Promoção do sucesso escolar

: um estudo de caso multifocal

Abstract

The 2nd and 3rd cycles of compulsory school - object of this work - have been implementing a wide set of measures to promote academic success. However, those measures haven't produced the expected development in the academic success of the students. This fact made us ask what those measures are, how they are implemented and which impacts they have in the perception of the different educational actors. This study aims to answer these questions, focusing on the way school organises itself for success, on the ways of implementing the designed measures and on the impact they have had on the school results of students. This type study is framed by an interpretative paradigm and we chose a mixed methodological design. We have made three quiz inquiries: two for the students (about school in general and about the quality of teaching) and one for the teachers (about school). We have analysed the documents: Educational Project, Autonomy Contract, Annual Activities Plan, Improvement Plan and Final Report of the Improvement Plan. Throughout this study we have also made a non-structured observation of the teachers. The results indicate a school that seems to have difficulties in defining specific measures to promote academic success. In this study we take into account collaborative work among teachers, the organisation of homogeneous classes, the tasks developed in the classroom, the support of the psychological and guiding services, the co-teaching experiences, the study room and all the other activities developed within the school that aim to promote academic success. School promotes remedial lessons and individual lessons, but not all students indicated by the teachers are covered by these measures. Students do not like the schedules of these lessons neither the way the study room is organised. School does not make an effective supervision of the impact of remedial lessons, of co-teaching experiences or of the study room. For this study, and being both a researcher and a member of the evaluation team, we promoted a supervision of the impacts of remedial lessons and co-teaching experiences. It was not possible to supervise the impacts of the study room due to the lack of data. We concluded that these measures had a very low success rate: 32% of the students who attended remedial lessons had success in the respective subject, 26% of the students who had individual lessons had success in the respective subject and 23% of the students who benefitted from weekly co-teaching experiences had success in the respective subject. According to the teachers the failure of these measures is due to the lack of commitment of the students. Besides, it was possible to notice a school culture in which the evaluation of the quality of the educational practices is not common and which some teachers tend to resist. Both teachers and students express some discontent towards the classes' timetables and concern regarding some students' behaviour. Students have busy timetables, allowing them little free time and there is a relevant difficulty in controlling students' misbehaviours. The use of different educational practices in classes is not widespread, and the same happens with different evaluation strategies. Lessons are usually dominated by teachers' explanations, just like lectures, combined with some dialogue with the students and evaluation is usually made by written tests. The academic success rate has been increasing in the 1st and 3rd cycles to 96,3% and 95,1% respectively. Nevertheless, it has been decreasing in the 2nd cycle to 87,8%. The success rate in the 1st and 3rd cycles is much above the goal of 86% predicted in the Educational Project and in the 2nd cycle is slightly above. Since the beginning of the Autonomy Contract in 2012/13, the failure rate decreased 41,3% in the 1st cycle, 44,9% in the 3rd cycle and it increased 58,4% in the 2nd cycle. School seems to give importance to the promotion of a longer school hours instead of an alter school time, maintaining unchanged the rules of school grammar and the educational strategies driven by teachers, being students essentially seen as the guilty part in their own failure.

Date of Award	22 Apr 2016
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Ilídia Cabral (Supervisor)