The Improving Department looks at schools which are successful - often despite all the odds. It asks simple questions such as: "Exactly why is this school improving?" It analyses the key information to show how this approach can be implemented elsewhere, without extra funding and without increasing the workload.

The report summarises research which shows that change in schools made at the departmental level can have an enormous and immediately positive effect on pupil attitudes, exam results, pupil behaviour and staff/pupil relations. In fact the research suggests that it is change at the departmental level which is the power-house for driving successful schools forward.

The Improving Department sets out the key factors which highly effective and improving departments have in common. It concludes that it is working procedures which generate major school improvement and reveals that departmental improvements can be easier to start, and are easier to maintain, than whole-school policies.

The report can make an important contribution to the school development plan. The old adages It wouldn't work here and You can't do that with these pupils (or staff!) are finally laid to rest. It is the change in procedures, not the resources or the people, that leads to improvement.

Cat No: 978 1 86083 365 6