Self-evaluation
Self-evaluation
Self-evaluation is an effective way of identifying your school’s baseline. Should you repeat the process over time it can be an effective way of measuring the impact of implementation. Through self-evaluation schools can identify strengths and weaknesses fairly easily, and this can accelerate the process of deciding which aspects need to be targeted in the short, medium and long term. More often than not self-evaluation processes review the aspects in question throughout the whole school. It is an essential phase of information discovery as a basis for a strategy or a strategic plan to develop the aspects for attention across the school. It is quantitative data that is usually gathered during a self-evaluation process, therefore the skill of analysing data is vitally important. There will also be opportunities to gather qualitative information, so this information must also be considered when analysing your results.
Examples of key questions to ask yourself when self-evaluating, useful to share with SLT for consideration in their whole school self-evaluation and for AoLE/department leaders in their departmental self-evaluation.
How high a priority is developing literacy in our improvement plan?
Do we have a consistent approach for developing pupils’ literacy skills across
the curriculum?
Does our planning provide opportunities for pupils to develop literacy skills,
across the curriculum?
Do our schemes of work demonstrate progression in developing learners’
literacy skills?
How effectively do we assess learners’ literacy ability?
How well do we use information from literacy assessment to plan activities
that challenge all pupils, including the more able?
How well do our transition plans support consistency and progression in
learners’ literacy skills?
Do teachers have the skills and knowledge needed to plan for and recognise progress in literacy?
Undertaking an audit can be an effective and quick way of evaluating the school's situation regarding a specific aspect. The technology now exists, through software such as Google Forms or MS Forms, to create an online questionnaire and send it out to the target audience in order to gather data. The results of the first audit allow the school to identify the baseline and the aspects that need to be targeted, as well as effective practice to share. Through revisiting the audit on a regular basis (once a year, for example) you can measure impact as well as the impact of implementation during this period.
An audit can be an effective way of evaluating the following aspects:
A staff skills audit can be carried out as an individual school or as a cluster.
Audits can be differentiated to focus on different responsibilities (e.g. Senior leaders / Middle leaders / Teachers / Teaching Assistants).Identify gaps or common needs that need to be targeted.
The findings can feed into the school's professional learning plan.
An opportunity to review skills as well as the confidence of individual.
An opportunity to identify staff training needs.
An opportunity to evaluate the range of experiences staff are confident in planning and also to identify gaps.
The findings can feed into the school's professional learning plan
An opportunity to steer the provision by using learner voice
An opportunity to evaluate the learners' confidence
Evaluating the learners' feelings about their experiences - Are they starting to recognise the literacy strategies that support their learning across the curriculum? Do they think that they are making progress with their literacy skills? Can they give examples of literacy being focussed upon effectively outside the English classroom?