ABSTRACT
We began this book by emphasising the importance of resources as the means by which we transform hopes and aspirations for children’s education into daily experiences of teaching and learning. The delegation to schools of responsibility for the management of those resources is viewed by the government as a key element in its ‘overall policy to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools’ (DES, 1988) and it has been the purpose of this book to describe, analyse and explain the attributes of good practice in that delegation. It has done so on the basis of practice in 18 secondary schools identified for us by HMI as likely examples of good practice. Good practice should not be confused with the ideal. We do not suggest, and no more would those whom we met in the schools, that these schools cannot improve or develop the way they use their responsibilities. They do, however, provide examples which assist our understanding of resource management and from which we can learn. In this chapter, our intention is to consider what can be learnt from these schools in a discussion which is organised around those organisational attributes we believe must be added to effective schools to make them cost-effective.
