Administrator's Corner
CREATING THE RIGHT SETTING
FOR SELF-EVALUATION
BY: LESLEY HUNTER AND MAGGIE WRIGHT
T
here is no magic formula to
creating an environment in
which
self-evaluation
can
flourish, but there are some
underlying principles that will help you
to gain some personal clarity, establish
a conducive setting and keep the
school moving in the right direction
at the right speed. It is essential to
remember that people carry out self-
evaluation and this is where you must
initially focus your attention if you want
the processes to work. Without the
people aspect, you will simply have a
production line that runs at a pre-set
speed and churns out the same thing
time after time - this is when self-
evaluation becomes a meaningless
activity and is essentially a burden on
any school.
Create an inspiring vision
for the school
Strategy is about big picture and
about taking a long-term view that
transcends day-to-day operational
issues. It is very easy to get sucked
into the detail and bogged down in
the minutia of daily life in the school,
but you must make sure that you filter
what is most important and relevant.
You can only do this if you have a
clear vision of what you are trying to
achieve – a representation of what
your strategy will actually deliver.
• Establishing a vision takes time but
it is time well spent.
• Imagine what the school’s future will
be like.
Your vision should be an aspirational
description of what the school will
look like in the future. It should allow
people to see a picture in their mind
and imagine what the school will
achieve and accomplish, as well as
providing them with a clear direction
to plan their future goals and actions.
If you represent the vision purely in
words, then it is left open to different
interpretations of language and things
will get lost in translation.
As principal, you may understand and
appreciate the importance of having
a clearly articulated vision, but what
about your senior leaders … your
middle leaders … your teachers … your
governors? Think about bringing these
different stakeholders together for a
session during which you collectively
create a vision board that summarises
and represents your school’s vision,
which can then be displayed and
shared across the school.
What makes your school unique
and different from the school
down the road? Your vision needs
to answer this question and should
serve as a marketing tool to convince
potential parents that this is the
school community that their children
need to be part of. Yet, producing a
vision and engaging in self-evaluation
and improvement are not unique to
schools, so reading about approaches
outside education can help you think
in a different way and see things from
a different perspective – look to other
cultures, education systems and the
world of business for inspiration.
• The vision should be clear and
simple.
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Class Time
Create the right
environment for people to
buy in
This may sound a little obvious, but
you might be surprised by the number
of times school leaders struggle with
some of the things they are asked to
do in the name of self-evaluation. One
of the biggest barriers to successful
self-evaluation is when people blindly
take part in activities where they have
little emotional investment. In other
words, they are simply going through
the motions. Although this may ensure
that the processes run and that some
form of evaluation activity actually
takes place, it is neither a useful
nor profitable approach and wastes
precious time and energy.
• So how do you create the right
environment for people to buy-in to
self-evaluation?
• Basically, you have to live your values
and lead by example.
• The buck may stop with you, but you
cannot do it alone!
Demonstrate integrity by following
your own advice, being honest and
treating others the way you wish to
be treated. In the context of self-
evaluation, this means challenging
yourself about what you are asking
other people to do and being sure
that your motives are clear enough
and they understand why this action
is important. By focusing on the why
rather than the what or how, you will
increase buy-in and subsequently
accelerate the pace and speed of the
process.
Practice humility by not letting your
ego control your thoughts and actions.
Instead of comparing yourself and your
school to others – and then trying to
do everything yourself – focus on how
you can help the people around you to
achieve their part of the evaluation and
improvement process.
Share your gratitude. Schools can
only realise their strategy by working
in teams and it is important to build
in opportunities for recognition and
acknowledgment of this. The most
effective schools distribute their self-
evaluation across all parts of their
community – remember the Ninja
metaphor and the pitfalls it can create!