Hiring the Best Staff for Your School moves beyond typical hiring tools—résumés, applications, transcripts, portfolios, and artifacts—and adds effective strategies to the educational leader’s recruiting and hiring toolbox. Jetter hones in on the most crucial but often neglected element of talent searches—knowing candidates’ attitudes and dispositions about students, learning and instruction, leadership, and other crucial educational topics which affect schools today—and provides an innovative model for hiring the best candidates. This book presents a recruitment and hiring process that uses narratives to help school and district leaders delve deeper into understanding the emotions, ideas, reactions, and problem-solving insights of candidates. The ready-to-use resources found in this book, including real examples of the narrative process in action, dialogues, and as a training process, are easy to implement and will strengthen the hiring process to ensure that you recruit and retain the best staff members for any position within your school or district.

Bridge the achievement gap with proven strategies for student success Breakthrough Principals debunks the myth of the 'superhero' principal by detailing the common actions and practices of leaders at our nation's fastest-gaining public schools. Based on the authors' Transformational Leadership Framework, which they developed through in-depth study of more than 100 high-gaining, high-poverty schools, the book distills findings into a practical, action-focused plan for diagnosing school needs and implementing structures, systems and practices that accelerate student achievement. Brought to life by case studies of principals who have led dramatic gains in student achievement, the book is a how-to guide for increasing the quality of teaching and learning; improving school culture; attracting and supporting high-performing teachers; and involving parents and community to help students achieve. You'll learn how breakthrough principals make the school's mission a real part of both strategy and practice, and set up sustainable systems that support consistent, ongoing improvement. High-impact practices are organized into five broad categories: learning and teaching, school-wide culture, aligned staff, operations and systems, and personal leadership. The primary job of school leadership is to help students succeed. It begins with first recognizing and prioritizing areas of need, then finding and implementing the most effective solutions. Whether you work in a turn around environment, or want to make a good school better, this book will give you a set of concrete practices—illustrated through examples of real principals in real schools—that have been proven to work. Discover the primary drivers of student achievement Work toward the school's vision in staffing, operations, and systems Set the tone for all relationships and practices with good leadership Closing the achievement gap is a major goal of educational leadership, and principals are forever searching for viable methods that help them better serve their students. Breakthrough Principals unveils the details behind the success stories from across the nation to provide a roadmap to transformative gains.

The fifth edition of this bestseller expands and extends Gysbers and Henderson’s acclaimed five-phase model of planning, designing, implementing, evaluating, and enhancing Pre-K–12 guidance and counseling programs. This enduring, influential textbook has been fully updated to reflect current theory and practice, including knowledge gained through various state and local adaptations of the model since publication of the last edition. Exciting additions to this new edition are increased attention to diversity and the range of issues that students present, counselor accountability, and the roles and responsibilities of district- and building-level guidance and counseling leaders in an increasingly complex educational environment. An abundant array of examples, sample forms, job descriptions, evaluation surveys, flyers, letters, and procedures used by various states and school districts clearly illustrate each step of program development. At the end of each chapter, a new feature called “Your Progress Check” functions as a tracking tool for growth at each stage of the change process. *Requests for digital versions from ACA can be found on www.wiley.com. *To purchase print copies, please visit the ACA website *Reproduction requests for material from books published by ACA should be directed to publications@counseling.org

Written by a recent law school graduate with an extraordinary success story, Excelling in Law School: A Complete Approach transcends merely surviving the experience, demonstrating how to earn high grades by working smart, excel in extracurricular activities, publish, and land top jobs. The author aced his first year at a fourth tier law school and transferred to a top-10 school from which he graduated, magna cum laude. Now, he shares his insights and his experience, surpassing expectations set by his less-than-lustrous LSAT scores. Miller relieves some of the anxiety about law school by conveying proven strategies that will appeal to today's tech-savvy law student. He outlines the available resources and study-aids and shows how to effectively use new technologies such as websites that distribute outlines, companies that provide MP3s of detailed lectures on first year courses, student-maintained outline banks, recorded lectures, professor podcasts, and PowerPoint slides. Students learn the specific, unique skills required to approach law reviews and scholarships and to hunt for jobs. Excelling in Law School: A Complete Approach observes successful tactics used by other students and guides readers in selecting the strategies and resources that best fit each personality. Features of Excelling in Law School: A unique book written by a recent law school graduate with a stunning success story Goes beyond the basics of surviving law school earning high grades excelling in extracurricular activities publishing landing top jobs Helps students excel shows how to work smart relieves some anxiety about law school conveys proven strategies Designed for today's tech-savvy law student Showcases the study-aid market and effective use new technologies websites that distribute outlines companies that provide MP3s of detailed lectures on first year courses student-maintained outline banks recorded lectures professor podcasts PowerPoint slides Reveals effective, specific skills and unique approaches law reviews scholarships job-hunting Outlines available resources Illustrates the author's personal success, one that can be tailored for any law school student how the author personally aced each area strategies and tactics observed in use by other students how to select the strategy and resources that best fit the reader's personality

