Overview

A module of the ÆSOP Series - An Exceptional Schooling Outcomes Program

English as a Second Language and Literacy are joint concerns of many Australian schools. This is particularly so many neighbourhoods suffering socioeconomic disadvantage.

Addressing the demands of ESL/Literacy is an enormous challenge. Herein, the authors describe how three public high schools have risen to the occasion with sustained, exceptional achievements by their students. Intensive, detailed case studies of the schools - each located in a socioeconomically disadvantaged area of Sydney - reveal many similarities (and also some distinguishing differences). Common to each is systemic support, staff stability, whole-school involvement and visible, optimistic leadership by Principal and Head Teacher. Each school satisfies the definition of Stanley Fish's interpretive community - that 'remarkable unanimity of values, attitudes, practices and schema for interpreting any practice event or phenomenon and conventions of behaviour'.

These exceptional schools are 'engines of change' in that the very professionalism that sustains them results in a continual quest for improvement and frequent questioning of established practices.