What is self-evaluation?
The main purpose of self-evaluation is to judge ‘how good are we now?’ and for services to be clear about ‘how do we know?’ and then to decide ‘what will they do now?’. The clear outcome of the process of self-evaluation is for staff to know their services sufficiently well to take forward relevant improvements. In so doing, they will make things better for children and young people, make all services ambitious and seek to achieve excellence. QIs and NCSs support services to confirm the level of quality they provide across care and education so that they are clear about priorities when planning the way forward. This guide will help the sector to evaluate current practice and identify strengths and areas for further development. It will support staff to carry out the process of self-evaluation through which they will:
‘Reflection and evaluation – knowing where you are, what you can build on and what needs to be improved are at the heart of our work.’ (Headteacher in ‘Journey to Excellence’, HMIE 2006)
The framework for self-evaluation shows all the QIs from HGIOS 3. The NCSs, which have been selected are those which support the evaluation of the key features of practice affecting the important interface between care and education. Using a combination of these selected NCSs, the Care Commission’s areas of focus for inspection and the QIs will provide the means to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of the quality of residential special schools and secure care accommodation services. The framework of indicators is based on six high-level questions. These are:
These six questions are set out in nine key areas in the third edition of How good is our school? as shown on the following pages.