Partnership: Focusing the Relationship on the Task of School Improvement
Partnership: Focusing the Relationship on the Task of School Improvement is a significant book which will be of interest to anyone who is in a leadership or governance role in education. The topic is of critical importance to schools, government agencies, and communities.
The authors suggest that the strength of partnerships lies in the ability of the partners to integrate relationship and task dimensions in a way that enables the partners to work together and learn from one another.
They illustrate their theory through examples of different partnerships in the context of a New Zealand initiative for school improvement.
They discuss:
- parental involvement
- boards of trustees and school professionals
- the difference between partnership and consultation
- partnership between early childhood and new entrant teachers.
They provide a conceptual framework for successful partnerships that will inform policy, practice, and research. Theirs is a valuable step along the way to understanding the nature of partnership and its potential to contribute to school improvement.
Helen Timperley, senior lecturer in the School of Education at Auckland University, and Viviane Robinson, associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Auckland, are co-leaders of the research evaluation of the New Zealand Ministry of Education's initiative to strengthen education in Mängere and Otara (SEMO).
