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

Part 1: What is school self-evaluation?

How are we doing?

People have always reflected on the quality of local schools and of education nationally. HM Inspectorate of Education’s (HMIE) reports go a long way towards answering the national question: How good is Scottish education?. Standards and quality reports produced by local authorities aim to answer the question: How good is education in this authority?.

This publication seeks to help teachers answer the question How good is our school?. It suggests how we can identify strengths and areas for improvement, report on standards and quality and draw up plans for action.

What we mean by quality changes over time in response to changes in society and our own experience. All those involved in education are engaged in a constant process of learning and of developing their ideas, whether they are pupils, managers, teachers, parents or education officials. As our thinking develops, so does our view of what is ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ provision. Self-evaluation, change and improvement are therefore both natural and essential to an effective school. Schools are accountable to society, and as teachers we are involved in agreeing aims and policies to promote and improve pupils’ learning and attainment. In doing this, we refer to:

• our own assessment of the needs of pupils and the community we serve
• the views of parents¹, pupils and the community at large
• advice from local and national bodies
• reports of studies into effective learning and teaching.

A good school knows:

• what it is aiming to do
• whether it is meeting its aims successfully
• what needs to be maintained or improved
• whether changes are working.

If a school knows these things and acts on them, it is well on the way to having a good quality assurance system. School self-evaluation is at the heart of quality assurance.

School self-evaluation is about asking ourselves questions such as:

• How are we doing in this school?
• How are we doing in this classroom?
• How are we doing in this department?
• How are we doing in this team²?

1 Throughout this publication the term ‘parents’ should be taken to include foster carers, residential care staff and carers who are relatives or friends.
2 Throughout this publication the term team refers to the wide range of teams that work within pre-school centres and schools. Examples include: staff in pre-school centres and nurseries, teachers of particular stages in a primary school, members of a secondary school department, senior managers, guidance and learning support staff, working groups, partner agencies’ groups, technicians and office and administration staff.

It involves:

• a broad view of performance across what have become known as Key Areas: curriculum; attainment; learning and teaching; support for pupils; ethos; resources and management; leadership and quality assurance
• a closer look at specific areas viewed as successful or causing concern.

The stimulus to take a closer look could derive from:

• an issue identified during the broad view
• the regular cycle within which the work of the school is reviewed
• a project arising from a national priority or local improvement objective, perhaps developed in partnership with other local schools, the community, industry, or other agencies such as health or social services
• a periodic review of progress made in implementing priority projects within the school development plan
• an issue arising from a survey of parents’ or pupils’ views
• an audit of provision carried out within the education authority’s structure for quality assurance and improvement
• an HMIE inspection
• a Best Value review of or within education services, carried out by the local authority.

By reviewing all Key Areas over a number of years, schools are able to see what needs to be improved or maintained, using clearly defined measures of success. School self-evaluation is an essential stage in planning.

In order to plan effectively you need to know how you are doing. This is common sense. Effective self-evaluation provides a strong basis for good planning.

Planning takes place at all levels of the education system. Priorities and targets are set nationally for key aspects of educational performance. Authorities, in turn, establish local improvement objectives, taking into account their own circumstances. Schools use these objectives as a basis for deciding their own priority projects and targets for action.

At all levels, consultation is an essential stage in the process of planning. Within schools, consultation takes into account the views of parents, the School Board and pupils.

Well managed planning:

• promotes effective learning and teaching
• focuses on improving the quality of pupils’ attainment and experience
• ensures that change is managed and monitored by those implementing it
• helps us to be realistic in setting priorities, targets and timescales
• helps us to make best use of our school budget and resources.

A good development plan embraces all of these factors. It summarises the school’s aims and the results of self-evaluation. It outlines the school’s strategy for improvement, identifies priority projects and sets clear targets for action. An effective cycle of self-evaluation and planning for action is the key to quality assurance and improvement.

Quality assurance encompasses all aspects of school life. It includes ensuring that equality and fairness are embedded in the day to day work of schools. Quality and equality are ‘built in’, not ‘bolted-on’. It is about establishing an ethos that only the best will do. Getting quality assurance embedded in the way we think and do things in our schools is the responsibility of education authorities, headteachers, teachers and ancillary staff, supported by parents and HMIE. By working together, we can make a significant improvement in the quality of Scottish education.

