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School Leadership & Management

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Understanding the School's Capacity for Development: growth states and

strategies
DAVID HOPKINS ;ALMA HARRIS DAVID JACKSON

To cite this Article HOPKINS, DAVID andJACKSON, ALMA HARRIS DAVID(1997) 'Understanding the School's Capacity
for Development: growth states and strategies', School Leadership & Management, 17: 3, 401 — 412
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13632439769944
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 School Leadership & Management, Vol. 17, N o. 3, pp. 401± 411, 1997

Understanding the School’ s

Capacity for Development: growth
states and strategies
DAVID HOPKINS & ALM A HARRIS
Centre for Teacher and School Development, U niversity of N ottingham,
University Park, Nottingham NG 7 2RD, UK

DAVID JACKSON
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Sharnbrook U pper School, O dell Road, Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire M K44 1JX, U K

ABST RAC T This article focuses upon differential strategies for school development and improve-
ment. It argues that much school improvement work has placed an emphasis upon systemic
change and has neglected to consider the extent to which schools have different capacities for
change and development. W e suggest in this article that different improvement strategies and
types of intervention are needed for schools at different stages of grow th. Our position is based
upon a substantial body of school improvement research which has demonstrated the importance
of differential strategies for schools at various developmental stages. W e hope that this article will
stimulate further discussion, debate and enquiry about the importance of differential approaches
to school improvement.

Introduction

D uring the past decade there has been an increasing m om entum in the UK, as in
many other educational system s, towards decentralisation. This has been ac-
com panied by an increase in interest in how schools are perform ing and how schools
can im prove their perform ance. O ne com m on response to improving school per-
form ance has been to m obilise change efforts at the level of the whole organisation.
This type of intervention is prem ised upon a view that the key to school im prove-
ment lies in managem ent systems or structures. Consequently, there has been an
em phasis upon the systemics of schooling as the m eans to improvem ent.
Such relian ce upon managerial and adm inistrative change is a clear indication
that the school is concerned large ly with organisational m aintenance and ef® ciency.
In practice, this has led to schools de® ning and rede® ning roles and responsibilities,
introducing monitoring systems and generally concentratin g their efforts upon
infrastructural change. This approach stresses the administrative arran gements
rather than the hum an factors, neglects the im portance of the process of change in
schools and, m ore im portantly, underestim ates what we call the `capacity of the
school for development’ .
1363-2434 /97/030401-11 $7.00 Ó 1997 Carfax Publishing Ltd
 402 D. Hopkins et al.

In our opinion, this position em anates from the relative absence in the school
effectiveness and school im provem ent literatu re of a sound theoretical understand-
ing of what constitutes the school’ s capacity for developm ent. It is our view that this
capacity for developm ent should be the m ain focus of any effort to im prove any
school. Consequently, in this article we will argue that in order to confront the
com plexitie s of school im provement there is a need: ® rstly, to outline the school’ s
capacity for school developm ent and to provide a fram ework for thinking about
differential strategies for school development; secondly, to explore a range of school
developm ent strategies for different growth states of schools; ® nally, to recognise the
com plexity of the process of school developm ent and change for all schools, whether
effective or ineffective.

Differential Strate gies for School Development

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D uring the past 7 years or so, work has been taking place with 80 schools in
Englan d, and m ore recently in Iceland, Puerto Rico and South Africa, on a
collab orative school im provem ent project known as Improving the Q uality of Edu-
cation for All (IQ EA). The IQEA work has dem onstrated that without an equal focus
on the developm ent capacity or internal conditions of the school, innovative work
quickly becom es margin alised. They have to be worked on at the sam e time as the
curriculum or other priorities the school has set itself. Conditions are the internal
features of the school, the `arran gements’ that enable it to get work done. From the
evidence within the IQ EA project we have begun to associate a num ber of `condi-
tions’ within the school with a capacity for sustained improvem ent. It is these that
provide us with a working de® nition of the development capacity of the school.
At present, our best estim ate of those conditions which underpin im provement
effort and so, therefore, represent the key m anagem ent arran gem ents, can be
broadly stated as:

· a comm itm ent to staff developm ent;

· practical efforts to involve staff, students and the com munity in school
policies and decisions;
· `transform ational’ leadership approaches;
· effective coordination strategies;
· proper attention to the potential bene® ts of enquiry and re¯ ection;
· a com mitment to collab orative planning activity.

