Recent years have seen schools in London and other English regions undergo marked processes of improvement, with what is known as the “London Effect” boosting student, outcomes considerably since the early 2000s (Greaves, Macmillan, & Sibieta, 2014; Baars et al., 2014). The improvement has been particularly striking in disadvantaged neighborhoods of London (Blanden, Greaves, Gregg, Macmillan, & Sibieta, 2015), a phenomenon Baars et al. (2014) associate with interventions that may have proved particularly effective in such contexts. Subsequent political initiatives aimed to achieve similar improvements in 12 designated “Social Mobility and Opportunity Areas”, regions of England characterized by particularly high social disadvantage and low social mobility (Department for Education [DfE], 2017a, 2017b, 2018). This paper, stemming from a funded mixed-methods research project exploring the practices and perspectives of school leaders in highly effective schools, draws on face-to-face interviews with 18 persons (44% female). We drew this sample from a larger sample of interviews with 43 principals and other leaders from 17 schools located in various regions of England and serving various types of student population. Our focus for this paper was on schools which had experienced a marked process of improvement over recent years and are highly effective despite serving a disadvantaged student population.

The central element of our interest in this context is school leaders’ views of the factors they consider crucial to their schools’ effectiveness and recent improvement. An inductive exploration of interviewees’ responses revealed that these school leaders place improving the quality of teaching and learning and the learning environment at their schools as the center of their leadership. Our intent in this work was to uncover the practices school leaders associate most closely with the improvements they have seen in, and the current effectiveness of, their schools. To this end, we proceeded from the following research question:

Which elements of the quality of teaching and learning or the learning environment at their schools did school leaders focus on when they were asked to talk about the factors that make their school effective?

Accordingly, this paper provides insights into effective policies and strategies that could benefit the work of researchers, practitioners and policymakers in education in both England and the wider European context. The research project from which this paper emerged has the specific aim of translating its findings to the context of another European country (Austria).

The conceptual basis of this paper is the Dynamic Approach to School Improvement (DASI) (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012), a model which emerged in response to a need identified by researchers for an approach that assesses school effectiveness beyond student outcomes and in consideration of a more complex array of factors (Creemers & Kyriakides 2012; Sammons, 2009; Van der Werf, Opdenakker, & Kuyper, 2008). In particular, the model defines factors relating to the education system, the school environment, the quality of teaching and characteristics of the student body, all of which require consideration when assessing a school’s effectiveness (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2012). Besides emphasizing the central role of teachers in increasing the quality of teaching and learning (see Cheng & Mok, 2008), the model identifies the learning environment within a school as a central lever of school development, the improvement of teaching, and raising student outcomes. The DASI model regards schools and their improvement as inherently dynamic processes and addresses several factors in school effectiveness alongside their mutual interplay (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2012). These characteristics make it an appropriate framework from which to analyze the perspectives presented in our interviews.

In recruiting interviewees, we focused on inner London boroughs whose schools showed very poor performance in standardized tests and on the Social Mobility and Opportunity Areas as defined above. In these areas we selected schools that 1) have, since 2003, improved their rating by England’s national school inspection agency (OFSTED) from “inadequate” or “requires improvement” to the best rating, “outstanding”; and 2) serve a very high proportion of disadvantaged students, as reflected in the school’s Free School Meal Score (average Free School Meal Score of the schools in the sample: 52.5 %; SD = 9.45 %). From these schools, we further selected those with 3) the highest Progress 8 scores in their local authorities (the Progress 8 score is a value-added measure which compares academic performance to “the actual achievements of other pupils with similar prior attainment” [DfE, 2016]). The current sample is thus a subsample of the research projects’ broader sample. Six schools (of the 13 corresponding to these three criteria that we contacted) agreed to take part (four from London and two from the Opportunity Areas). We additionally included in the sample for this paper two schools from a highly effective “academy” school trust, which has taken over a number of previously struggling schools in London and rapidly improved their performance. From this trust, we included one school that had experienced particularly marked improvement and one school that the trust had recently taken over. Both schools have a Free School Meal Score of more than 60 %. Both of the principals we interviewed from these schools had experiences with successful school quality development not only in their current school, but also in other schools before. The interviews, lasting an average of 43 minutes (SD = 16 minutes), were audio recorded and subsequently transcribed in full. Their focus was the interviewees’ approaches to and views on school quality development, a tone we set in an initial question put to all participants, which elicited their opinion on why they thought their school was effective. We put the answers to this question through content analysis using MAXQDA (2020) and applying a theory-driven approach using categories based on the components of the DASI model. The results of the analysis demonstrated that the participants linked their schools’ effectiveness particularly to policies on the learning environment within the school and to a focus on developing the quality of teaching and learning.

When asked about why they think their school is effective, the school leaders we interviewed described various “policies for creating the school learning environment” (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2012, pp. 40-41). The most frequently mentioned were: 1) Clear rules and expectations for “students’ behavior” to avoid disruption of teaching. 2) A “partnership policy” within which the school and the community engage in mutual guidance and support as partners. 3) Providing, and maximizing the use of, “sufficient learning resources” for teachers and students (e.g. money, laptops, software) and enrichment activities (e.g. training, trips, internships) supported by universities and businesses. 4) Promoting a school culture built on high expectations as a “value in favor of learning”. Alongside these policies, several interviewees described strategies for the improvement of the school learning environment, with raising the “quality of teaching” (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2012, pp. 38-39) as a central feature: 1) Enabling teachers to focus on their professional development through establishing clear systems, routines and specialized roles. 2) Lesson observations, coaching and provision of feedback to the end of improving lessons and providing appropriate support to improve. Finally, interviewees identified ongoing evaluation of “school policies and the school learning environment” (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2012, pp. 41-42) as a source of effectiveness. They described tracking students’ performance, evaluating systems and conducting surveys within their schools as means of assessing the effectiveness of their policies and identifying potential areas for improvement. This paper adds to existing research in this area and provides valuable insights for educational practitioners by exploring factors that leaders of highly effective schools in difficult socio-economic circumstances associate with their schools’ performance. Further, it expands on central, research-based categories of the DASI model by applying them to data from interviews with school leaders from highly effective schools that have seen emphatic processes of improvement.

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