David Reynolds

• University of Southampton

This practical guide invites teachers to take a journey towards masterly mathematics teaching using the experiences and lessons learnt across five Chinese provinces, Anhui, Beijing, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Tianjin. On this journey, you will gain a thorough understanding of: (1) the quality and characteristics of master mathematics teachers’ teaching,...

School effectiveness research has been subject to various criticisms over the years. While some of these have been justified, others have conflated the ‘science’ with the use to which it is put by policy makers, or have made unjustified methodological claims against the field. The latest is Stephen Gorard’s BERJ paper ‘Serious doubts about school e...

A review is given of internationally orientated educational effectiveness research over time, looking at the waves of studies from 1960 to 2001, the beginning of the PISA studies. It is concluded that whilst PISA has been a major methodological improvement upon earlier work, there are issues to do with the ‘culture fairness’ of test items, OECD mis...

Teacher effectiveness, which impacts student attainment even when controlling for student characteristics, is of key importance as a factor in educational effectiveness and improvement. Improving the quality of teaching is thus the primary means by which we can enhance student learning outcomes. Thus there has long been great interest in the develo...

The Effectiveness of Mathematics Teaching in Primary Schools: Lessons from England and China provides a unique insight into the mathematics classrooms of these two countries and arrives at a time when the world is eager to know how Chinese learners consistently excel at learning mathematics and other core subjects. Showcasing the kinds of teaching...

This article presents initial findings from an empirical study of the effectiveness of mathematics teaching (EMT). The article explores the teaching of mathematics in two very different contexts: England and China. Within each country, the target cohort of pupils were those aged 9–10 and overall, 19 teachers, 10 from England and nine from China, pa...

This paper aims to interconnect quantitative results and qualitative findings of an international study on the effectiveness of mathematics teaching in primary schools across England and China and present thorough explanations of the teaching differences and performance gap between the two countries. Educational effectiveness researchers have con...

The International Handbook of Educational Effectiveness and Improvement draws together leading academics and researchers in the field to reflect on the history, traditions and the most recent developments in this dynamic and influential field. This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of: the foundations of the field, the evolution of educati...

There has been much publicity in recent years about China and its teachers. After the most recent results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) were published in 2013, considerable discussion has focused on the reasons why Chinese students’ test results are more than 100 points above the PISA average. Despite some controvers...

Research and scholarship into educational effectiveness research (EER) is comprehensively reviewed from the UK, The Netherlands, the US, Cyprus, Belgium, Sweden, France, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and other societies, dating from the field’s origins in the 1970s. Issues include its history, methodological and theoretical advances, scientific...

A description is given of different kinds of accountability systems and of the rise of ‘performance based’ and ‘simultaneous supply-side / demand-side’ educational policies in the United Kingdom since 1980. It is argued that these systems and policies have been useful, but that they need improvement in their operationalisation, both in terms of con...

This article describes a novel UK school/university partnership, the Plymouth Model designed to encourage young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to aim for higher education (HE) study. The model incorporates the activity of university students, researchers and teachers working together to improve aspirations and outcomes for pupils and potenti...

Educational effectiveness research (EER) has accumulated much knowledge in the areas of school effectiveness research (SER), teacher effectiveness research (TER) and school/system improvement research (SSIR). Yet many schools and educational systems are not making enough use of the material and their insights. The article reviews evidence of practi...

Building a valuable and sustainable educational experience for disenfranchised and disengaged youth remains a challenge for secondary schools. This article examines successful schools located in areas of deprivation through the lens of Rawlsianism, particularly those ideas stated in A Theory of Justice (1971). Case studies from 16 schools located i...

Educational effectiveness research (EER) has accumulated much knowledge in the areas of school effectiveness research (SER), teacher effectiveness research (TER) and school/system improvement research (SSIR). Yet many schools and educational systems are not making enough use of the material and their insights. The article reviews evidence of practi...

This entry includes the following topics: effectiveness; improvement; methodology; the contribution of psychology; conclusions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Educational effectiveness research (EER) has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the characteristics and processes associated with more and less effective schools in a diverse range of contexts. However, this remains a contested field of inquiry and has been subjected to significant critique. This paper examines the origins and...

If our schools were a research project, we'd say that while some aspects of our schools are highly valid, our overall academic systems aren't reliable. If educators are to meet the challenge of leaving no child behind, schools will have to improve with much greater reliability. In the mid-1990s, a group of British secondary schools decided to work...

