Continuous Collective Development as a Road to Success in Primary School
Keywords:
Teaching; school leadership; collective knowledge developmentAbstract
In most countries today, schools are required to
conduct comprehensive testing and assessment. In Norway,
national tests in the fifth, eighth, and ninth grades evaluate
basic skills in reading, numeracy, and English. This article
presents a qualitative study of schools that have over time
performed well on national tests and for whom results cannot
be explained by the socio-economic profile in the school
context. Interviews were conducted with teachers and
administrators in four of these schools. The purpose of this
study is to present these schools' own explanations and
reflections about why they have performed well on these tests
over time. The results show that the following issues emerged
as central themes: collective understanding, the importance of
school leadership, stability and long-term goals, and focus on
reading. These are discussed from the point of view of theory
of school development.
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