Barbara MacGilchrist, Kate Myers and Jane Reed have written a masterpiece. The First Edition of the Intelligent School in 1997 was an outstanding book and it is no surprise that a Second Edition has followed relatively quickly to share more good news for practitioners, policymakers, researchers and scholars. The First Edition shaped my thinking more than most in the late 1990's and I cited it in scores of presentations in different countries around the world. It was a perfect complement to our work on the self-managing school.
In this Second Edition, the concept of the Intelligent School is expanded and the different kinds of intelligences are carefully explained and illustrated. The authors are able to draw on more than five years of implementation in the field and further and broader work in the research and development centres with which they are associated. They offer the best synthesis of the international literature on school effectiveness and school improvement that I have seen. They have performed a great service in making this literature accessible to the profession. I recommended the First Edition as essential reading for all the work in schools. Those who did not do so should certainly acquire the second, but it is important that policymakers and academics do the same.
`This book will quickly gain recognition as the leader among an increasing number of books that provide hope that all students in every setting can achieve a high quality education. It is one of the truly outstanding features of this book that it also conveys an unbridled spir
