Introduction to evaluation
Schools and colleges evaluate their work as part of the process of planning for improvement. It helps them to:
They use different quality indicators to evaluate their work reflecting the differences in the types of establishment.
Schools use How good is our school?.
Colleges use the SFEFC/HMIE Quality Framework.
The Quality Indicators in these documents form the basis, respectively, for school inspections by HMIE and for further education subject and college reviews which are conducted by HMIE on behalf of SFEFC.
How to evaluate arrangements for school-college transition for students with additional support needs, in the context of institutional self-evaluation.
The following pages suggest ways in which schools, colleges, and the wider professional network8 can evaluate their transition arrangements and plan to improve them. The characteristics of good practice set out in Section 2 are consistent and compatible with the good practice underlying both sets of quality indicators.
The evidence gathered in evaluating transition arrangements can contribute to other aspects of institutional self-evaluation; and conversely, evidence gathered for wider evaluation work can contribute to the evaluation of transitional arrangements. To help in cross-referencing, the most relevant QIs are listed at the end of this section. They are signalled in Section 3 against each characteristic, and there is space to enter them in the evidence sections of the evaluation grids which appear later in this section.
Deciding who does the evaluation
The best forum for evaluating transition arrangements overall is often the professional network. Their varying insights into the needs and wishes of the young people contribute to a good overall view of the effectiveness of transition arrangements. If they evaluate as an activity of the group meeting, they may stimulate improvements across a range of agencies and thus improve pathways and progression opportunities.
Where the professional network is not yet well established, great care must be taken to develop open and constructive working relationships before attempting evaluation across a number of centres. Members should first become aware of the operational arrangements in their respective organisations, and should understand the principles and constraints under which they work. Sharing self-evaluative material and inviting direct feedback should be facilitated skilfully and sensitively. Improving the quality of the experience for the young people should always be the focus of discussion and debate.
There is value too in schools and colleges evaluating the transition arrangements within their individual institutions, or in school-college pairings. Evaluation within single institutions can suggest internal improvements, and also identify areas where two or more institutions could work more effectively together. Evaluation through school-college pairings or college-schools groupings can identify weaknesses and inform improvements to specific problems encountered by one institution in working with another. This can lead to action that improves co-ordination and communication between them.
How to use the evaluation activities
The basis of the evaluation is to take the characteristics and ask to what extent they are present in the arrangements, what evidence there is to show that they are effective in terms of the student experience, and what needs to be done, if anything, to improve the experience. The following pages suggest some formats for doing this.
The activities can be adapted for the context in which they will be used.
A network might want to evaluate against all the characteristics as a broad-brush
exercise to form a view across the local area. Individual institutional evaluations
of some or all of the characteristics could contribute to this overview, and
action for improvement could be agreed as a whole group. Schools and colleges
could evaluate across all the characteristics or select particular ones.
You will probably find it most productive to work in a group, both to get a broad perspective and to encourage ownership of the process. Flip charts or sticky notes can be used to record contributions and views. These can then be summarised on the grids provided.
Who initiates an evaluation?
Evaluation of transition arrangements might take place within the context of these self-evaluation frameworks, on the direction of senior managers. Alternatively, promoted staff with responsibilities for, for example, guidance and learning support or school-college links, might undertake it. It could also be initiated by the wider professional network and cover the schools and colleges in a local area. The network might also decide to widen the scope of the evaluation to include the other agencies with roles in transition.
EVALUATION ACTIVITIES FOR SCHOOLS
Activity 1 - Setting the scene in your school
This activity is designed to map out the context for your self-evaluation. It should allow you to organise your thoughts on who the target students are, why they need a successful transition, and raise awareness of the roles of others working with them in the transitional stage.
1. Identify the characteristics of students in your school who may need additional support in:
2. Make a list of the possible short term and longer-term consequences of not providing support.
3. List, by name and role, the people in school who are potentially involved in contributing to support during transition.
4. List, by role, people outside the school who are involved. This will include members of the professional network, parents/carers, and others working in support roles.
Activity 2 - How good are the arrangements made for our students? (Internal evaluation)
This activity provides a structure for evaluation by a group of staff in a school.
1. Take the characteristics of good practice one at a time.
2. Note what is done for your students under this characteristic.
At this stage focus on how good the arrangements are for your students, regardless
of who is responsible. Look for positive action and also for gaps or weaknesses.
3. Note what evidence there is of a) what is done and b) in what ways it is effective.
4. Working as a group, fill in the grids on the following pages.
5. Assign an interim level of performance against the characteristic.
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4 very good (major strengths) |
Activity 3 - How good are the arrangements made for our students? (External feedback)
This activity is designed to give a structure for gathering feedback from people other than school staff. This is an important supplement to the views you have formed as a staff group.
1. Refer to the lists you drew up under points 3 and 4 of Activity 1. Decide who could give you feedback on how good the arrangements are.
2. Plan and implement a strategy for getting well-considered feedback. You could, for example, make out questionnaires or telephone interview schedules for people in the professional network, for parents, for ex-students who have moved on to college, and for college staff. You might want to ask about progress records and retention data at college.
3. Add to or modify your entries on the grid according to the feedback received.
4. Assign a final level of performance against the characteristic.
Activity 4 - How can we improve?
This activity provides a structure for planning for improvement.
