A Route to Health Promotion: Self-Evaluation Using (html)

A Route to Health Promotion: Self-Evaluation Using Performance Indicators

Part 1: Preparing for Audit

Self-Evaluation using Performance Indicators

In providing a framework for undertaking a structured audit, this document builds directly on the national approach to self-evaluation set out in How good is our school?: Self-evaluation using performance indicators, which is the essential tool to assist schools in carrying out an audit of their practice. It also builds on, and specialist advice on health promotion including health education.

The approach is based on the same three questions:

How are we doing?
How do we know?
What are we going to do now?

To answer these questions, you are encouraged to take a broad view of how your school can promote pupils' physical, emotional, mental and social health and then to take a closer look at some key areas, using performance indicators to help you. . You could include the evidence you gather in the audit section of your development plan. This information would also contribute to your school's Standards and Quality report covering all seven key areas and the 33 performance indicators in How good is our school?. . You are encouraged to look closely both at the formal curriculum and the informal curriculum, how you structure the overall school experience for pupils, as both aspects have an important contribution to make.

A Route to Health Promotion applies the three questions to the issue of health promotion. It is in three parts:

PART 1	Preparing for audit
PART 2	Self-evaluation audit tools
PART 3	Staff development activities

For information on the terminology and structure of the performance indicators and advice on how to use them, refer to pages 11-13 of How good is our school?. . When working with the staff development materials in Part 3 of this package for the first time it might be helpful to participants if these pages of How good is our school? were photocopied for use during the activities. Schools should ensure that staff from support agencies and other partners who have a locus in health promotion have access to the relevant pages of How good is our school?, including the key performance indicators and their illustrations.

As you use this document, you will be looking at appropriate ways of involving all staff, teaching and support staff, in considering aspects of the health issues raised. . You will also look at health promoting links with other services such as catering, health, leisure and recreation, police, social work and community education. . Most importantly, you will be considering appropriate ways of involving pupils and their parents.

The materials offer practical activities for:

use during team meetings or in-service sessions
adapting to suit your school or team.

These will help you to recognise your key strengths, identify those areas where good quality needs to be maintained or where improvement is desirable and draw up an action plan.

Taking a broad view of health promotion

How good is our school? (page 14) indicates that an overview of issues should take place on a regular basis. This overview should draw information, as appropriate, from the following:

the headteacher	groups of teachers and support staff
senior promoted staff	staff giving an individual response
individual departments or stages	health board staff
learning support and guidance staff	social work staff
pupils	leisure and recreation staff
parents	catering staff
health promotion staff	police
community education staff.

The overview will provide information for a progress report on standards and quality. When taking a broad view, concentrate on giving an overall answer to the question: How are we doing?.

Initially you should scan across all the performance indicators relevant to health promotion, assigning one of the four levels of performance as described in How good is our school? to each indicator on the basis of professional judgement. . This will give immediate feedback on areas of major strengths or concern.

Taking a closer look at health promotion

In addition to this broad view, you should take a closer look at specific areas:

those areas not so far covered within the regular audit cycle
previously identified areas of concern or success; or
areas relating to national or local priorities and initiatives.

Part 2 of this document provides materials to assist you in taking this closer look.

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

Evaluating levels of performance

In each of the practical examples, contained in Part 2, it is suggested that you try to evaluate your school against a range of specific questions, based on selected performance indicators and their themes and illustrations, covering particular aspects of performance.

Illustrations of major strengths are provided for each of the key performance indicators for health promotion. . These illustrations are offered to exemplify features of good practice and help you identify these or equivalent strengths in your school.

In evaluating your practice, it is recommended that you use the four levels of performance, which are an integral part of each indicator. The four, which are used also by HMI in inspections and are outlined on page 6 of How good is our school?, are:

Level

4	very good	- major strengths
3	good	- strengths outweigh weaknesses
2	fair	- some important weaknesses
1	unsatisfactory	- major weaknesses

Selecting groups of performance indicators to take a closer look at health promotion

Thirty-three performance indicators are outlined in How Good is Our School?. . These PIs and their associated themes are listed on pages 34 and 35 of that document and pages 389 and 3940 of this document. . To help you move from a broad view to a sharper focus, and take a closer look at health promotion, 10ten performance indicators have been identified as being particularly relevant.

You may wish to choose a subset of these performance indicators and themes. Alternatively, should you wish to apply different or additional performance indicators to evaluate health promotion, please refer to How good is our school?.

