Editorial

Improving Schools at the Intersection of Relationships, Leadership and Learning

As educational systems around the world navigate persistent inequities, rapid technological change, shifting social contexts, and growing demands for innovation, the question at the heart of school improvement remains remarkably simple: What does it mean to improve a school? Too often, improvement is reduced to technical questions of achievement, efficiency, accountability, or implementation. However, schools are fundamentally human institutions, places where young people seek recognition, belonging, and opportunity; where educators collaborate, learn, and lead; and where communities negotiate competing visions of what education ought to be.

The revised aims and scope of Improving Schools invite us to engage school improvement as a deeply relational, contextual, and human endeavour. Improvement is not simply something imposed on schools through policy mandates, programmes, or innovations; it emerges from the interactions among students, teachers, leaders, families, and communities as they work to create educational environments that support both learning and human flourishing. The articles in this issue collectively advance that conversation by examining how relationships, leadership, professional learning, innovation, and emerging technologies shape efforts to improve schools across diverse international contexts.

Rather than organising these contributions around traditional categories such as leadership, instruction, or student outcomes, we have structured the issue around three interrelated themes that reflect a broader conception of school improvement: (1) relationships, responsibility, and belonging; (2) leadership, culture, and organisational capacity; and (3) teacher learning, pedagogical innovation, and evidence-informed practice. Together, these themes suggest that sustainable improvement depends not only on what schools do, but also on how individuals experience schools and how organisations create conditions that enable growth, participation, and success.

Improving Schools Through Relationships, Responsibility, and Belonging

We begin with a theme that sits at the heart of the journal’s renewed vision: the importance of relationships in shaping educational experiences and outcomes. While educational reform frequently focuses on structures, policies, and interventions, the articles in this section remind us that improvement is fundamentally relational and collectively argue that meaningful school improvement begins with the quality of the relationships that connect students, educators, families, and communities. Across diverse contexts, the studies demonstrate that belonging, recognition, trust, and shared responsibility are not peripheral concerns but foundational conditions for learning and development.

Hwang, Huang, and Berends show that collective teacher responsibility represents a powerful dimension of school culture, particularly in supporting historically marginalised students, highlighting how shared commitments among educators can contribute to more equitable outcomes. Eryilmaz extends the discussion of equity by examining the relationship between student–teacher interactions and socioeconomic inequality across dozens of countries, reminding us that while relationships matter, they exist within broader structural conditions that shape opportunity and achievement. Moving beyond the classroom, Melendez Guevara and colleagues demonstrate the complex but critical role of family-school engagement in supporting students experiencing adversity, emphasising the importance of schools as relational spaces that can foster resilience and connection. Spencer and colleagues similarly highlight how even small acts of care, understanding, and support can ease the academic, social, and emotional challenges experienced by highly mobile military-connected students and their families during school transitions. The focus on belonging is deepened by Ladachart and colleagues’ exploration of recognition in STEM, which reveals how students’ identities are formed not only by how they see themselves but by how they are recognised by teachers, peers, and family members. Finally, Gurley and Fifolt centre parent voices in an LGBTQ-affirming school context, demonstrating the transformational power of educational environments where students experience safety, acceptance, and affirmation, while also illustrating the importance of listening to families as partners in school improvement. Taken together, these studies suggest that improving schools requires more than effective programmes or policies; it requires cultivating cultures of care, recognition, responsibility, and belonging in which all members of the school community are seen, valued, and supported.

Improving Schools Through Leadership, Culture, and Organisational Capacity

If relationships form the foundation of school improvement, leadership, culture and organisational capacity shape the conditions under which those relationships flourish.

The articles in this section collectively emphasise that school improvement is fundamentally an organisational endeavour, shaped by the interplay of leadership, culture, and the capacity of educators to learn, innovate, and act collectively. Across diverse international contexts, the studies suggest that leadership matters not primarily through individual actions alone, but through its ability to cultivate the conditions under which teachers and schools can thrive. A systematic review of 153 studies by Ahmed demonstrates that principal leadership is consistently associated with teacher commitment, job satisfaction, performance, and professional growth, reinforcing the central role of leadership in shaping the human conditions needed for improvement. Vanhoof and colleagues deepen this argument by showing that instructional, shared, and authentic leadership contribute to teachers’ academic optimism both directly and indirectly through school culture, illustrating how leaders influence outcomes by shaping the beliefs, norms, and expectations that define organisational life. Ho, Ming, and Eyal further highlight the importance of organisational capacity through their examination of entrepreneurial ecosystems, demonstrating that innovation flourishes when formal structures and informal communities work together to support teacher agency, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Similarly, Pietsch and colleagues reveal that schools’ capacity for innovation depends not only on supportive leadership but also on teachers’ ability to seek, absorb, transform, and apply new knowledge. Their findings suggest that productive innovation emerges when leaders strike a balance between support and challenge, creating environments where professional curiosity and experimentation can flourish. Finally, Berkovich extends the conversation into the emerging landscape of artificial intelligence, demonstrating that school leaders’ willingness to adopt new technologies can be influenced not only by individual dispositions but also by a broader innovation culture that legitimises experimentation and risk-taking. Collectively, these studies portray leadership, culture, and organisational capacity as deeply interconnected dimensions of school improvement. Effective leaders do more than manage organisations; they cultivate cultures of trust, learning, innovation, and collective responsibility that enable schools to adapt, improve, and respond to an increasingly complex educational landscape.