These conditions have been elaborated at both the school and classroom level
(Hopkins et al., 1994, 1996b , 19 98). As we have describ ed these conditions in detail
elsewhere (A inscow et al., 1994; Hopkins & W est, 1994; H opkins et al. 1996a,
1997), there is little need to reprise them again here. Suf® ce it to say that our
conceptualisation, research investigatio ns, literatu re review s and production of staff
developm ent m aterials provides suf® cient justi® cation for our claim that there is at
least one developed approach to the school’ s capacity for development that is
suf® ciently robust as to guide practice and research.
M uch school improvem ent work assum es in practice that all schools are the
 G rowth States and Strategies 403

sam e, that a strategy such as development planning will work as well in one school
as another. Yet we know from the research on school effectiveness (see for exam ple
Reynolds & Cuttance, 1992) that schools are differentially effective. This would
suggest that schools at different levels of effectiveness require different school
improvem ent strategies. This is not well trodden territo ry. R ecently we have been
making further tentative steps to explore this issue (Hopkins, 1995, 1996, 1997).
Put simply, schools at different stages of developm ent require different strategies not
only to enhance their capacity for developm ent, but also to provide a m ore effective
education for their students. Strategies for school developm ent need to ® t the
`grow th state’ or culture of the particular school.
Research by the Am erican Quality Foundation (1992) for example, suggests the
need to recognise that different quality managem ent strategies are required at
different phases of an organisation’ s performance developm ent cycle. The message
here is that there are few universal quality m anagem ent strategies that are applicable
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across all stages of an organisation’ s development. Yet, much current school im-
provement practice assum es that all strategies are equally effective for all schools,
irre spective of their effectiveness or stage in the perform ance cycle.
W hat we have taken from this research on corporate organisations is that in
education we too should begin to adapt our strategies for school development
according to the `growth state’ of the individual school. W e know little about how
different school im provem ent strategies affect different schools. The research base
on the effects of school developm ent strategies is unfortunately very weak. It is
sensible to assum e, however, that the sam e strategy will not have the sam e effect on
schools with different growth states.
In this respect we have charac terised differential strategies as being of Type I,
Type II or Type III. (The origin al hypothetical description of these schools and
strategies appeared in Hopkins 1996, pp. 45± 46).
Type I strategies are those that assist failin g schools becom e m oderately effec-
tive. They need to involve a high level of external support. Failin g schools cannot
improve themselves. These strategies have to involve a clear and direct focus on a
lim ited number of basic curric ulum and organisational issues in order to build the
con® dence and com petence to continue.
Type II strategies are those that assist m oderately effective schools becom e
effective. Our school im provem ent work suggests that these schools need to re® ne
their developmental prioritie s and focus on speci® c teaching and learning issues and
build the capacity within the school to support this work. These strategies usually
involve a certain level of external support, but it is theoretically possible for schools
in this category to `im prove’ by them selves.
Type III strategies are those that assist effective schools rem ain so. In these
instances external support, alth ough often welcomed, is not necessary as the school
searches out and creates its own support networks. Exposure to new ideas and
practices, collabo ratio n through consortia or `pairin g’ type arran gem ents seem to be
com mon in these situations.
As work in this area progresses it will hopefully be possible to describe m ore
speci® cally these types of school im provement interventions and strategies. Even at
 404 D. Hopkins et al.

present it is feasible to classify types on criteria such as: range and num ber of
prioritie s addressed; focus, i.e. curric ulum , instruction, school organisation; research
knowledge/school-generated knowledge; external directives/internal purpose; level of
capacity building; and so on. Such a classi® cation, when com plete, would allow us
to m ove a step closer to a full conceptualisatio n of school im provem ent by linking
type of strategy to variou s stages of school developm ent and growth.

Strate gies for Im proving Different Types of Schools

Our own current research is attempting to investigate the im pact of different

strategies at different stages of school developm ent. A t present the research is
on-going so we can only report on som e initial proposals based on our origin al
lim ited conceptualisation and the em pirical data we have gathered to date. A t this
stage we present these ideas as a tentative list of strategies that schools of each type
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could use to improve their effectiveness. These strategies are not presented in order
of priority but clearly som e interventions would be m ore im mediate than others
give n the particular school context and circum stance.

