Q and A

Q/ Our school is currently working on recording video evidence for virtual visit. Kindly advice how many videos should we record for Video# 4 Teaching and Learning. Is there a need to record videos for all grades and all subjects in every division or for the school-wide some samples of different subjects and grades is sufficient? And what is the best way to share these links to the visiting team and to CIS and NEASC. Please give your ideas.

A/ I was informed by my SSEO that the Teaching and Learning videos should be a "flavour" that shows representation from each division, some specialist and support lessons (EAL, SSST). It should work to reflect the CIS preparatory report framework, so be intentional about what you are sharing and why. Also, the SSEO mentioned to be mindful of the evaluators' time - maximum 60-90 minutes of total footage is what you should aim for. We shared all of our videos by making an internal Google Account for each of our evaluators and then placing the videos in folders (following the CIS "Creating an Online Sharing Space" document. In alignment with CHild safeguarding and data protection, we were then able to ensure the videos were view-only and had temporary viewing access. All of the additional evidence, resources, and videos were shared in this way and it worked seamlessly.

Q/How should our School be using the "Early Childhood Guidance" document during the self-study process? We are into our #TeamEvaluation stage.

A/ Hi Ms. X! When we wrote the Team Evaluation report, I shared the standards from the Early Childhood & Special Units guidelines documents with the respective Domain Chairs. Only some domains have standards relevant to Early Childhood & Special Units. I had informed each Domain Chair to refer to these guidelines & mention the school's alignment with the standard when they wrote the summary for that particular standard. For example, in Domain E, when you write your summary for standard E3, it will be good to briefly mention the infirmary/medical help provided to the Early Years kids or mention the Health classes conducted for them, healthy food from the cafeteria etc. It will also help to share evidences of the same by way of pictures, videos etc. I hope this is useful. Sarika (Bangalore International School)

Q/What advice/top tips do you have for ensuring easy access to scheduled meetings for evaluators and school participants during the visit?

A/ We did exactly what Lisa described above with the internal emails, Google Calendar, and Google folders. It was seamless for our evaluators and all stakeholders participating in meetings. Give the volume of content we were sharing, It was also great to be able to adjust viewing abilities to for the internal logins for the evaluators so that viewing access could be set to end two weeks after the conclusion of the visit.

Q/ question about steering committee meetings. We are at the start of the Self Study stage and have had a few weekly steering committee meetings now, basically to get things rolling and to dive into the survey results. Domain A will start meeting from next week and slowly other domains will begin to meet as well.

My question is around how to continue steering committee meetings once all domains are up and running. I understand it is important for the steering committee to continue to 'check in' throughout the process, and just wondering the best way to do this/what other schools have done at this stage? Our steering committee is made up of our domain committee chairs. I am not wanting to overwhelm the committee heads with additional meetings. Any advice would be appreciated.

A/We had our steering committee on Domain A, plus a few other members to model the processes. The steering committee then met again before we kick off the other domains to review the process, show where resources were located, demonstrate Weave, and answer questions. The accreditation committee chair check-in by email with the committee over the 4 months before the draft reports were due. The final steering committee meeting was meant to be each chair reading the report and questions and editing, but Covid hit and the campus closed. The final stages were done through Google docs.

A/We had scheduled all meetings at the start of the process as part of a process document including a time line. Expectations of what needs to be completed was shared at the start and templates to record discussions, plan of action, evidence folder was created on Google drive. The idea of having common templates was simply to ensure those who read (Chair and SC members) could grasp the progress, not duplicate work as there are obvious connections with Domain C and Domain D, Domain A everyone needed access to as it is the thread that wove our evaluation approach together.

The goolge drive did reduce number of meetings.

The scheduled meetings were

• Steering committee meetings (2)

• Domain Meetings (5)

• Chair with leadership periodcal meetings to ensure larger decisions as required

However staff chose to meet in smaller groups given ourse was a virtual visit.

The first Steering committee meeting was a half day meeting beginning of vacation to work in teams to unpack Guiding Questions, Essential Questions and Standards - establishing a common understanding within the domains and sharing the time line, where to save work , how to prepare helped.

Perhaps this is too much. We are a large school and had three co-chairs for each domain - aim was to empower and reduce pressure on any one person. All the best