INTRODUCTION
The third part in the Journey to Excellence series is made up of the revised editions of The Child at the Centre and How good is our school?. They are based on a revised framework of indicators which help you to work out where your early education centre is in improving its quality and aiming for excellence. We have become very familiar with the use of quality indicators in this way in Scotland. The Child at the Centre4 will be of interest to staff working in the pre-school sector and in the early stages of primary school where the indicators reflect the active learning which takes place across these early years.
The child is at the centre of what we do in the early years. This is a critically important stage in the development and learning of children. Children are naturally curious and eager to find out about the world around them. We must build on their curiosity and enthusiasm to learn when we develop their learning environments, working outwards from their individual interests and needs.
Self-evaluation is a reflective professional process through which centres get to know themselves well and identify the way forward which is best for their children. It should, therefore, promote well-considered innovation. The framework of indicators is there to guide you in that process. The illustrations are not designed to be used as checklists or recipes. They are there to be referred to alongside other sources of guidance such as curriculum advice, research into learning and pedagogy, and studies of leadership approaches. As thinking about the curriculum and learning is constantly developing, so our application of the indicators also develops to take account of the dynamic context which is early education in Scotland.
Self-evaluation, and the indicators on which it is based, is forward looking. It is about change and improvement, whether gradual or major. It should result in clear benefits for children.
REFLECTION AS A COMMUNITY OF PROFESSIONALS
All staff constantly reflect on the quality of their work. As professionals, and as members of the staff team which is accountable for the overall quality of education, you are accountable for the quality of your work and for the achievements of the children you teach and engage with.
Members of staff engaging with children’s learning take pride in their own work and reflect on it in relation to individual responsibilities. For this you can use the quality indicators and other sources of advice such as the Conditions of Registration with the Scottish Social Services Council and their Codes of Practice, the Standards for Full Registration as teachers, for Chartered Teacher or for Headship, and the National Framework for Continuing Professional Development.
Self-evaluation also involves groups of staff reflecting on their work together. You can do this in a number of ways by:
Peer evaluation is a very important professional activity. It is often well established in early education teams where feedback is shared across the team. It complements professional discussion you engage in with senior colleagues who might teach and work alongside you or observe practice in the playroom. The indicators in this edition have been written to talk directly to staff teams to recognise this important collegiate responsibility. Teams in early education centres may include teachers, nursery nurses, other early education professionals and care workers.
The process of collegiate self-evaluation, by staff and with centre managers, works best when all working in the centre have a shared understanding of what is meant by ‘quality’. This often stems from a shared vision of what you as a centre community want for the children, and what you want your provision for children to be like in two or three years time.
A shared vision doesn’t always come easily. There are usually different views and interests across groups of staff, children and parents, other professionals and key members of the community. To develop a shared vision, the centre must engage with all of these in clarifying and agreeing its values and principles. It also needs to agree how its values and principles will be put into action to influence the work of the centre, the curriculum, the learning environment, the ethos of the centre and the way that everyone is included. A centre which achieves a common vision and shared values has a strong sense of purpose to achieve its aims.
These activities, carried out by reflective professionals, are the basis of the collegiate culture which underpins leadership at all levels: in the playroom; class; within working groups and development teams; as promoted staff within stages; as senior managers as a whole; or as the head of centre ultimately accountable for the quality of everything which goes on in the centre. Taking part is what we mean by being a member of a ‘community of learners’.
USING THE FRAMEWORK OF QUALITY INDICATORS IN EVALUATION
The framework in this publication provides a structure for self-evaluation which can be used in different ways.
Every year you will want to look closely at aspects of your centre’s successes and achievements (Key Areas 1 to 4) and aspects such as learning, teaching and meeting learning needs (Key Area 5). From this analysis, and from your day-to-day professional reflection, you may identify key issues for further exploration, observation and analysis using more of the detail of the quality indicators provided within Key Areas 5 to 9.
The aspects addressed within the Key Areas are closely inter-related. This means that strengths or weaknesses in one area may have an effect on quality in another area. Climate and relationships influence learning; working with partner agencies affects children’s care and welfare; leadership affects and is affected by staff morale. In other words, the framework can help you to diagnose the causes of the strengths and weaknesses you have found.
If self-evaluation is well established in your centre, a selective approach based on your knowledge of your successes and achievements, as well as issues which need to be addressed, is an effective way of using the framework of indicators.
