Full Description
First published in 1996, School Improvement provides, through the recorded words and experiences of pupils themselves, a picture of how teaching, learning, and the organisation of secondary schooling might be improved. By presenting first-hand the pupils' own thoughts on crucial areas of school life, the authors emphasise the contribution that pupils can make to the quality of learning. Observations on the positive aspects of school and schoolwork are balanced by comments on the anxieties and difficulties that pupils have in coping with increasing pressures and living up to other people's expectations of them. Drawing on a wealth of data from interviews with eighty pupils over a four-year period (1991-5), supplemented by data from smaller studies, the book will help teachers to gain insight into pupils' perceptions of schooling and recognise their capacity for constructive analysis of their school experience.
Contents
Introduction 1. Pupil voices and school improvement Part 2: Finding your way 2. Going to 'the big school': the turbulence of transition 3. Relating to teachers 4. Lessons, subjects and the curriculum: issues of 'understanding' and 'coherence' Part 2: Making a commitment to learning 5. Engaging with learning 6. The meaning of 'working hard' in school 7. Homework: dilemmas and difficulties 8. Making a strategic withdrawal: disengagement and self-worth protection in male pupils Part 3: Experiencing the pressures of learning 9. Pupils under pressure: coping with stress at school 10. Getting serious: the demands of coursework, revision and examinations Part 4: Facing the future 11. Confronting the world of work 12. The reckoning Conclusion 13. Reviewing the conditions of learning in schools
