Developing Quality Schools

In the 1990s the semi-autonomous school was fast becoming a reality. The effect was that the Local Education Authority (LEA) was in danger of being squeezed out of this new scenario of centralized decentralization – unless, of course, the Authority could recreate itself and discover a new role as a service operation. In the US, school districts, faced with the same changing situation, were adopting a “customer-service orientation” with the exhortation “to get close to the customer”.Originally published in 1994, Developing Quality Schools is the story of one Authority’s real attempt to grasp the future by encouraging schools to reconnoitre the work of relative autonomy whilst at the same time keeping faith with the principles of self-development and self-actualization. This is a most delicate balancing act for the Authority, in having to retain the trust of more independent, assertive schools on the one hand, and a more aggressive, demanding central government on the other. Today it can be read in its historical context.

Colin Bayne-Jardine went to Hereford and Worcester as Principal County Inspector in 1988 from Staffordshire where he was senior secondary inspector. Before joining the Staffordshire inspectorate, he had been Head of Henbury School, Bristol, and before that, Head of a reorganised comprehensive school in Bath. Teaching experience had been in independent schools, comprehensive schools in the UK, Canada and the USA. He had written history textbooks and contributed to a number of educational books on management and the curriculum.Peter Holly is an independent consultant who at the time of original publication was living and working in North America. He had taught in comprehensive schools, worked in the School Council and, had recently been, Tutor in Curriculum Studies at the University of Cambridge Institute of Education. His main research interests were evaluation and school development. It was whilst working as a consultant for the Hereford and Worcester LEA that the seeds of this book’s beginning were sown.