Urban schools face unique challenges, so teachers must have strong interpersonal skills and a commitment to helping diverse students succeed regardless of their backgrounds. An effective school promotes high academic standards and positive values to prepare students for their futures and become good citizens. While data can help evaluate school performance, it should not be used to lower expectations for individual students. Visiting highly effective schools is recommended to help other schools improve by adopting useful strategies. Establishing school priorities requires consultation with stakeholders like teachers, students, parents and community partners.

1. Episode 1:
1.)No matter where you teach, there will be challenges. But if you are thinking about pursuing urban education as a
career, you need have a strong sense of commitment and compassion for your students. Days can be stressful, so a
sense of humor and an optimistic outlook are important. Urban schools can have very diverse populations, so you
should have strong interpersonal skills to be able to work effectively with a wide range of cultures in the same room,
keeping in mind that these students’ cultures and backgrounds may be very different from yours. Finally, because
there may not be someone at home making sure students are doing their work, it’s important to have strong
leadership skills to motivate your students.
If you love to meet challenges and want a career where you can really make a difference in someone’s life, then
consider teaching in an urban school.
5.)
Observing effective schools
An effective school is a school in which students achieve high standards that they can use in their future education or
the workplace, a school where students feel safe and happy. It promotes those values that will help pupils to become
good and responsible citizens, enable them to become involved in their community and become good family
members. We all write these sorts of things in our school mission statements and school documents, but we are all
too often distracted from them in day-to-day planning.
High standards are not the preserve of a few socially advantaged individuals and we should never lower our
expectations on the basis of social background. For that reason, contextual data can leave us too easily satisfied with
poor performance.
The Fischer Family Trust and the school Panda (performance and assessment) both provide schools with contextual
value-added data that evaluates expected pupil progress based on social indicators such as free school meals. While
this is a good measure to use to monitor the improvement of schools as institutions, it should not be used to set lower
targets or have lower expectations for individual students.
I am privileged to have worked in some effective schools with staff who have developed highly effective strategies.
There are many highly effective schools across the country. Visiting them with an open mind makes you come away
with a burning desire to develop something of what you have seen for your own school. I would recommend this as a
strategy for headteachers as well as for teachers, support staff and students from across the school.
Establishing priorities in your own school will necessarily come from a consultation with school stakeholders.
I have sometimes found it useful to hold visioning days, where stakeholders are invited to identify future priorities for
the school and these are then used to help the senior team set priorities within the school improvement plan. When
doing this it is important to involve all stakeholders: teachers, support staff, students, parents, governors, partner
schools and multi-agency groups that work with the school.