ABSTRACT
At first sight, the intention of improving classroom practice seems straightforward. The practitioner evaluates the individual classroom, decides which aspect of practice will receive attention, embarks on an improvement effort, evaluates it and re-starts the cycle. Such a view, also encapsulated in some approaches to school review and development (e.g. McMahon et al., 1984), does not take account of the real complexity of this task; particularly of the need to enable a sustained dialogue to take place between those involved, and the initiation of micropolitical activity which may be perceived as threatening for those concerned. While attention has been drawn to the limitations of diagrammatic representations of change processes, for example that they ‘present only the general image of a much more detailed and snarled process’ (Fullan, 1982), this has not inhibited the spread of similar models in Local Education Authorities (LEAs) across the country. Indeed, it may fairly be said to have become part of the common sense of a ‘systematic’ approach to school improvement.