Improving Schools Through Teacher Learning, Pedagogical Innovation, and Evidence-Informed Practice

The final section of this volume explores how educators develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to enact meaningful change.

The articles in this section argue that school improvement depends on the continuous development of educators’ knowledge, judgement, and capacity to engage in evidence-informed innovation. While educational change is often associated with new programmes, technologies, or instructional models, the studies in this section suggest that meaningful improvement occurs when teachers are supported to learn, reflect, experiment, and adapt their practice in response to the evolving needs of students and schools. Across diverse contexts, the authors highlight the importance of professional expertise, critical inquiry, and ongoing learning as essential foundations for improving teaching and learning.

Li begins this conversation by examining assessment literacy among Chinese teachers of English, revealing significant gaps between the assessment knowledge expected of teachers and the knowledge they possess, particularly in areas that require specialised expertise, such as data interpretation and assessment design. Jardí and colleagues similarly focus on professional competence, identifying a concise framework of teacher competencies that experienced educators consider necessary for promoting students’ self-regulation of behaviour and for creating classroom environments that support both learning and development. Together, these studies highlight the importance of strengthening the professional knowledge base that enables teachers to make informed decisions about teaching, assessment, and student support. Muñoz Martínez and colleagues challenge traditional assumptions about teacher preparation by demonstrating that pre-service teachers can contribute meaningfully to school improvement through fresh perspectives, inclusive practices, and collaborative inquiry with experienced educators. Vincent and colleagues similarly illustrate how professional development can be intertwined with student participation through the SpeakOut with Advocatr programme, showing that efforts to strengthen restorative practices are most effective when educators and students learn alongside one another and jointly shape school culture.

A second group of articles explores how educators learn to innovate and respond to changing educational demands. Anzano-Oto and colleagues examine teachers’ perceptions of innovation and active methodologies and find that educators increasingly employ student-centred approaches to cultivate critical thinking, collaboration, socio-emotional learning, and digital competence, despite ongoing challenges related to training, time, and resources. Complementing this work, Granda-Piñán and colleagues investigate students’ perceptions of innovative learning environments, demonstrating that student-centred pedagogies contribute positively to participation, creativity, motivation, wellbeing, and engagement. Together, these studies suggest that pedagogical innovation is most powerful when it transforms not only instructional techniques but also students’ experiences of learning itself.

Several contributions challenge educators to critically evaluate the assumptions that shape educational practice. Escobar Casallas, Chiappe, and Sáez-Delgado review the literature on learning styles and AI-enabled personalisation, arguing that many contemporary approaches continue to rely on unsupported educational neuromyths. They advocate instead for personalisation grounded in observable performance, self-regulation, and evidence-based understandings of learning. Similarly, Treve examines the relationship between cognitive load, learning strategies, and academic performance, demonstrating that student success depends on instructional designs that reduce unnecessary cognitive demands while strengthening productive learning strategies. Both studies point to the importance of developing educators’ capacity to engage critically with research and to distinguish evidence-informed innovation from educational trends whose claims exceed the available evidence base.

Collectively, these contributions position teacher learning as a central mechanism of school improvement. Whether through developing assessment expertise, strengthening classroom management, evaluating educational innovations, integrating student voice, rethinking teacher preparation, or critically engaging emerging technologies, these studies collectively demonstrate that meaningful improvement depends on educators’ capacity to learn continuously, reflect critically, and adapt practice in ways that support both student learning and human flourishing.

Looking Forward

The articles in this issue suggest that improving schools requires more than the implementation of effective practices or the embrace of innovative technologies. Improvement emerges through relationships that foster belonging, leadership that builds collective capacity, and professional learning that supports thoughtful, evidence-informed action. The studies featured here span a range of countries, methodologies, and educational contexts. However, they converge around a common insight: meaningful school improvement is ultimately about creating conditions in which students, educators, families, and communities can flourish.

As the field continues to grapple with persistent inequities, evolving technologies, and competing visions of educational purpose, it is envisaged that these articles seek to contribute not only to ongoing scholarly conversations concerning educational change, equity, innovation, and the purposes of schooling, but also to the practical work of educators and leaders seeking to build more just, inclusive, and human-centred schools.