The `Failing or Ineffective School’

These schools which fall under the Type 1 categorisation cannot improve them-
selves. They are `stuck’ schools which need a high level of external support. W ithin
these schools a num ber of early interventions and changes need to be m ade which
have a direct focus upon basic organisational issues. These would include the
follow ing.

Change at leadership level. It is too sweeping to say that the headteachers of failin g
schools do not have the capacity to be effective school leaders. It is, though, certain
that they do not have the capacity to resurrect that school and therefore are
potentially a part of the problem. Research suggests that leadership is, to som e
extent, context related, so failin g schools need new headteachers. T hey also need
change in leadership at all levels. It is usually the case that poor m anagement and
leadership is endem ic within the ineffective school, which m eans that the overall
style of leadership needs to be changed in that particular context. N ew leadership
opportunities will need to be created for different staff, using new m odels, to achieve
new goals.

Provision of early, intensive outside support. Schools in a failin g situation are likely to
be isolated and in a state of cultural stasis. They are unlikely to have the potential
for constructive self-analysis or evaluation and will need support from outside to
provide knowledge about school improvem ent strategies and model of ways of
working. For failin g schools, the LEA m igh t be a part of the problem , so support
migh t need to be sought elsewhere. It is im portant, however, that the school has
some ownership over the selection of the outside support and should be able to
choose from a range of providers considered to be m ost suited to their needs.
 G rowth States and Strategies 405

Survey staff and student opinion, gather and disaggregate data on student achieve-
ment. For im provem ent strategies to be m ost effective the process of data collec-
tion is an im portant ® rst step. M ost ineffective schools will need to collect data to
® nd out why they are unsuccessful and where to direct their efforts for greatest
improvem ent. Survey feedback techniques have the potential to neutralis e data and
to depersonalise problem s. D ata would need to be gathered at whole-school level, at
departm ent level and at classroom level in relatio n to individual students and groups
of students. The purpose of this data collection exercise would be to ® nd out if there
were existing centres of good practice within the school from which it can learn. This
approach has the potential to give the school com munity ownership of the im prove-
ment agenda and to locate the problem away from individuals to a whole-school
focus.
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A short-term focus on things (relatively) easy to change, e.g. the environment, attendance,
uniform. Changes to the school environm ent, attendance and uniform will be
short-term changes but can result in tangible gain s. Following a period of low
morale, such visible changes will dem onstrate that things are to be different in the
school. T hese changes should re¯ ect the core values that the new leadership is
articulatin g. Evidence would suggest that such early indicators of a clim ate change
in the school are important in sustaining further im provement. They have a symbolic
and real function, in so far as they show that change is taking place and that a new
and different school culture is em ergin g.

A focus on m anaging learning behaviour, not on behaviour m anagement. M uch of the

evidence concerning the im provem ent of ineffective or failin g schools points towards
an em phasis upon managin g learning behavio ur rather than behaviour m anagem ent.
This m eans creating the conditions within which learners can learn m ost effectively.
Strategies for managin g learning behaviour would inevitably include a focus upon
praise and positive reinforcem ent, rather than punishm ent and discipline, through-
out the school.

Intensive work on re-skilling teams of teachers in a lim ited but speci® c repertoire of
teaching/learning styles. Staff development in the ineffective school needs to be both
context-speci® c and culturally related. T here should be a preoccupation with effec-
tive teaching and learning throughout the school. Therefore, speci® c training and
developm ent opportunities should be made availab le to both teachers and students.
In the ® rst instance the focus for staff developm ent could be quite sim ple, e.g.
seating arran gem ents, classroom organisation, the phasing of lessons or active use of
resources. Teachers could explore these skills in team s in order to create new
partnerships. It is important that new partnerships are form ed in order to replace
form er groupings which m ay have been detrim ental to school developm ent in the
past.
 406 D. Hopkins et al.