We all need to have an external measure of how we are performing. Evaluating performance in Scottish schools is carried out nationally by HMIE. There is no mystique here: evaluation by HMIE covers the same ground as school self-evaluation, using indicators and language shared with schools and teachers.

Education authorities have an important role in evaluating and monitoring performance in their schools. This focus on performance is enhanced by the authorities’ wider commitment to continuous improvement under Best Value. When engaged in this process, they, like HMIE, use the same indicators and terminology as those used by schools.

We can see, therefore, that school self-evaluation and external evaluation, while serving different purposes, reinforce the commitment of all of us to evaluate what we are doing. School self-evaluation and external evaluation, whether by an education authority or by HMIE, examine a school’s priorities, standards and achievement across the Key Areas referred to earlier. Schools and education authorities can do this by addressing the same questions as HMIE:

How do we know?

We can see how we are doing by comparing our achievements with the expectations expressed within our school aims. In the past, we have, quite rightly, looked at the evidence of class activities and school assessments. However, we should also consider evidence which relates to wider expectations. This can be done using the quality indicators in Part 3 supported by other evidence, such as the results of surveys of the views of parents and pupils and examination results.

Quality indicators help us make judgements on the quality of school provision. They relate to a range of factors which influence the effectiveness of pupils’ learning and over which schools have some control. They:

• help us judge the quality of performance against a set of criteria
• identify areas which require detailed investigation
• enable school managers to come to decisions about the overall pattern of strengths and weaknesses in the school’s performance.

When coming to a judgement about performance using these indicators, we may refer to a number of sources of evidence:

• school assessments of pupil attainment
• analyses of other data
• criteria used within other quality assurance frameworks
• performance in national 5-14 levels of attainment and National Qualifications
• the views of parents, pupils and other stakeholders and users.

These can help us evaluate the quality of courses and attainment. They take several forms:

• application of criteria to course-work, expressed as 5-14 levels or estimates of SQA grades
• assessments of progress in relation to individual targets for all pupils, included in pupil profiles and individualised educational programmes (IEPs) for pupils with special needs
• measures specific to curricular areas and devised by individual schools.

The emphasis will vary according to curricular area, pupils’ ages and developmental stage.

Standard Tables of performance in National Qualifications are sent annually to each secondary school and education authority. Individual primary, secondary and special schools collate achievement in relation to national 5-14 levels of attainment in reading, writing and mathematics and the achievement of targets within IEPs. They may also collate information about pupils’ performance at specific stages in their education, for example baseline data from the earliest stages of their school experience, or 5-14 attainment data in other curricular areas. Many education authorities collect and analyse information about performance across all the schools in their area. These analyses help schools identify and evaluate:

• areas where there are particular strengths or weaknesses, for example, in a particular curricular area, at a particular level or within the school generally
• positive or negative trends over time
• pupil progress through the school system.

There are a number of local and national publications which provide advice about how schools might take a closer look at pupils’ attainment, (see Part 4).

A positive school ethos influences attainment, achievement and expectations. Good schools listen to, and take account of, the views of pupils, parents, staff and members of the community in a number of ways. Some schools devise their own questionnaires. Others use or adapt the ones HMIE use in inspections or those developed by other quality organisations. Regularly gathering evidence from such surveys provides a valuable perspective on the quality of education provided by the school.

Parents, schools and education authorities have access to a range of data, for example on performance or attendance. Some of this data may be collected by schools during the course of the year. Some may be published in national reports. Individual education authorities may gather information from their schools relating to local issues, improvement projects or aspects of attainment.

Data of this kind enables schools and authorities to make:

• national and local comparisons
• comparisons over time
• inferences about the ethos and expectations within a school.

A number of local authorities are developing approaches to quality assurance and improvement based on self-assessment and accreditation systems such as the Excellence Model of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), Investors in People or Charter Mark. These systems, like the quality indicators within this publication, are based on the principles of self-evaluation and continuous improvement and are consistent with the local authority’s Best Value obligations. Some schools apply for recognition or for competitive awards within these, or similar, systems as part of their drive for improvement. All these models share with How good is our school? a belief in the importance of improving standards of provision and achievement, and a desire to provide the best possible service to those who have a stake in our schools.

The criteria for Investors in People have been mapped against an earlier version of the quality indicators in Part 3 of this publication (Investors in People: Making it happen in schools, HMI 1996). On the HMIE web-site you can find materials which show the links between the quality indicators in this revised edition of How good is our school? and the criteria of EFQM and Charter Mark. These materials provide support for those schools and education authorities which are working towards assessment or recognition within these quality development frameworks.

