This best-selling book illustrates how schools can tell their own story. It draws on ground-breaking work with the National Union of Teachers to demonstrate a practical approach to identifying what makes a good school and the part that pupils, parents and teachers can play in school improvement. Its usefulness for and use by, classroom teachers to evaluate their practice will prove to be its greatest strength in an ever expanding effectiveness literature.

1. Why schools must speak for themselves 2. Hunt the unicorn: the search for the effective school 3. How the framework was developed - the 1996 study 4. Exploring the themes 5. The good teacher 6. Inspection priorities: are they yours? 7. What happened next 8. What happens in other countries? 9. A framework for self-evaluation 10. Making it work in your school 11. Using the framework 12. Summary and recommendations Appendices