This study investigated school effectiveness based on recent British and Australian advances in the understanding of student learning processes in natural settings via students' approaches to learning and their perceptions of teaching. The results were derived from a survey of 745 government school students, 380 Catholic school students, and 365 independent school students in 50 Melbourne, Australia schools. The survey had response rate of 90 percent. Correlations were drawn from scores based on instruments that tested students'"surface approach" to learning, which involves unreflective rote memorization, and "deep approach" to learning, which involves interpreting relationships between parts of subject matter; also scored were students' perceptions of teaching effectiveness. ANOVA was used to measure the association between student perceptions of their "surface" or "deep" learning strategies and their formal achievement as evaluated by standardized end-of-year subject examination results. Findings demonstrated that students who reported "deep" strategies to learning perceived the teaching in the schools they attended to be better than those students who reported "surface" strategies. Although "surface" students scored lower on the end-of-year examination than the "deep" students, the low correlation between the deep approach and formal achievement did not suggest which school learning environment was more desirable or which learning strategies augmented achievement. (JAM)