The 10 PIs chosen as most relevant to health promotion

No	Performance Indicator	Themes
1.1	Structure of the curriculum	breadth and balance across elements of the curriculum integration and permeation
1.2	Quality of courses or programmes	breadth, balance and choice integration, continuity and progression support and guidance for teachers
3.3	Meeting pupils' needs	choice of tasks, activities and resources pace of learning to achieve appropriate targets for all pupils relevance of the purposes and contexts of teaching to pupils' experiences and interests where applicable, the contribution of learning support staff
4.1	Pastoral care	provision for the emotional, physical and social needs of individual pupils provision of support for pupils
4.2	Personal and social development	development in pupils of positive attitudes and personal and social skills contribution of extra-curricular activities, syllabus inserts and special courses
5.1	Ethos	sense of identity and pride; equality and fairness welcoming environment pupil and staff morale and pupil/staff relationships pupil and staff expectations and use of praise pupils' behaviour and discipline
5.2	Partnership with parents and the School Board	encouragement to parents to be involved in their child's learning and the life of the school responsiveness of the school to parents' views and enquiries effectiveness of links between school and School Board
5.3	Links with other schools and agencies, employers and the community	range, purpose and effectiveness of contacts with other educational establishments range, purpose and effectiveness of contacts with voluntary organisations, the wider community and employers range, purpose and effectiveness of contacts with statutory organisations
6.1	Provision of accommodation and facilities	sufficiency, range and appropriateness
6.3	Organisation and use of resources and space	organisation and accessibility use of resources display and presentation of items of interest

Part 2 of this document presents audit tools based on the ten10 performance indicators and their associated themes identified above. . These tools have been designed in the format of the practical examples in Part 4 of How good is our school? and are based on each of the chosen performance indicators and themes. The issues directly related to health promotion have been incorporated within the 'features you might look for' which set out some of the good practice we would look for (major strengths) when considering the evidence to make our evaluative judgement.

Taking a closer look at health promotion

When you first start using performance indicators and evaluating health promotion, you may find it easier to concentrate on one indicator or even one theme at a time.

As you become familiar with the performance indicators, you will find it useful to identify the level of performance and use several indicators in combination to get a fuller picture. . This helps you to establish priorities, find more information and use your time more efficiently. . It also helps you to plan a systematic approach to evaluation and produce a coherent overview of practice in your school.

The focus for evaluation, for example, could be Healthy Eating.

A key aspect of health promotion is healthy eating. As part of the school development planning process, you may wish to review your current practice with a view to considering this aspect for inclusion.

Step 1 How are we doing?

Identify the school aim that you will use to identify current expectations, for example: 'We aim to create a stimulating yet safe and supportive environment that both promotes and protects the health and wellbeing of all members of the school community.'
Define the area of focus (the link between nutrition education in the classroom and the dining room, pupils' access to healthy food, a particular curriculum topic, a school stage or teaching strategy).

Step 2 How do we know?

Identify the relevant PIs and themes, for example:
Quality of courses or programmes - theme 1, breadth, balance and choice;
Quality of courses or programmes - theme 3, support and guidance for teachers;
Meeting pupils' needs - theme 3, relevance of the purposes and contexts of teaching to pupils' experiences and interests;
Personal and social development -- theme 1, development in pupils of positive attitudes and personal and social skills.
Refer to the illustrations in Part 3 of How good is our school? and consider the listed statements as questions you might ask as part of your evaluation.

For example:

Is healthy eating a key component of the core curriculum?

Does the teaching and learning on healthy eating build on prior learning?

Do teachers receive clear guidance in relation to health education in terms of key resources and appropriate learning and teaching methods?

To what extent does choice of tasks help pupils' personal health action planning?

How aware are pupils of the importance of healthy eating?

Discuss with colleagues which features you might look for, such as cross-curricular programmes, which include reinforcement of concepts and skills, progressively more demanding stimuli and links with previous work.
Decide how you might find these features. For example, review programmes of study; audit across a number of key curricular areas; review course materials; examine forward plans; discuss with pupils; discuss with staff at stage or departmental meetings; and discuss pupils' eating patterns at school and in the home.
Examine the evidence you have collected and make an evaluative judgement.

Step 3 What are you going to do now?

Sum up the results, identifying key characteristics and reflecting on both quality and quantity. . For example, is there a coherent programme on healthy eating?
Identify one or two targets. For example, plan to focus more on co-ordination across the school.
Record your results and targets. These will provide some information you need for a standards and quality report. . These will also inform the School Nutrition Action Group (SNAG) if this is appropriate. . Targets should be considered for inclusion in the school development plan.

Further steps

These might include:

looking in some detail at what health promotion means for defined groups of pupils
reviewing course materials to identify gaps and ensure progression.

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