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How good is our school? - Self-evaluation using quality indicators 2002 Edition incorporating the six-point scale

Foreword

This updated edition of How good is our school? is essentially a ‘six-point scale’ conversion of the now well-established edition that we published in 2002. Previous editions of How good is our school? have been based on a four-point evaluation scale, ranging from ‘unsatisfactory’ to ‘very good’. In HMIE, however, we are now moving to using a more finely-grained six point scale in school inspections. This new scale will incorporate a new top level of ‘excellence’, which the Minister for Education and Young People has specifically asked us to introduce.

We see a number of advantages in moving to a six point scale, including:

• clearer identification and celebration of the highest levels of performance and provision through the ‘excellent’ category;
• greater ability to discriminate between significantly different levels of performance or provision within the previous ‘good’ and ‘very good’ categories, in which increasingly large proportions of our evaluations were sometimes becoming grouped;
• improved ability to demonstrate improvement in performance or provision over time, where changes were previously lost within the range covered by a single level;
• heightened aspirations and ambition through raising the standard at the top level and more clearly showing step changes in improvement at lower levels.

Inspectors will use the new six-point scale in inspections from August 2005. Our consultations with local authorities, headteachers and other stakeholders have indicated that schools and authorities also wish to move towards using the six-point scale in parallel with the changes in inspection. We have consequently produced this updated version of How good is our school? as a practical support for the conversion process, giving all concerned with school self-evaluation and quality improvement easy access to familiar documentation but in the new six-point format. 

Changes have not been extensive. Apart from the relatively small number of straightforward changes that were necessary to adapt How good is our school? to the six point scale, this edition remains essentially the same as its predecessor in every other respect.

How good is our school? has been a success story for Scottish education. It has achieved both national and international recognition.  Its continuing strength lies in the fact that it provides a common set of reference points for judging the quality of performance and provision, shared by inspectors, teachers, headteachers and local authority staff, and it aims to do so in a practical, user-friendly format. I trust, as a user of How good is our school?, you continue to find it to be a key source of support as you seek to improve the quality of experiences and outcomes for learners. Furthermore, I hope you find the move to a six-point scale to be a significant additional refinement that helps you further towards that aim.

Graham Donaldson
HM Senior Chief Inspector of Education

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