Kompass School of Character Favoriten, Vienna

In the FWF project School Quality and Teacher Education (SQTE, 2019–2023), carried out with the University of Oxford, Roland Bernhard examined how schools in some of England’s most disadvantaged areas — above all in London — became outstanding. What these schools had in common was unspectacular and demanding at once: an uncompromising focus on the quality of teaching, school leaders who treat teaching as their core business, continuous feedback and practice for teachers — and a school culture in which character is deliberately cultivated. Again and again, the school leaders he interviewed pointed to Teach First as an organisation that knows these approaches particularly well. That is how he came across its Austrian counterpart in the Teach For All network, Teach For Austria.

Teach For Austria had been working with these approaches for many years — with precisely described teaching techniques, practice and feedback in the preparation of its fellows. Aron Marton, who joined Teach For Austria as a fellow in 2016, had long used them in his own classrooms and in school development at his school.

So the two sides joined forces — research and practice. KPH and Teach For Austria developed a joint in-service series on classroom leadership, taught by Aron Marton, Cecilia Cadman and Roland Bernhard; it became unusually popular, and the weekly magazine news reported on it in February 2025. In 2025 the four authors Roland Bernhard, Cecilia Cadman, Verena Hohengasser and Aron Marton published their shared experience: an article on deliberate practice in teacher education (full text, open access).

The Kompass School of Character Favoriten, Vienna grows out of this collaboration. Teach For Austria initiated the school; its concept was developed by Verena Wohlers, Sophie Lonyay and Aron Marton, who leads the middle school; KPH Vienna/Lower Austria accompanies it scientifically.

“Our overarching goal is to build a so-called proof-point school — to show that in the tenth district, too, children from socio-economically disadvantaged homes can have truly great educational paths.”Aron Marton, co-founder and head of the middle school

From 2026 to 2031, KPH Vienna/Lower Austria accompanies the Kompass School of Character Favoriten, Vienna with research, on the basis of a cooperation agreement with Teach For Austria. The project is led by Roland Bernhard and Denise Hofer, who has long experience in accompanying and researching urban middle schools and specialises in the question of how school and professional development can have lasting effects.

The accompanying research follows the first two year groups from year 5 to year 8, together with the whole staff. It asks how the pupils develop (in their learning, above all in reading, German and mathematics, and in their wellbeing and sense of belonging), how the teachers grow professionally over the years, how parents experience the school, and under which conditions the school’s approach works and what other schools could take from it.

The accompanying research observes and describes; it publishes no results on individual children or teachers and no rankings. Results will be shared in annual reports, academic publications and practice-oriented formats — so that the Kompass experience can help other schools in challenging circumstances.