School ImprovementSchool improvement that starts by looking, and stays until it holds.
Most improvement efforts start with a program. This one starts with a Needs Assessment: an objective review of your school against the Six Essential Practices of Effective Schools, and an action plan with clear targets. Then experienced consultants coach alongside your leaders and teachers in the building until the gains belong to your own team.
An objective look at the whole school, before any recommendation.
Every partnership starts here, and the Needs Assessment is also available on its own. Four areas are reviewed, and two documents land on your table.
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Classroom instruction
Teacher observations and interviews on how standards and assessments shape the way lessons are designed.
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Data
State assessment results and your school or district benchmarks.
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Infrastructure
Instructional time, a supportive learning climate, and the supplemental services students receive.
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Surveys and focus groups
Input from administrators, principals, teachers, students and parents.
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A written report
Your school’s strengths, and recommendations tied to what the review found.
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A personalized action plan
Long-term performance goals and short-term implementation milestones: the plan the coaching follows.
The Six Essential Practices of Effective Schools.
Every engagement, from the first review to the last coaching cycle, is measured against the same six practices.
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A rigorous, standards-based curriculum
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A schoolwide assessment framework
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A culture and climate that promotes learning
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Effective teaching in every classroom
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Strong home, school and community partnerships
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Organizational structures that promote learning
Discover, implement, sustain, review. Then again.
Scroll through one turn of the cycle. Each turn leaves more of the work with your own leaders and teachers.
- Discover
Look closely, together, before anything is decided.
The Needs Assessment reviews instruction, data, infrastructure and the views of everyone in the school. Goals are agreed, and an action plan sets clear targets against the Six Essential Practices. No program is recommended before the school has been seen.
- Implement
Coaching in the building, cycle after cycle.
Each coaching cycle runs professional learning, modeling in real classrooms, implementation with the coach beside the teacher or leader, then a review and a plan for the next cycle. In person or virtual, with your curriculum, assessments and observation tools.
- Sustain
Hand the work over, a little at a time.
A gradual release of responsibility moves the practice from the consultant to your leaders and teachers, so the skills stay with your school when the consultants step back.
- Review
Measure against the plan, then set the next targets.
Progress is checked against the action plan’s long-term goals and short-term milestones, and the plan is revised from what the review shows.
- And then
The cycle turns again.
Discover, implement, sustain and review repeat until the improvement holds, each turn with more of the work in your own team’s hands.
Generation Ready has delivered 225,000+ job-embedded coaching and workshop days.
Thirty years in schools like yours.
School Improvement is delivered with Generation Ready, part of the engage2learn family
- 30+
- years partnering with schools and districts
- 7,500+
- schools, districts and central education departments supported
- 225,000+
- job-embedded coaching and workshop days delivered
Generation Ready’s consultants each have 10+ years in education, as former superintendents, principals, administrators and teachers.
Improvement holds when the coaching stays in the building.
One-off PD or a scripted program
- A program chosen before the school is seen
- A training day, then the year
- One script for every school
- Support ends when the vendor leaves
School Improvement
- A Needs Assessment first, against six practices
- Coaching cycles in the building, all year
- Built on the curriculum and tools you already use
- A gradual release, so the skills stay with your team
Find the root cause, then build the capacity to keep the gains.
Generation Ready’s work has been pivotal in driving systemic change within our schools. Their evidence-based practices and data-driven approach have enabled us to identify areas for improvement and implement targeted interventions that address the unique needs of our student population. As a result, we have witnessed significant advancements in instructional quality, student outcomes, and overall school performance.
“Collaborating with Generation Ready has allowed us to develop a long-term plan focused on building teacher capacity and improving systems for monitoring student learning. This ongoing partnership has been vital to our sustained success over time!”
“The level of support, coaching, and reflection has been worth the investment. Coaches are knowledgeable and create multiple pathways of teacher support that are differentiated as well as timely.”
Coaching aimed at what the Needs Assessment found.
School Improvement is a coaching offering. It begins with its own diagnosis, sets an action plan with your team, and coaches alongside leaders and teachers until the improvement holds.
- 01
Diagnose
The Needs Assessment reviews instruction, data, infrastructure and every group’s view of the school.
Assessments & Software - 02
Design
A personalized action plan sets long-term goals and short-term milestones.
Planning & Design - You are here 03
Coach
Coaching cycles in the building, with a gradual release to your own leaders and teachers.
Performance Improvement - 04
Connect to community
School leaders share what works with peers across districts.
Network & Events
Questions leaders ask.
What is the Needs Assessment?
The Needs Assessment is an objective, external review of everything a school does to raise student achievement, measured against the Six Essential Practices of Effective Schools. It looks at classroom instruction, data, infrastructure, and surveys and focus groups with administrators, teachers, students and parents, and ends in a written report and a personalized action plan built with your team.
What are the Six Essential Practices of Effective Schools?
They are the framework every engagement is measured against: a rigorous standards-based curriculum, a schoolwide assessment framework, a culture and climate that promotes learning, effective teaching in every classroom, strong home, school and community partnerships, and organizational structures that promote learning.
What does a coaching cycle look like?
Each coaching cycle runs from the Needs Assessment through professional learning, modeling and implementation to a review and a plan for the next cycle, then repeats. Every cycle targets the next high-leverage area the review identified.
Can we get just the Needs Assessment?
Yes. The Comprehensive Needs Assessment is available as a standalone engagement, and it also anchors every full School Improvement partnership.
We already have a curriculum we are committed to. Will you replace it?
No. The partnership works with the curricula, assessments and observation tools your school already uses and builds on them rather than replacing them.
Who are the consultants?
Generation Ready’s consultants each have 10+ years in education, as former superintendents, principals, administrators and teachers. They have sat in the seats of the people they coach.
How do the gains last after the consultants leave?
A gradual release of responsibility builds the skills with your own leaders and teachers over the engagement. The practice moves from the consultant to your staff a step at a time, so it continues when outside support steps back.
Can school improvement funds pay for this?
Often, yes. The Needs Assessment and action plan produce the evidence base and plan that Title I Section 1003, comprehensive and targeted support (CSI and TSI), and state turnaround grants ask for, and the coaching builds capacity rather than funding one-off events.
Diagnose first. Then coach until it holds.
Tell us about the school and the plan it is working under, and we’ll start where every partnership starts: a conversation, then a Needs Assessment.