1. Discuss the findings and the assigned levels in your group and decide where action is needed to improve the transition arrangements. You could refer to the case studies, the features of effective practice noted in Section 4 and any suggestions that have been made in the feedback.
2. Complete the action agenda on the grid. At this stage, simply record what you think needs to be done.
3. Prioritise the school action agenda in discussion with senior managers, and set SMART targets for action.
4. Work out a suitable way of sharing the broader action agenda with other players in the wider network, and perhaps proposing joint or collaborative developments.
EVALUATING TRANSITION ARRANGEMENTS: SCHOOLS
EVALUATION ACTIVITIES FOR COLLEGES
Activity 1 - Setting the scene in your college
This activity is designed to map out the context for your self-evaluation. It should allow you to organise your thoughts on who the target young people are, why they need a successful transition, and raise awareness of the roles of others working with them in the transitional stage.
1. Identify the characteristics of school students in your area who may need additional support in:
2. Make a list of the possible short term and longer-term consequences of not providing support.
3. List the schools from which you might draw vulnerable students and the names of the staff contacts in those schools. Note the extent to which you currently work with them.
4. List the roles and names of other people you work with in support of students transferring from school.
Activity 2 - How good are the arrangements made for our students? (Internal evaluation)
This activity provides a structure for evaluation by a group of staff in a college.
1. Take the characteristics of good practice one at a time.
2. Note what is done for your students under this characteristic. At this stage focus on how good the arrangements are for the students, regardless of who is responsible. Look for positive action and also for gaps or weaknesses.
3. Note what evidence there is of (a) what is done and (b) whether it is effective.
4. Fill in the grids on the following pages.
5. Assign an interim level of performance against the characteristic.
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4 very good (major strengths) |
Activity 3 - How good are the arrangements made for our students? (External feedback)
This activity is designed to give a structure for gathering feedback from people other than college staff. This is an important supplement to the views you have formed as a staff group.
1. Refer to the lists you drew up under 3 and 4 of Activity 1. Decide who could give you feedback on how good the arrangements are.
2. Plan and implement a strategy for getting well-considered feedback. You could, for example, make out questionnaires or telephone interview schedules for people in the professional network, for parents, for current students, and for college staff.
3. Add to or modify your entries on the grid according to the feedback received.
4. Assign a final level of performance against the characteristic.
Activity 4 - How can we improve?
This activity provides a structure for planning for improvement.
1. Discuss the findings and the assigned levels in your group and decide where action is needed to improve the transition arrangements. You could refer to the case studies, the features of effective practice noted in Section 4 and any suggestions that have been made in the feedback.
2. Complete the action agenda on the grid. At this stage, simply record what you think needs to be done.
3. Prioritise the college action agenda in discussion with senior managers, and set SMART targets for action.
4. Work out a suitable way of sharing the broader action agenda with other players in the wider network, and perhaps proposing joint or collaborative developments.
EVALUATING TRANSITION ARRANGEMENTS: COLLEGES
EVALUATION ACTIVITIES FOR NETWORK GROUPS
Activity 1 - Setting the scene
This activity is designed to map out the context for your self-evaluation.
It should allow you to organise your thoughts on who the target young people
are, why they need a successful transition, and raise awareness of the roles
of others working with them in the transitional stage.
1. Identify the characteristics of school students in your area who may need additional support in:
2. Make a list of the possible short term and longer-term consequences of not providing support.
3. List the schools, colleges and others who provide post-school placements for vulnerable young people and the names of the staff contacts in those organisations.
4. List the roles and names of other people who work in support of students transferring from school. This may be a good opportunity to improve mutual understanding of the roles of the various professionals.
Activity 2 - How good are the arrangements for transition in the area covered by the network?
This activity provides a structure for an overview evaluation. Note that this will take a substantial amount of time and will generate discussion and debate. This should be encouraged. It should focus primarily on the quality of the student experience, and on collaborative working among network members. You might decide to devote a full meeting to it with follow-up work by some members; or you could look at individual characteristics over a series of meetings.
1. Take the characteristics of good practice one at a time.
2. Note what is done for the young people under this characteristic. At this stage focus on how good the arrangements are for the students, regardless of who is responsible. Look for positive action and also for gaps or weaknesses. You can draw on evaluations done by the schools and colleges themselves and on feedback from members of the group.
3. Summarise your findings on the grid under some main headings.
4. Use these main headings to write up the findings in a brief separate report to map out in more detail the overall picture. You could record in the report some of the issues that emerged from your discussion, for example:
Take care to write the report in a way which is both evaluative and acceptable to the membership of the group. Use the report planning and drafting stages to reinforce the focus on the student and the aspirations of the network members to improve their experience.
5. Assign a level of performance against the characteristic.
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4 very good (major strengths) |
Activity 3 - How can we improve?
This activity provides a structure for planning for improvement.
1. Discuss your evaluation grid and agree your report among the group.
2. Identify areas where improvement is needed and complete the action agenda on the grid. At this stage simply record what you think needs to be done.
3. Work the action agenda into a series of recommendations to add to your report.
4. Work out a suitable way to share the report with the institutions and personnel involved, with a wider circulation if appropriate.
5. As a network, develop specific proposals for action for improvement, securing the agreement of the various institutions involved and working collaboratively. Set SMART targets.
6. Agree how the network and its constituent members can monitor progress and measure improvements.
EVALUATING TRANSITION ARRANGEMENTS: NETWORKS
