Book excerpt: `This is a useful book and well written reflecting the author's considerable experience in the field' - National School Improvement Network News `Management Skills in Schools is a terrific digest of many important issues, built around a clear structure that helps the reader absorb information quickly. For the sheers scale of the references to educational gurus, it's worth the cover price: here is everything you need to quote' - Geoff Barton, Friday Magazine, Times Educational Supplement `This book provides an invaluable resource for everyone who is concerned with leadership and management in schools. As well as dealing with key issues and concepts it gives practical advice on strategies and techniques which can be deployed. It will enhance and complement existing skills as well as importing new ideas which will provide professional stimulus for the reader' - Sir Geoff Hampton, Dean of Education, Director of the Midlands Leadership Centre, University of Wolverhampton `For the discerning leader wanting to develop their personal management skills this is a "must have" resource. Whether working through Personal Management Skills independently or used as a professional development tool with a group of middle managers in a school this book will make a difference to how leaders work in schools' - Coleen R Jackson, Director, Roehampton Education Leadership Centre University of Surrey Roehampton `This is a timely collection of resources for those in middle management positions in schools. It brings together ideas on self management in addition to a comprehensive collection of materials on leading teams of staff. Particularly noteworthy are the sections on strategic decision making, action research in school improvement, and dealing effectively with conflict' - Brian Fidler, Professor of Education Management, The University of Reading Team leadership is vital element of school success, whether at the level of department, the curriculum area, the key stage, the phase, or in relation to pastoral and leadership teams. The Team leader must be skillful in creating cultures of success, and personal management skills are at the heart of getting the best from team members. In this book Jeff Jones shows how managers in education can contribute to school improvement, and focuses on the essential personal and practical management skills needed to instill a positive team culture, and support colleagues effectively. This book is an essential resource for those who lead and manage teams, at all levels within schools. Dr Jeff Jones has been a senior consultant and head of training and consultancy unit at the Centre for British Teachers CfBT in Reading since 1998, and is the well known author of such books as Monitoring and Evaluation for School Improvement, (2000), and Performance Management for School Improvement (2001)