Sometimes, however, a more comprehensive approach may be needed. For example, a new headteacher or manager who has just taken over a centre might find it helpful to work through all or most of the indicators to gain a clear picture of the quality of the centre’s work. All centres will benefit when staff look across the breadth of their work, ‘taking a broad view’ every so often to ensure everything is working well. In this way, you will come across issues where you need to ‘take a closer look’. This familiar approach of taking a broad view and taking a closer look is another approach to using the indicators.
USING INDICATORS AND SOURCES OF EVIDENCE
The selection of evidence on which you base your evaluations should be kept manageable by sampling. The extent and nature of sampling should be thought through carefully and discussed and agreed by staff. It is also useful to test out the strength of your evidence through testing one source of evidence against a second and a third source. For example, the effectiveness of your centre’s policy on meeting the needs of learners could be checked against its implementation in playrooms and discussed with staff, children and parents. This process should help to evaluate the impact of policy in meeting the needs of children.
The key sources of evidence will come from what you actually observe, from data of various sorts and from the views of people who are closely involved with the centre, such as the children themselves, parents, partner agencies, as well as staff.
Children can provide thoughtful and valuable views about the learning they experience and what ‘works for them’. Ways of tapping into their views include talking with small groups, listening to them at play and one-to-one discussions while you are helping individuals to talk about their work and progress.
Parents5 have unique experience of their children and have important knowledge of their progress as learners over time within the centre, at home and in other settings. They also have important insights into the quality of provision as participants in, and users of, the centre. Their views on the centre can be gathered through informal daily contacts, organised events for parents, their responses at times of difficulty or concern and periodic questionnaires to gather their views.
If you become aware of weaknesses in practice, you may also find it helpful to check out written guidance and documentation. Such documentation could include curricular programmes, staff plans, policies and guidelines and minutes of meetings. However, what is written down is not necessarily the same as what actually happens. Similarly, progress reports on your centre’s improvement plans can be helpful but will need to be checked against what has actually happened. What really matters is the impact of all the key activities in the centre on children themselves and their learning.
MANAGING EVALUATION
It is important to have reasons for evaluating the aspects you have chosen, and a clear idea of exactly how you are going to carry out evaluation, when and with whom. Time is a key resource in busy centres and there is no need to evaluate everything at once. However, you do need to be systematic as you do not want important aspects of the centre’s work to ‘slip through the net’ and only find out that things are going awry when they have already had an effect on children. Time spent on diagnosis needs to be balanced against the time to be spent on improvement. You also need to keep focusing on the key work of the centre – to promote children’s development and learning.
Many managers build monitoring and evaluation into a calendar of activities. For example, the headteacher of a school will want to include nursery staff in the annual evaluation of the whole school. A playgroup leader may include a review of provision at regular staff meetings and set aside time once a year for a look across all the playgroup’s work. By keeping a note of discussion and evidence, managers and their staff gradually build up a body of evidence which they can use when arriving at evaluations using quality indicators. The time frame can be flexible to suit the needs of the centre. The most important requirement, though, is that such activity is built into the work of the centre and has a clear focus on children’s learning and success. All the key processes of education, and leadership activities, need to be tracked through to their impact on children.
At the heart of self-evaluation we want to know:
Excellent centres focus these questions on learning. Learning is at the heart of an excellent centre. Learning is its core business.
THE QUALITY FRAMEWORK
The indicators in this edition of The Child at the Centre are arranged under six questions which HMIE, and other agencies, are adopting for evaluation purposes.
These six simple but powerful questions are set out in nine key areas in a chart in this edition of The Child at the Centre.
The first two questions are very important:
These two questions focus on the achievements of the centre in relation to its key purpose and the impact of the centre on children, parents and the community at large. They relate to the centre’s successes in helping children to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors within the community. They also relate to Scotland’s Vision for children and young people that they should be safe, nurtured, healthy, achieving, active, included, respected and responsible.
To judge your success in relation to these two questions and to plan for improvements, you will need to consider the key factors which influence them. For example, if your children are not developing as confident individuals, you might look at the curriculum that children follow, or the kinds of learning in which they are engaged. You should, therefore, consider the first two questions in the light of other questions relating to:
This approach enables professionals to reflect on practice within our own playrooms and nursery classes, and within the centre or school as a whole, and to consider the deep inter-relationships between aspects of our work and our successes and achievements. Where best practice is identified, it should be celebrated and shared with others. If things are not going well, you can track down the source of the issues by using some of the indicators to take a closer look at particular aspects.
For example, if children are not learning effectively or are not motivated to learn, you may need to look at aspects of the quality of education your centre provides and ask the following questions.
This kind of focused approach enables you to concentrate on areas of priority rather than routinely covering all aspects of the centre’s work in turn.