Blooming Roses——The Transformation Of A Weak Elementary School

To improve low-performance schools,and then to construct high-quality schools are not only the focus of balancing the development of compulsory education,but also the effective way to strengthen the cultural development of low-performance schools.Now,low performance schools improved a lot in Shanghai,and many successful cases come up.Choosing a typical case to study has certain theoretical value and practical significance.And it's good for promoting the compulsory education equalization,the quality of teaching and the education level in Shanghai.Therefore,this paper selects ‘Qiang Wei Primary School',which in Minhang,Shanghai,in this case study.The research objects include the subject of the reform,the object of reform and the actual operation of reform.This research is focused on three major aspects:(1)How does ‘Qiang Wei' reform to be ‘a high-quality school in a poor community' which used to be low?(2)What is the mechanism of reformation and experience in the reforming process? And how does it work?(3)What is the inspiration of the successful experience to construct high-quality schools.This study used qualitative research methods.Based on field studies,documents and the data collection from references.This paper gives a throughout description of the case,what occurred in the reformation process.Since September 2014 to December 2016,the researcher conducted a field study at least 2-3 days of the week in Qiang Wei.Meantime,using participant observation,teacher interviews,field notes and data collection methods.This paper needs to be explored in depth about the current situation of the low-performance schools,including the campus culture,institution,teams and teaching ability.The study found that the reformation process of Qiang Wei can be divided into three stages.Moral education's construction is the first stage.The second one is to build the teachers' team,the high teaching quality and the information construction.The third is based on the second stage and then further deepen it.In-depth analysis found that,the reformation of Qiang Wei is mainly about six themes,which are(1)Improving school management model;(2)Reforming the content and form of moral education;(3)Enhancing construction in teachers' team;(4)Improving the teaching quality;(5)Changing the way of students' learning;(6)Promoting the education information.In the respect of improving school management model,the core value of Qiang Wei is ‘Effective teaching;Easy learning;Efficient communication'.So Qiang Wei has created a management model,which they are implementing now,known as ‘One school,Two campuses,Two wings'.In the respect of reforming the content and form of moral education,the school carries out characteristic moral education activities as the basic which is ‘hand in hand'.The goal of moral education is to cultivate excellent behavior and to create symbiotic.Qiang Wei persists in inclusive education and explores the harmonious development of urban and migrant children.The most distinctive project is ‘the digital moral education management system'.In the respect of enhancing construction in teachers' team.Qiang Wei hold that ‘master guide in teaching' is the boost to teachers' professional development;‘interdependent researching and studies' is the catalysts of the boost to teachers' professional development.The school emphasizes the teachers' self-growth,the team's sense of cohesion and the realization.In the respect of improving the teaching quality,concentrating on students,Qiang Wei integrates professional strength from various subjects and gradually infiltrates the information technology in education.In changing the way of students' learning,Qiang Wei researches and develops the school-based curriculums,which are based on teachers' profession and students' needs.Their curriculums are including: ‘Exploration and Practice' – moral education;‘Wei Wei Herbal' – characteristic school-based curriculum.Promoting the information technology in education is the supporting point of ‘Digital Campus Construction'.Constructing digital space above the traditional campus,in order to realize the environment,resources,activities to be digital.The core of Qiang Wei,which leads it to be ‘a high-quality school in a poor community',is to run a school on a regular basis all the time.The successful experiences to construct high-quality schools are:(1)Identifying the management philosophy;(2)Targeting toward the point of sustainable development;(3)Ascending principal leadership;(4)Paying great attention to teacher development;(5)Absorbing external social resources.During the investigation,the researcher's identity is changed from ‘outsider' to‘insider'.The phenomenon of assimilation has its limitation.Owing to the internal culture,the researcher overlooks some parts,like normalized behavior.In the process of compulsory education equalization,the reasons of being low-performance schools and the dilemma that they facing are widely different.So how to make Qiang Wei'sunique successful experience into the low-performance schools reformation's principles,strategies and approaches,that needs to be further discussed.