Mandy Coalter draws on her extensive HR experience in the schools sector and beyond to support you to build a great place to work where everyone can excel in the interests of the children. She provides practical tips and support that will help to improve staff retention, performance and engagement, while tackling topics such as addressing teacher workload, what really motivates and retains staff and the crucial role that leaders play in ensuring great people management in schools. Insightful, captivating and authentic, Mandy suggests fresh and practical new ideas and opportunities to strengthen your school and teachers, better equipping them to support their pupils.

This how-to handbook defines what school culture is, how it works, and why it is critically important, and helps you assess how your school measures up.

Being a “good teacher” is a difficult goal to achieve, being largely dependent on a huge variety of skills outside of the main curriculum. Teaching Skills For Dummies focuses on these ‘soft’ skills of teaching, from maintaining discipline to creating engaging lesson plans and monitoring performance. This essential guide promises to help teachers gain the respect of their pupils, manage potential confrontations and ultimately get the best out of both their careers and their students. Teaching Skills For Dummies includes information on: Developing Your Teaching Style Teaching a Class Managing a Class Dealing with Different Kinds of People Succeeding Beyond the Classroom “Don’t let the title fool you; this is an essential guide and resource for any aspiring teacher. Sue Cowley uses her experience and insight to provide a comprehensive and informative resource, packed with excellent advice and brilliant suggestions for making both teaching and learning effective. A must for any teacher’s bookshelf!” - Peter Hadfield, Principal lecturer in Education, University of Bedfordshire

Many teachers, support staff and school leaders are tired, stressed and overstretched. And even though this frequently makes the headlines, it isn’t a new problem. In this book, Mark Solomons and Fran Abrams argue staff wellbeing should be rooted in the culture and climate of our schools. They provide a roadmap to recovery for struggling schools which should lead to improvements in staff morale, workload management and mental wellbeing. With a range of real-life examples, this book focuses on how school leaders can build workplace wellbeing in even the most challenging environments. It includes clear links to research evidence and summaries of the key steps necessary to deal with common issues such as: Identifying and mapping issues in your school Leading for wellbeing Creating and maintaining a happy workforce Developing a culture of everyday wellbeing Overseeing change. Written in an entertaining yet informative manner, this is the go-to guide for school leaders who want to support staff by building a more positive and supportive workplace.

This indispensable textbook provides the underpinning knowledge to support all teaching assistants working towards Level 2 of the National Occupational Standards. This new edition is fully revised and extended to incorporate and respond to all new materials required to meet the 2007 standards. Taking into account current initiatives including Workforce Remodelling and the Every Child Matters agenda, the book can be used to support NVQs, or other Teaching Assistant awards at level 2, or can be used simply to supplement good practice. This accessible companion: actively engages the reader in activities, developing reflective practice while giving the theoretical background to school-based work gives insight and information about pupils’ individual needs helps teaching assistants develop curriculum-based skills to enable more effective classroom support emphasises that teaching assistants are team members, supporting the school and being supported by the school. Contributions from specialist advisers ensure that the ideas and techniques are up to date, relevant and the best practice. All phases of education are covered, from the early years to later secondary years, and references are made to sources of further information throughout the book. The Essential Guide for Competent Teaching Assistants is invaluable in supporting both study and everyday practice. It will also be useful to training providers, teachers and school managers supporting Teaching Assistants in their professional development.