Literacy for School Improvement - Value Added for Malta (2004) by Charles Mifsud, Rowena Grech, Dougal Hutchison, Jo Morrison, Peter Rudd, John Hanson (Agenda Publishers, Malta)

In recent years ‘value-added’ techniques have been welcomed across Europe and North America as a better means for tracking pupils’ development and as a fairer way of establishing how much schools can contribute to their pupils’ progress. Employing methods of sophisticated statistical analysis, this innovative study applies the approach for the first time to Malta’s primary schools.

Based on the work of an international team and drawing on the now well-established tradition of research on school improvement, the study shows how aspects of pupils’ home backgrounds facilitate or inhibit their literacy progress between Years 2 and 5. It demonstrates that, on several measures of literacy, the performance of Maltese children compares favourably with that of their counterparts in England. But it also highlights the particular challenges the cumulative effects of social disadvantage, language difficulties, special educational needs and location can pose for a minority of pupils, families and their schools.

Drawing on best practice, this pioneering study outlines some important strategies for feeding back information to schools and teachers. It also offers a series of searching questions schools might usefully ask themselves about their current practices. As other educational systems have found to their benefit, high-quality data on pupil performance in combination with a continuing commitment to self-review can provide a powerful catalyst for school improvement.

Professor John Gray
Professor of Education and Dean of Research
University of Cambridge