Progressive restructuring to generate new opportunities for leadership, collaboration and

planning. In the ineffective school any restructuring or planning m ust be focused
upon what happens in classroom s. Collab oration and planning should be about
enhancing pupil achievem ent and about developing the potential of all staff. These
areas need to be activate d sim ultaneously as the core agenda for im provement. Tim e
needs to be set aside for collab oration, for developm ental work and for the sharing
of ideas. Consequently, nothing is m ore im portant than timetablin g staff together to
engage in m utual learning and to plan curriculum and school im provem ent in a
failin g school. It is also the case that the gap cannot be allo wed to become too large
between the effective team s and the less effective team sÐ an intense im provement
focus could produce that result. In this respect the im provement process needs to be
internally supported with expertise and tim e being give n to those less effective team s
to ensure that the balan ce and m om entum of change is maintained.
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Withdraw external pressure/inspection in order to remove fear and give space to

grow. Failin g schools can becom e paralys ed by the fear of imm inent inspection.
They dare not take the risks required to produce long-term improvem ent, which, as
the research on school im provement shows, takes time. As suggested earlie r, inspec-
tors need to draw up a short list of external support agencies from which the school
can choose. A school developm ent plan and an inspection action plan need to be
approved so that everyone is certain that the structures and processes are in place for
improvem ent; then the pressure of inspection needs to be withdrawn in the short
term .

The `Low Achieving’ School

Our school im provem ent work suggests that these schools need to re® ne the
developm ental prioritie s, focus upon speci® c teaching and learning issues and build
capacity within the school to support this work. These strategies usually involve a
certain level of external support, but it is theoretically possible for these schools to
improve them selves. D evelopmental strategies for this type of school include the
follow ing.

Change in leadership strategies. This change incorporates both leadership styles and
range. Som e restructuring will be necessary in order to diversify leadership opportu-
nities. School im provem ent cadres, task groups, m ultiple team leadership and
task-related leadership are strategies which will unlock static structures and systems.
Such changes will enable the process of m anagem ent to becom e m ore dynam ic and
to be geared towards increasing the capacity for change.

Im prove the environm ent. Alteratio ns in the school enviro nm ent can have a dram atic
effect on teaching and learning processes. For exam ple, the creation of work areas,
enhanced display of pupils’ work, im proved social space all indicate to pupils that
the school values them and that they should value the school. The constant
 G rowth States and Strategies 407

reinforcement that learning is valued will contribute to raising staff morale and can
positively affect pupil achievem ent.

Lengthen the lesson unit. Som e curric ulum restructuring will be needed in order to
support the reskillin g of teachers. Tim e will be needed to focus on a wider repertoire
of teaching/learning styles and on the developm ent of learning behavio urs. T he
longer the tim e unit, the m ore tim e staff will have to plan together and to practice
different teaching approaches. Different lesson lengths might be necessary to sup-
port teachers in the process and practice of reskillin g.

Review something linked to `standards’ (e.g. uniform, homework) involving all staff
students and parents. This strategy involves focusing the attention of all `stakehold-
ers’ upon pupil achievem ent and upon the development of the shared language to
talk about achievem ent. The particular areas suggested (e.g. uniform and hom e-
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work) are initial changes from which other dialogu es and other strategies for
improvem ent will evolve.

Target particular students at certain thresholds (across the ability range). If achievement
is to m atter, then under-achievem ent at all levels should be targeted. D ata about
performance will provide opportunities to generate dialogu e with staff and with
students, in groups and individually, by gender and by ability. Mentoring students
is one effective strategy to offset potential under-achievem ent. It is visib le, focuses
on relatio nship building and ideally involves all staff.

Talk to pupils about their aspirations, give their achievement m eanin g. Schools are
good at internally assessing pupil effort and achievem ent. They are less skilled at
assessing potential and it is in this gap that the potential for improvem ent lies. T he
gap between achievement and potential is only m eaningful in term s of pupil life and
aspirations. A chievem ent has to m ean som ething; if form al mechanisms of reward-
ing all types of pupil achievem ent are im portant they should be built in to the
school’ s restructuring program m e.

H arness the energy and optimism of staff new to the school. Underachieving schools will
tend to have a staff who are disillu sioned. M orale will be low but staff who have
accepted jobs at the school within the last year or two will have done so with
optim ism , faith in the school and hope for what they m igh t achieve. These staff can
be used to reenergise others and can becom e a catalyst for change. It is important,
therefore, that the new leadership’ s efforts to reignite the values of all staff focus
initially upon staff com paratively new to the school. This will provide the basis for
improvem ent upon which further alle gian ces can be formed.

