The school environment in general and on classroom-level is essential for creating a conducive situation for teaching and learning and for the opportunity and quality needed for educational effectiveness (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2015; Scheerens, 2015). This is particularly important in highly unequal societies where schooling may make a significant difference to children from impoverished backgrounds (Kyriakides, Charalambous, Charalambous, & Creemers, 2015) Whilst developed countries assume a minimum standard of resources of schools and classrooms, this is not the case in developing contexts where resourcing of even basic infrastructure and equipment may be very poor (Lockheed & Verspoor, 1991; Zimmerman, Howie, & Smit, 2011). The main aim of this paper is to analyse the developments that may have taken place in primary schools (at Grade 4 level) with regard to the conditions in schools and language classrooms in South Africa over a 10 year period using PIRLS 2006, 2011 and 2016 data and to ascertain their effect on reading performance. Models of educational effectiveness (e.g., Creemers & Kyriakides, 2015 amongst others) will provide input for the theoretical underpinning for this research. The data will derived from the questionnaires completed by teachers and principals of schools tested in these PIRLS studies. The analyses will be undertaken using primarily confirmatory factor analyses, tests of significance and multiple regression techniques. A five-year comparison between the 2006 and 2011 provided little evidence of significant developments in schooling and classroom conditions between 2006 and 2011 (Howie, Van Staden, Tshele, Dowse, & Zimmerman, 2012). With the preliminary data for PIRLS 2016 (Mullis & Martin, 2015), underway, the 10 year review will now be possible.

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