All of these approaches to quality development help ensure that schools can play a full and effective part in implementing and developing the Best Value framework within which all local authorities are expected to operate.

All the sources of evidence so far discussed provide important information which you should draw upon when evaluating quality within your school and, in particular, when making judgements using quality indicators. HMIE and education departments also use them in their evaluations of quality in schools.

The revised set of quality indicators in Part 3 provides comprehensive coverage of the seven Key Areas. Part 2 shows how they can be used to answer the question How do we know? It suggests that good and selective use of these indicators can be the key to rigorous and objective evaluation.

These indicators can be used:

• within a whole school audit when identifying areas for action
• to identify contributing factors when analysing attainment
• to take a broad view of the school’s overall performance as part of the planning process
• to take a closer look at a specific area within a regular cycle of self-evaluation
• to follow up issues arising from surveys of parents’ and pupils’ views
• to monitor progress on, and evaluate implementation of, priority projects within the development plan
• to evaluate quality in relation to a single issue which may be specific to the school or relate to a national or local priority.

We can use the indicators in the same way as HMI to answer the following questions:

Using national criteria, based on a broad consensus, encourages consistency and provides a common language for discussing pupils’ achievements. Education authorities and schools can use the quality indicators in their own quality processes. Teachers can use them within planning for improvement when considering how best to raise achievement in the classroom.

Quality indicators can help us to assess the extent to which school aims are being met. A school’s aims provide general expectations. National and local publications provide expectations for curricular areas, stages or issues in learning and teaching. Together with school aims, they help to contextualise quality indicators by suggesting features to look for. These can be evaluated against the six levels of performance which are an integral part of each quality indicator. The six, which are used by HMIE in inspections, are:

Levels

6 excellent - excellent
5 very good - major strengths
4 good - important strengths with areas for improvement
3 adequate - strengths just outweigh weaknesses
2 weak - important weaknesses
1 unsatisfactory - major weaknesses

In the complex context of education there are many ways in which provision can merit a particular evaluation. We need to bear in mind that awarding levels will always be more of a professional skill than a technical process. However, the following general guidelines should be consistently applied.

• An evaluation of excellent applies to provision which is a model of its type. Pupils' experiences and achievements are of a very high quality. An evaluation of excellent represents an outstanding standard of provision which exemplifies very best practice and is worth disseminating beyond the school. It implies these very high levels of performance are sustainable and will be maintained.
• An evaluation of very good applies to provision characterised by major strengths. There are very few areas for improvement and any that do exist do not significantly diminish the pupil experience. While an evaluation of very good represents a high standard of provision, it is a standard that should be achievable by all. It implies that it is fully appropriate to continue to make provision without significant adjustment. However, there is an expectation that the school will take opportunities to improve and strive to raise performance to excellent.
• An evaluation of good applies to provision characterised by important strengths which, taken together, clearly outweigh any areas for improvement. An evaluation of good represents a standard of provision in which the strengths have a significant positive impact. However, the quality of pupils' experiences is diminished in some way by aspects in which improvement is required. It implies that the school should seek to improve further the areas of important strength, but take action to address the areas for improvement.
• An evaluation of adequate applies to provision characterised by strengths which just outweigh weaknesses. An evaluation of adequate indicates that pupils have access to a basiclevel of provision. It represents a standard where the strengths have a positive impact onpupils’ experiences. However, while the weaknesses are not important enough to have asubstantially adverse impact, they do constrain the overall quality of pupils’ experiences. Itimplies that the school should take action to address areas of weakness while building on itsstrengths.
• An evaluation of weak applies to provision which has some strengths, but where there areimportant weaknesses. In general, an evaluation of weakmay be arrived at in a number of circumstances. While there may be some strengths, important weaknesses will, eitherindividually or collectively, be sufficient to diminish the pupils’ experiences in substantial ways. It implies the need for structured and planned action on the part of the school.
• An evaluation of unsatisfactory applies when there are major weaknesses in provision requiring immediate remedial action. The pupil experience is at risk in significant respects. In almost all cases, staff responsible for provision evaluated as unsatisfactory will require support from senior managers in planning and carrying out the necessary actions to effect improvement. This may involve working alongside other staff or agencies in or beyond the school.

