CREATING EFFECTIVE SCHOOL

Today many people is talking about effective school. From the small school boy in the village until an old man at the street. All of them give an opinion about the matter. The parents itself also want to their children to achieve excellence result and behaviour. So they will choose a special school for their children although the school will be far away from their house.

According to Peter Mortimore, “ excellence school” is a high performing school through its well established system, promotes the highest academic and other achievement for the maximum number of students regardless of backgrounds of their families”

In excellence school every child can learn and that we have the knowledge we need to create schools in which child can learn. It is the school in which the academic achievement is maximum. This school also is an organization of high reliability having a clear school vision, a well manage school with standard procedure and well equipt material.

So, in order to create an effective school the following steps must be taken.

a) Create a clear aim and shared vision of the school
An excellence school must have their own philosophy that consists of the vision, mission and objectives of the school (Leithwood & Montgomery). So the first step of the school manager is to create the vision, mission and aims before doing other things. The creating of vision and mission is based on the input, background and the aspiration of the school community and the surrounding society. After creating this, all the school community must be informed of the vision and mission. Pamphlet and banners is distributed and hang over at strategic places so that not only the school community knows it but also the visitors and the nearby society.

b) Create a condusive learning environment
The learning environment has a very closed relation with school climate. This characteristics mean that school climate is influences by the learning environment and good school condition with an attractive, calm and harmony working condition. The manager must make sure that school must be very clean, tidy , condusive and safe for the learning process to take place. When this happen there will be a very close relation between the student and the school environment. This will cause the student to be more sensitive to the cleaniness of the school and they will then try to maintain the condition.

c) Enhancing positive enforcement through reward and praises
Mortimore finds that positive enforcement in term of giving prizes and incentives become an important factor to motivate the student and the school community.
The enforcement is important to ensure the academic achievement and discipline of the student with be upgraded. Weak student will be monitored by the teacher and will be given proper academic enforcement so that their understanding will increase. Mastery method will be introduced until all the academic problems is solved. The student with discipline problem will given special advice and treatment. They will also be monitored from time to time.

d) Introducing professional leadership style
Edmonds (1978) states that a principal can make a difference. This mean that a school can be developed and the development of the school depends on the principal. This characteristics emphasize that the principal is a professional and knowledgeable person who also impliment instructional leadership as their style of management. Based on the article by Sweeney (1983) there are six leadership characteristics of the principal that is related to effective school. The characteristics are :
i) emphasize on the students achievement in academic
ii) arrange and set the learning strategies
iii) provide and maintain the condusive environment in the school
iv) always evaluate the achievement of the school in every aspect
v) set the learning program
vi) give support and enhanced the student and staff spirit.

Therefore the principal leadership style must focus on the main field that is teaching and learning process, strategies to achieve the goals and enhance the efficiency of the subordinates. From the 6 characteristics above five of it is related to the instructional leadership and only one related to the office management. This is supported by Bennis (1985) who states that effective leadership is the leader who is doing the right thing and doing the things right. Sergiovanni states that if a school wants to be effective the principal must be a competence principal.

e) Focus on Teaching and Learning Process

This characteristics states that an effective school depends on the effective teaching and learning process in the classroom. Research shows that there a significant between T&L process and the effectiveness of teacher in conducting the process.
Therefore the school should focus on the quantity and quality of T & L processes.The school must maximize the time of learning, dan distribute exact time to the main subjects. Most of the school time is focus on the learnig process. The teachers must be very sensitive with needs of the student. The school emphasize on the time of students learning and reduce all nonsense activities.

f) High Expectation
This characteristic means that the effective school must have higher expectation in all aspects. The teacher should give the opportunities to their student in handling any activities. By doing the student can get appropriate skills .



g) Monitoring the achievement

Effective school must always monitor the achievement and the school achievement systematically and periodically.The product of this monitoring is used to correct the students achievement and the school activities. The achievement of the student in any exam is discussed and action is taken if there is weakness. The evaluation of the program should include curriculum,
Cocurriculum and students behaviour

h) The rights and responsibilities of the student

Conclusion from Mortimore states that effective school emphasize on the effort to raise up the value of student. Student must be given oppurtities to take part actively in all school activities. The students has the right to gain an exact and comprehensive knowledge. The responsibility of the students is to make sure that they get good achievement is all field.

i) School – house relationship
Walberg shows that the relation between school and house has a signifant effect to the learning process. The parents must be given opportunities to give ideas and involves actively in the school activities.


Lastly , we conclude that to create effective school all the ten characteristics above must be followed.