ABSTRACT
The history of school effectiveness research is a distinguished one, dating as it does from the late 1960s and the intense interest generated by the question 'Do schools make a difference?' Out of the investigations emanating from this question has emerged a picture of the 'effective school', a detailed portrait for schools that desire to become' effective' . This work initially attempted to identifY the factors that can be said to bring about' effectiveness' at the whole-school level. Other, more recent, research has sought to identifY factors at the levels of the classroom and the individual teacher. In addition, considerable energy has been expended on examining ways in which schools can use the information emerging from this research to improve themselves and aim to become more effective.