Evaluations made in self-evaluation and inspections simply enable staff to ask the right questions. They do not represent a set of answers. Equally evaluations should not be aggregated across different indicators, or turned into percentages. In such cases, percentages can be at best meaningless and at worst deceptive. For example, it means nothing to say that 75% of all evaluations in a school self-evaluation report or an inspection are good or very good. Without further interpretation, raw percentages could hide the fact that teaching and learning was universally fair, or that all evaluations in two out of eight subjects in a secondary school were weak, or some other variant.

Furthermore, it is not valid to ‘average’ a count of QIs across the six levels of evaluation. Instead, we should always use a frequency distribution. It can be very useful to look at patterns of evaluations across particular indicators, as these can help to identify whether a particular strength or weakness is localised or replicated across a school. This can help staff to focus on the underlying causes of weaknesses, and identify appropriate staff development priorities, or resource allocations. Over time, trends can indicate whether a particular action has brought about the improvement sought.

You might scan across all the quality indicators each year, assigning one of the six levels to each indicator on the basis of professional judgement. This process of shared reflection could be carried out within the school as a whole or in individual departments or teams. It should be based on readily available evidence and will give immediate feedback on areas of major strengths or concern.

The broad view will give you the overall picture. However, you might also take a closer look at specific areas, referring to a wider range of evidence:

• those areas not so far covered within the regular audit cycle
• previously identified areas of concern or areas where action has already been taken and where you wish to measure success
• areas relating to national priorities or local improvement objectives.

Where a development is externally driven, you are unlikely to have to identify a development priority from scratch. This may well already have been done at national or education authority level. Instead, concentrate on establishing what has to be done in order to deliver it.

Whether you are taking a broad view or a closer look, it is essential that you come to an overall evaluation. This is where external evaluation by your education authority and by HMIE can help you. Their assessment, based on evaluation of provision across a large number of schools, provides the important process of moderation. This moderation assures you that your judgements are accurate and that your expectations are appropriate and sufficiently challenging. External moderation will also give you confidence in your own judgement.

National standards and quality reports, including those on individual curricular areas, also provide important benchmarks for you to use when evaluating your own school, department or team. You can find reports of individual school inspections from across Scotland on the HMIE web-site. The web-site also publishes information about further sources of advice on using quality indicators.

What are we going to do now?

Drawing on the answers to the questions How are we doing? and How do we know? you should be on the way to planning for improvement and producing your own school report on standards and quality. Self-evaluation is integral to both processes.

In the audit section of your school’s development plan, you will be providing a brief evaluative summary of the outcomes of your self-evaluation and indicating the strengths and development needs that you have identified. In the action section you will be listing the priority projects and targets for improvement planning to pursue in order to address these needs.

In your standards and quality report, you will be providing more detail about the results of self-evaluation. You may have been working towards taking a closer look at one or more aspects of each Key Area over a period of three years or so. Where this has not been possible, you will be able to use evidence gathered when taking a broad view of the school’s performance.

You should find the six levels of performance useful in giving your report rigour and in helping you to go beyond providing description to providing real evaluation. These six levels should enable you to make qualitative statements like:

Most pupils meet or exceed national levels of attainment in reading … or … almost all classes showed important weaknesses in problem solving in mathematics … or … although there is good practice in some departments, assessment as part of teaching is weak overall. A number of departments have still to put into place the revised school arrangements for profiling pupils’ attainment and providing regular feedback.

A good standards and quality report should:

• recognise key strengths
• identify levels of service to be maintained
• identify development needs and priorities, and set targets.

There may be occasions when, for some aspects, the answer to the question What are we going to do now? may be nothing at present. Although not perfect, performance in the aspect considered may be of an acceptable standard and there may be issues of greater concern.

In deciding what to do now, it will help if you select a manageable number of priorities for which you can identify specific, achievable and measurable targets. Priorities should:

• reflect the aims of the school
• incorporate national priorities and related local improvement objectives into the cycle
• be linked at team level to school priorities
• lead to clear plans of action.

Reporting on standards and quality is integral to the process of planning and self-evaluation. You should report according to the cycle set down by your authority and share your report with the school community and other interested parties. The report also provides an agenda for discussion with education officials and informs their view of standards and quality in the authority as a whole. They will refer to your standards and quality report, and those of other schools, when reporting on standards and quality across the authority. HMIE will use it as the starting point for their own inspections. Finally, it can be used when planning appropriate support from education advisory and support services.

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