Generate an on-going dialogue about values. The vales and beliefs, both of the
profession and the school, need to be artic ulated and reaf® rm ed. A ll staff need to be
helped to be clear about the value dim ension of alm ost everything that is done in
school. For exam ple, why do we have this assessment system? W hy this hom ework
 408 D. Hopkins et al.

policy? W hy these rules or this code of conduct? W hy did we deal with this incident
in this way? A ll these decisions will have their roots in the values and beliefs of the
school com m unity and they need to be shared and debated.

The `G ood or Effective School’

There has been relative ly little debate or research undertaken which has focused
upon im proving the good or effective school. M ost attention has been located with
improving poor or low perform ing schools. Yet, it is im perative that those schools
which are effective rem ain so. Consequently, in this last type of school there is
a need for speci® c strategies which ensure that the school rem ains a moving
school which continues to enhance pupil perform ance. These strategies include the
follow ing.
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Articulate values, dissem inate eloquence. It is a school leader’ s role to articulate the
school’ s values and to reinforce them at every opportunity. These values need to be
em bedded within the institution and shared by staff and also by parents and pupils.
Schools tend to be loosely coupled systems, despite the existence of a conventional
chain of line m anagem ent causality. Consequently, schools need to be clear about
the interpretation and artic ulation of educational values within their individual
school context.

Raise expectations (teacher, pupil and the wider community), de® ne achievem ent, create
an achievem ent orientation. Effective schools should constantly strive to raise expec-
tations (teacher, pupil and the wider comm unity) regard ing potential pupil achieve-
ment ever highe r. This means schools need to be explicit, eloquent and proli® c in
their de® nition of achievem ent. They should then celebrate it, com m unicate it and
develop a reward system which will eliminate the need for most sanctions. Such a
process will ignite the enthusiasm of staff and generate m otivatio n amongst students.
It is additionally important to give pupils (and the wider com m unity) ownership of
the school’ s achievem ents too, and to involve them in organising and participating
in regular celebrations of the school’ s success.

Involve and em power students in the process of learningÐ develop a student charter. O nce
systems, structures, processes, values and professional skills have been developed
within the effective school and even when schem es of work and classroom m anage-
ment strategies have been re® ned, it is still the pupils who have to take responsibility
for their own achievem ent. It is im portant that they feel involved and em powered in
the process of learning. For exam ple, they can contribute by offering an assessment
of teaching and learning processes. By providing view s about how their learning can
be im proved in the individual classroom, within the departm ent and within the
school, pupils are contrib uting to the improvem ent process via their constructive
feedback.
 G rowth States and Strategies 409

Use restructuring (and tim etable) to create collaborative planning at department and
classroom level. The average school of 1000 pupils will spend in excess of £250 ,000
on teacher non-contact time. Its use is rarely monitored and even more rarely
coordinated. If changes could be m ade to the school structure to create new
collab oratio ns and new learning partnerships, including those outside traditional
departm ental boundaries, this tim e could be productively harnessed. Sim ilarly, the
tim etable could be restructured to enable m ore teachers to share, plan and observe
one another’ s work. In other words it could be used proactively as a basis for
teachers to learn and grow together.

Engage long-term outside support focused on developing leadership skills, team building and
models of teaching and learning. Even the m ost effective school will eventually
become inward looking and atrophy if it becom es too self-suf® cient. Isolation from
external stim ulus and support can be dam agin g to any school, irrespective of its
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performance level. A school which is a learning school will seek out best practice
elsewhere and will use outside support to develop its knowledge base and to initiate
networks. External expertise and support can also offer alternative teaching practices
and new ways of teaching and learning. Teachers can becom e skilled in these new
processes by working alongside others, both within the classroom and in functional
teams.

Generate a comm on language around learning and achievement. This is m ore

signi® cant than it appears because teaching staff tend not to have com m on under-
standings about even basic term inology concerning pupil learning and achievem ent.
Although many effective schools have started to focus upon developing such a
com mon language about learning, more staff development opportunities are needed
on this theme. Staff who have a shared language concerning learning and achieve-
ment are more likely to work together and to be com m itted to understanding and
improving the processes of teaching and learning.

Give teachers `space’ to experiment. Effective schools need to encourage experim en-
tation and risk taking. They should accept messiness and muddle rather than aim for
ef® ciency. T hey should subscribe to the view that safe teaching is m undane teaching
and aim high and take joy in the successes and talk about the failures. Indeed, real
learning lies in understanding the failures rather than the successes.