This book provides a contemporary overview of school effectiveness and improvement. It charts the development theory and research in this area and looks at the contribution made to policy and practice. It also challenges some assumptions that have become ingrained into the theoretical and methodological traditions of the field. By challenging these...

Beginning from 1 high-poverty, historically low-achieving secondary school's successful turnaround work, this article provides data relative to a successful school turnaround, the importance of external and system-level supports, and the importance of building for sustainable institutionalization of improvements. The evidence suggests the importanc...

Yes, it is official.We now have an address we can call our own, with our new offices in Endsleigh Gardens, London and two new members of staff: Farzana Rahman and Mark Donoghue. In the next several months members will find their inquiries being redirected from KSAM's Lynne Fletcher and Emma Pettigrew in Macclesfield to Farzana and Mark in London. A...

David Reynolds is recognised internationally as one of the leaders of the school effectiveness and school improvement movement, and Failure Free Education? brings together for the first time many of his most influential and provocative pieces. Drawing on the author's work from over three decades, these extracts from his seminal books, chapters, pap...

The experiences of those who have tried improving schools over the last 20 years are somewhat sobering. School improvement practised by academics and others in the school effectiveness and school improvement communities has passed through a number of phases, which do indeed show intellectual progress (Hopkins & Reynolds, 2001), and there are some r...

An account is given of the development of a distinctive set of education policies in Wales after devolution of power in 1999. In contrast to policies in England that emphasised consumer choice concerning accountability, and central state 'support' of the profession, Wales chose a more 'producerist' paradigm that emphasised collaboration between edu...

The authors describe a reform effort in which characteristics derived from High Reliability Organization research were used to shape whole school reform. Longitudinal analyses of outcome data from 12 Welsh secondary schools indicated that 4 years after the effort was initiated, student outcomes at the sites were strongly positive. Additional quanti...

Ownership and relevance to practice are key to successful teacher professional development. As part of a pilot project to develop evidence-based professional development, teachers were trained in the use of a classroom observation system, and used it as a basis for peer observation and discussion to enable them to decide on an area to focus on with...

Despite educational reforms of recent years, there remains variation between schools, between teachers within schools, and between students from different backgrounds. This report focuses on the concept of the school learning from itself, its best people and its best practices to tackle within-school variation, rather than relying on central guidan...

After a slow start, in changing from traditional school models, comprehensive schools have more recently been changing in ethos, curriculum and organisation as shown by a local study in Wales. It seems likely that the same trends have been occurring nationally with an increasing emphasis on social as well as academic objectives. This article consid...

Rack, Snowling, Hulme and Gibbs (Dyslexia, 2007) provide a polemical critique of Reynolds and Nicolson (Dyslexia, 2007). We present further statistical analyses, as suggested. The further analyses confirm the findings reported. We also present a brief critique of the applicability of the clinical trials methodology to education. Copyright © 2007 Jo...

This study reports the results of a long-term follow-up of an exercise-based approach to dyslexia-related disorders (Reynolds, Nicolson, & Hambly, Dyslexia, 2003; 9(1): 48-71). In the initial study, children at risk of dyslexia were identified in 3 years of a junior school. One half then undertook a 6 month, home-based exercise programme. Evaluatio...

An outline is given of the context in which The International School Effectiveness Research Project (ISERP) was designed and it is argued that the deficiencies of existing studies and the increased internationalization of education makes the more rigorous approach of ISERP essential. A number of methodological lessons from the study are given, conc...

Incl. bibl., abstract This article outlines a research and development programme that focused on a group of 8 secondary schools in England. 1 The schools in this study were considered to be facing exceptionally challenging circumstances characterised by high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage and deprivation. They were also schools considered to...

In this chapter David Reynolds presents an analysis of the implications of recent international school effectiveness and school improvement research for improvement practice. In so doing he transcends the somewhat artificial boundaries that grew up in the eighties and early nineties between school effectiveness researchers and school improvement pr...

The use of learning support assistants in schools has become increasingly common in England, partly as a result of government support for this strategy. One suggested advantage of the deployment of learning support assistants is to provide additional support to low achieving pupils. However, so far research on the effects of this strategy is very l...

In this article, we have studied the effect of student social background, classroom social context, classroom organisation, and teacher behaviours on mathematics achievement and attainment ill English and Welsh primary schools. Data were collected over 2 years as part of a programme evaluation, for which we observed 138 teachers and tested and coll...

The commentaries on our evaluation of the DDAT exercise treatment raise several common themes and several individual themes. We rebut criticisms in terms of research design, consider the comments made, and conclude that our evidence is indeed solid. We conclude by advocating ‘science, sense and synergy’ as the key to making further progress. Copyri...

