The School Context under Analysis

The purpose of this study was to investigate the strategies adopted by a public primary schools to overcome the low performance of its students in the Prova Brasil and to analyse the possible relationships between the actions adopted by the School Manager, the changes that have taken place in the school context and the improvement in the results of the external assessment - Prova Brasil. This is a case study of a public school in a municipality in the Vale do Paraíba and Litoral Norte Metropolitan Region. Based on the IDEB/2007 data, the school in question showed unsatisfactory performance in terms of its teaching and pedagogical performance, especially with the fifth grade classes, the focus of the assessment, and was considered a priority by the São Paulo State Department of Education. In 2009, with the change of School Manager, the results were boosted. Of the five schools prioritised in the municipality, it was the one that grew the most in the Prova Brasil assessment (IDEB/2009), showing the best performance in the results.