Christopher Chapman is Research Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of Warwick.

• Introduction; 1. Effective and or improving?; 2. Schools facing challenging circumstances: Improving low attaining schools; 3. External interventions from multiple perspectives; 4. Studying external interventions from multiple perspectives; 5. Accountability-based intervention: OfSTED and schools facing challenging circumstances; 6. Resource-based intervention: The schools facing challenging circumstances initiative; 7. External intervention: An overview; 8. Can external intervention improve schools facing challenging circumstances?; 9. The challenge of improving schools facing challenging or difficult circumstances revisited: Pitfalls and possibilities References, Appendices.