Abstract |
A project to improve school effectiveness under the paradigm of the IQEA (Improving the Quality of Education for All) programme was put into effect at three schools in the city of Cordova, Spain. This report identifies the conditions under which students were found to develop skills. The programme\'s approach was to examine how change can be understood and facilitated at schools by involving all members of the educational community, on the basis of experiences and private circumstances, without seeking a quick fix. First the initial conditions of the participating schools as recipients of the change policies established by IQEA were evaluated. Each school\'s needs were identified so that a project could be tailored to their context for real improvement (The projects focused on generating a learning community, competency-based programming and the development of math skills). The feasibility of implementing the proposed actions was assessed, and the programme was adapted to each case\'s circumstances and implemented. Teacher satisfaction was evaluated, looking at the educational response to the identified needs, by analyzing the level of transfer to educational practice. Furthermore, the process of change as experienced by the schools was assessed, and the enablers and barriers in the process of deploying IQEA were described. In the wake of the study, it became clear that successful schools pay attention not only to internal management processes, but also to what is happening in their classrooms, the main settings of the teaching/learning process. |