Celebrate and share successes, reinforce the `appetite for change’ . A ll schools at whatever
stage in their development should take pleasure in every demonstration of success.
They should aim to orchestrate optimism and celebration of teacher and student
achievem ent. Everyday professional and social interactions of teachers and pupils
should focus upon the positive rather than the negative, upon success rather than
failure, to ensure that this perm eates the whole school and every classroom . Cyni-
cism about pupils, the school and the profession needs to be eroded by m aking it
totally unacceptable within the school.
These lists of strategies for developing schools at three stages of the develop-
 410 D. Hopkins et al.

ment cycle are still in a rather prim itive state. The reporting of these initial ® ndings
as a set of lists also undervalues the richness of the data we are collecting. Four
characteristics of these lists are worth highligh ting at this stage. The ® rst is that these
strategies are not hom ogeneous but holistic and eclectic. The rhetoric of single
school improvem ent is at a glan ce exposed. The second is that this com bination of
strategies have a disparate focus, they are at the sam e tim e directed at the structure/
organisation of the school, the achievem ent of pupils and the intangib le `culture of
the school’ . T hird, these strategies represent a com bination of external and internal
strategies, the particular blend of strategies is modi® ed to ® t the `context speci® city’
of the individual school. Finally, m ost school im provement efforts at whatever
growth state are poorly conceptualised in the precise ways in which they m igh t
impact upon the learning or classroom level, which is in all the most recent evidence
the educational factor with the greatest im pact upon pupil outcomes. T hose schools
that are aware of the need to m odify this level are also aware that the `technology’
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of a knowledge base about effective instructional practices is m issing in the U nited

Kingdom (Joyce et al. 199 7). Surrogates such as `appraisal’ schem es which allo w
teachers to concentrate on further development of their `best’ , self selected areas of
practice are rarely a potent m echanism of change.

Re¯ ection

W e have argued in this article that the challe nges presented by educational change
and im provement need to be understood at a deep organisational and cultural level.
In particular, this means a fundamental focus on the school’ s `capacity for develop-
ment’ , which in our experience is essential for any serious effort at educational
reform . W e also believe, and ® nd support in the im portant research from the
Am erican Quality Foundation, that schools are dynam ic organisations and that this
dynam ism needs to be understood at a conceptual, contextual and em pirical level
before effective strategies for development can be devised. W e also prefer the notion
of `perform ance cycle’ or `grow th state’ rather than labels such as `failin g’ or
`ineffective’ , for they capture for us a more dynamic, realistic and optim istic view of
school developm ent. Conceptions of effectiveness and ineffectiveness need to be
understood holistically rather than, as is currently the case, atom iscally.
So alth ough our ideas about the `schools capacity for development’ rem ain
somewhat speculative, they are increasingly being grounded in data as we continue
to theorise about our research and practice. Despite this tentative ness, the issues
raised in this artic le have the potential to give us a better grasp of the dynamic of the
process of school developm ent. As our work progresses, we hope that we will be able
not just to em bellish these `lists’ , but also to use the data to re® ne our conceptual-
isation of the culture and `growth states’ of schools and the development strategies
most suited to their particular growth state.
The discussion also suggests that those working in the ® elds of school effective-
ness and school im provem ent who are com mitted to action would be better advised
to focus their considerable research, conceptual, strategic and practical experience
on issues connected to school development. This will m ean, am ong other things,
 G rowth States and Strategies 411

taking seriously the school’ s `internal conditions’ or `capacity for development’ , as

well as the strategies for school developm ent. For it is this that holds the key to
sustaining those enhanced levels of student progre ss and achievement to which we
all aspire, and for all schools whatever their `grow th state’ or stage in their `perform-
ance cycle’ .

Acknowledgem ents

Som e of the research reported in this paper has been undertaken as part of the
`Im proving Schools Project’ which has been supported by a grant from the Econ-
om ic and Social Research Council (R 000235 864) to John Gray (Hom erton College,
Cambridge), D avid Hopkins (N ottingham University and D avid Reynolds (New-
castle U niversity). T he authors would like to record their thanks to the ESRC or its
support, but the view s and opinions expressed here rem ain, of course, their own
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responsibility. W e are also m ost grate ful to the schools in which we have been
working and for the support they too have give n us.

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