The rubrics show CIS’ expectations for each stage of a school’s development. Rubrics allow your school to monitor its progress through the accreditation cycle and identify goals for future development. Each rubric contains criteria that exemplify minimum expectations for each stage of the evaluation and accreditation cycle. These criteria are used by both your school and the CIS evaluators to assess your school’s alignment with the standards.

The evaluation criteria within the rubrics are used to answer the following questions:

Preparatory Evaluation

• Is your school focused on achieving sustainable improvement, relative to the needs of its stakeholders? Does it have the capacity for sustained improvement?

• Is your school a realistic candidate for CIS accreditation within 12-18 months?

• Is CIS accreditation embedded in your school’s strategic planning?

• Are all the required (core) standards for accreditation met or capable of being met by the time of the Team Evaluation?

Team Evaluation

• How well is your school placed to meet the accreditation standards?

• Is your school challenging itself to develop further?

Future Aspirations

• To what extent is your school research-centred in its drive for improvement?

• How effectively are suitable benchmarks used to inspire innovation and improvement?

• How adaptive is your school to students’ continuously changing needs and circumstances?

• How strong is the intercultural learning in the community and how skillfully does your school enrich this learning?

Refer to standard C1 as an example. The standard is in the left column and the minimum expectations for each stage of the accreditation cycle are shown under the corresponding headings. Using evidence, your school will use the rubric to check its alignment with the standard listed under the stage they are currently at in the accreditation process.