In Part 1 of this book, John Rowling describes the theoretical background to the model, the conditions required for it to function to full effect, and the framework by which achievement - of every member of the school, beginning with the headteacher - can be measured.;Part 2 consists of photocopiable checklists of the key charcteristics of good practice for making the work of each group of people in the school - again starting from the headteacher - in terms of good, very good and outstanding practice. These are not only clear and accessible measures, they also indicate for readers the incremental factors that lead towards excellence. The book is for all headteachers and aspiring heads, and for the staff and governors of all schools which are doing a good job and want to still do better.