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All reports are prepared and submitted through the CIS Planning & Reporting Platform (PRP). Evaluators will use the same platform to review and respond to your reports.
The Self-study begins with collecting, presenting and analysing data. Committees responsible for Part 1 should work first, so that other committees can use their data and analysis. This data provides an overview of your school and gives context to the remainder of the Self-study report. Part 1 comprises these main components:
basic information – information about how your school is structured, accreditation history and any recent changes
school overview – narrative and numeric data to contextualize your school in relation to student enrolment, staffing, the students’ achievements, and the local and regulatory environment
overview and analysis of the results of the CIS Community Survey including steps which are being taken to address concerns identified in the survey
financial information – data about your school’s financial planning and its management of finances (Please refer to the template in the resources below)
Part 1 gives us important background information about your school. The financial information is analysed by CIS and, if there are significant financial matters to be addressed in the financial health of your school, an additional evaluator with a finance expertise will be added to the evaluation team.
Self-study committees conduct a review of school operations with reference to the four drivers of the evaluation and accreditation process. Part 2 of the Self-study is divided into nine domains. Each domain covers a major area of your school’s life and includes standards against which your school will rate itself. Throughout the report-drafting process, use the essential questions to spark broad discussion about the domain and the criteria to evaluate against the standards.
Self-study committees should begin their work by:
reviewing the essential questions to understand the context of their domain before discussions on specific standards take place;
examining the Preparatory evaluation findings (commendations and recommendations) for their domain;
considering the data and analysis from Part 1, particularly the results of the CIS Community Survey that relate to their domain;
(for Domains B-I) reviewing the report for Domain A and consider implications for the work in their domain.
The Self-study committee responsible for Domain A should begin work first because other committees will depend on using an up-to-date reflection on your school’s guiding statements to guide their work and reference. This also allows CIS to provide your school with early feedback, which can then be applied to the work of committees responsible for Domains B-I.
Committees for Domains C and D, should work on the same timeline as one another. Each identifiable ‘horizontal’ division of the school must produce a report (e.g. for Early Childhood, Primary/Elementary, Middle School, Upper/High School). These committees should connect frequently to share evidence and emerging findings. The work of these committees should be closely related and aligned, even if their respective evaluations reveal differences. The responses for Domains C and Domain D must have coherency vertically (across range of divisions within one domain) and horizontally (across domains in each horizontal division). To facilitate this, a reviewer or small group of reviewers could be assigned to check all reports from these two domains.
The work of committees for Domains B and E-I provides the opportunity for broad community input into the self-evaluation process. The committees for these domains should take into consideration which aspects of their areas have been identified by Domain C and D committees as significant to the four drivers of the accreditation process.
Additional notes for Part 2
Your school should rate itself against Future Aspirations only if all of the following conditions apply:
-your school was rated as having "Exceeded" any standard at the Preparatory evaluation
-your school rates itself as having "Exceeded" the standard again at the self-study stage
If your school identifies an attribute or practice related to a domain that is not covered by any of the standards within that domain, commentary and evidence of these attributes or practices should be included in the evaluative commentary for that domain.
If your school offers early childhood programmes or special units/programmes, additional guidelines related to the school evaluation are provided. (Note: The guidelines currently aligned to the 2016 version of the standards)
The final section to be written for the Self-study report, usually by the steering committee should be Part 3, which includes:
a summary of your strengths and weaknesses of the Self-study process,
a summary of what your school learned about itself during the Self-study process, and
an outline of how the outcomes of the Self-study process have been integrated to your school’s strategic planning.
At the time when the responses in Part 2 and Part 3 are nearing completion, the responses to Part 1 and Domain A should be revisited and updated, if necessary, so that all report responses are as up-to-date as possible.
All report responses should be submitted through the CIS Planning and Reporting Platform no later than eight weeks in advance of the Team Evaluation. Once the report has been submitted, this will be accessible to CIS and the evaluation team leaders. Both the School Services Advisor (SSA) and the School Support & Evaluation Officer (SSEO) linked to your school will review the report for completeness and communicate with your school and the evaluation team leaders about any issues. The SSEO also prepares a summary evaluation of the school’s report and discusses this, as necessary, with the evaluation team leaders.
Access to the Self-study report is given to the rest of the evaluation team no later than four weeks prior to the visit. Take note of any developments taking place after the Self-study report has been submitted and inform the evaluation team about these when they arrive at your school.
Should the Self-study report be found to be incomplete or unsatisfactory in some way, CIS will decide whether the report is acceptable, and your school will be informed. This could require more information to be made available urgently, or could even lead to a late postponement of the Team Evaluation.
Reference:
https://community.cois.org/schools/s/article/Self-study-Writing-the-report