Scottish Government

ISBN 978 0 7559 6925 8
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Contents

Executive Summary

1. Introduction and context
1.1 The Schools of Ambition programme
1.2 Mentoring role and use of the VRE 1.3 Evaluation role
1.4 Evaluation conference
1.5 North Atlantic Conference
1.6 Limitations and scope

2. Details of Activities
2.1 Transformational plans and evaluation strands
2.2 Supporting practitioner research and evaluation
2.3 Evaluation
2.3.1 Leadership interviews
2.3.2 Interviews with teacher researchers

3. Forming a research and evaluation group
3.1 Rationale
3.2 Organisational forms
3.3 Engagement with research and evaluation
3.4 School culture and evaluation

4. Summary and conclusions
4.1 Learning issues for schools
4.2 Learning issues for support
4.3 Positive features
4.4 Conclusions

Appendix 1: Project Work, September 2006 - July 2007
Appendix 2: Reflective prompts
Appendix 3: Twenty-five questions to consider when forming a research and evaluation team
Appendix 4: Interview topic guide for the leadership group
Appendix 5: Telephone interview topic guide for school partners
Appendix 6: Interview topic guide for the teacher researchers
Appendix 7: Questionnaire with overall returns and summary of findings
Appendix 8: Virtual Research Environment
Appendix 9: Schools of Ambition Evaluation Conference 2007
Appendix 10: North Atlantic Conference
Appendix 11: Dissemination activities
Appendix 12: The Schools of Ambition
Appendix 13: Examples of evaluation strands and research methods

References

Core Research Team
University of Glasgow: Ian Menter (Director), Moira Hulme (Co-ordinator), Kevin Lowden, Dely Elliot, Stuart Hall, Alison Devlin.
University of Aberdeen: Kay Livingston (Co-Director ¹), Fran Payne, Philip Woods.
University of Strathclyde: Donald Christie (Co-Director), Sanna Rimpilainen.