School Development Planning and the Classroom Teacher: a Western Australian case-study

This paper reports a study aimed at understanding teachers' perceptions of the school development planning process at one school site in Western Australia (WA). F irstly, it considers the general background to school development planning in WA . Secondly, it outlines the methodology of the study. Three major interrelated propositions with regard to the teachers' perceptions of the process are then discussed. First, the teachers in the school perceive that the introduction of school development planning is part of a wider agenda by the G overnment to devolve as much responsibility for administration as possible to schools, and particularly to teachers, with the primary aim being to reduce the cost of the central administration. Secondly, they perceive that the WA Education Department intends to continue its strong control over the direction and operation of schools and, as a consequence, they feel restrained from engaging enthusiastically in school development planning. Thirdly, they perceive that school development planning, in forcing them to adopt a 'whole school' approach to defining problems and to developing strategies to solve them may, in the long term rather than immediately, have some positive outcomes at the classroom level.