Abstract

In a modern society, the schools have become very important entities because they form a social institution, which interests many people and involves the role of various interest groups and stakeholders in the society. The community where a school resides and the parents of children of those who go to that school will be proud if their school if it is categorised as a good school. Conversely, they will blame the school management if it does not perform well in terms of pupils’ attainment or if the school’s achievement is below the average of the national standards. Parents tend to choose schools, which have a good achievement record for their children. In other words, parents and stakeholders place high expectations on the school. Therefore, it is only natural that school leaders and education authorities as well as every classroom teacher whether in the UK or Malaysia, would want their schools to be more effective when compared to other schools to fulfil the high expectations of everyone in the community. Stakeholders’ expectations among others, have been a key driver for the growing interest among education researchers looking for answers to questions such as ‘what is an effective school?’; ‘school effectiveness for whom?’, ‘why do we need to have an effective school?’, ‘how to be an effective school?’ and ‘what is the accurate, appropriate, reliable and valid instrument to measure school effectiveness?”. This study was based on a literature review carried out at Kings’ College London, interviews and observations conducted by the writer during a school placement program in London and the current Malaysian education policies, its practice and school context as the background. It is hoped that the analyses presented will provide better insight and contribute further to our understanding as to the utility of Contextual Value Added (CVA) measures in aiding Malaysian schools to become more effective with special reference to the policy and practiced in the UK schooling system. This study will analyse: How far CVA measures can help schools become more effective and to what extent can Value Added (VA) measures tell us anything significant about the performance of the school concerned?

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