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Outstanding success of Independent Public Schools
>>Janet Clinton [Director, Centre for Program Evaluation, Melbourne Graduate School of Education,
The University of Melbourne is speaking] The story for the Independent Public Schools
Initiative is a very positive one. In a survey of all West Australian principals, it was
very clear that principals overall who were involved in the initiative believed that the
initiative had a very positive effect on their school. In particular they believed that it
influenced the school climate; not only in terms of what was happening within the school,
in terms of teaching and learning, but also with the community overall.
They described feeling much more empowered in their process and as a consequence, Principals
felt that they could actually empower staff. They were really motivated by the notions
of being able to take some responsibility for assigning budgets, for bringing staff
into the schools that fitted the culture of their particular schools.
The principals themselves actually felt much more professional, or in control of their
careers and in some way this led to a greater sense of self worth, and self efficacy. The
principals believed that they could pass on some of these qualities to their teachers.
It was interesting to note that the schools overall said that they had much more engagement
with their communities as a consequence and there was this sense of greater pride in the
school, and greater pride in the community.
From our perspective the idea behind the West Australian initiative was certainly, had great
validity within the evidence. The theory and the direction that the program was taking
was the direction that the principals themselves, certainly the department was keen to move
in and had a lot of support.
So where to next? How could this initiative be enhanced? And overwhelmingly the schools
felt that because they were much more motivated, challenged and engaged in the idea that they
could see that they could now capitalize on the potential within the school to actually
focus on what was happening more in the classroom. So once the school climate was in place, it
was thought that the initiative would have much greater effect at a classroom level and
possibly for student achievement.
It�s interesting to note as well that the research around the area said that you need
quite a bit of time from a period of five to eight years before you would see any impact
on student outcomes. But the principals� perception was that this was actually starting
to happen already.
So overall the evaluation illustrated that the conditions for improvement in student
achievement, for attendance, behaviour, enrolment in schools, that the schools were probably
at a place where you would see over the next three to five years some considerable change
in what was happening within the West Australian schools.