An outline is given of the UK research situation for the knowledge bases of school effectiveness and teacher effectiveness, and the UK policy situation in terms of school and teacher evaluation, improvement and development. It is argued that the UK has seen a much greater use of school-level policies, reflecting its substantial school effectiveness...

An evaluation is reported of an exercise-based approach to remediation of dyslexia-related disorders. Pupils in three years of a Warwickshire junior school were screened for risk of literacy difficulty using the Dyslexia Screening Test (DST). The 35 children scoring 0.4 or over on the DST were divided randomly into two groups matched for age and DS...

Incl. bibl., index.

The paper reviews the literature on 'what works' in school improvement taken from a number of sources—from effective schools studies, from accounts by headteachers who have turned schools around and from general literature on school improvement of the last 30 years. It is located within the paradigm of 'third wave' principles and practices that hav...

Examined the relationship between teacher behaviors, teacher beliefs, teacher self-efficacy, and teacher subject knowledge with student achievement in mathematics. Data was collected from 103 primary school teachers and 2,148 students in the UK using achievement tests, classroom observation, and questionnaires. Structural equation modeling was used...

Incl. notes on contributors, bibliography, index

The article outlines the three phases that school improvement has been through since the mid-1980s, paying particular attention to the characteristics of the recent 'third age' improvement paradigm. It is argued that these new models of improvement stand a chance of overcoming the difficulties that past improvement has had in affecting outcomes, an...

Criticisms of school effectiveness research (SER) from recent books are addressed. Fourteen criticisms are presented, followed by counterpoints, including: (1) many criticisms are based on simplistic/skewed readings of SER; (2) there is a wide diversity in SER; no single viewpoint prevails, as implied by critics; (3) many SER researchers have repor...

It is argued that school effectiveness research has made three considerable contributions: (1)The setting up of a field which exhibits the characteristics of mature normal science; (2) The generation of a considerable volume of research findings on numerous important topics; (3) The combatting of societal and professional pessimism concerning the p...

In this study the effect of teacher behaviours and classroom organisation on pupils' progress in mathematics was studied in years 1, 3 and 5 of primary schools in the UK participating in a mathematics intervention programme. Data on a total of 78 teachers and 2,128 pupils was collected. Teacher behaviours were measured using a classroom observation...

Teachers, and their teaching methods, are increasingly becoming central to the policy discourses of many countries. Coinciding with the evidence from school effectiveness research about the importance of the classroom, rather than the school, level has come a realisation that the historic attention given to school level organisational reforms may n...

Incl.bibl.

Incl. bibl.

An outline is given of three bodies of knowledge that are in general agreement about the characteristics of the effective teaching of mathematics, and which are reflected in the British Government's National Numeracy Strategy. A fourth body of knowledge related to the development of higher order skills is outlined, together with some further resear...

Despite recent advances, the research literature on school effectiveness, school improvement and educational change has relatively little to say about how schools become effective over time, and what strategies or combination of strategies work best to improve schools at different levels of effectiveness. A recent British research study – ‘The Impr...

This chapter briefly summarizes some of the common findings in and some of the major criticisms of school effectiveness research. Eleven ‘cutting edge’ areas are identified where it is argued that the future of the discipline lies in terms of a research agenda to continue disciplinary advance. These areas are: the need to use multiple outcome measu...

Incl. bibl., index

At the 10th International Congress for School Effectiveness and School Improvement, participants noted progress in effectiveness research regarding development of outcome measures, size effects, measures of educational processes, and variables contributing to effectiveness. School-improvement research has focused on schools' status changes, impleme...

An outline is given of educational policies concerned with literacy and of the teacher effectiveness and school effectiveness knowledge bases that are now central in educational discourse and which provide a specific ‘technology’ of practices associated with the development of literacy. It is argued that research findings concerning the ‘context sp...

This paper is a response to ‘School effectiveness research and its critics; alternative visions of schooling’ by John Elliott (Cambridge Journal of Education, 1996, 26, pp. 199‐223). It is argued that Elliott knows little of the knowledge base, misinterprets what he knows and fails to support his criticisms with evidence. It is concluded that educa...

Existing national and international studies of educational effectiveness are reviewed and their strengths and weaknesses analyzed. The International School Effectiveness Research Programme is outlined in detail, including sampling and instrumentation, and particularly the methodology involving case studies of schools in different countries. Finding...

Incl. index, bibliographical references