Administrator's Corner
WHO ARE THE ‘SUPERHEROES’
OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE SCHOOL SELF-EVALUATION?
BY: LESLEY HUNTER AND MAGGIE WRIGHT
People
Recognise who is involved and
understand how people are behaving
in relation to self-evaluation in the
school.
A
common
message
emerging
from
recent
educational research and
literature is that the three
components of school effectiveness,
school improvement and school
self-evaluation are often considered
separately, causing a disjointed and
fragmented approach to overall
improvement.
While it is widely accepted that
rigorous, robust and systematic
self-evaluation is necessary to drive
successful improvement in any school,
we believe that this concept needs
more clarity and definition. In other
words, a school’s self-evaluation
should be:
then connect the dots between the
leadership decisions that have been
taken and the impact you expect
these decisions to have on students’
learning.
Purpose
Understand why you are doing self-
evaluation and what you are trying to
achieve in the school.
Process
Recognise what activities are being
carried out in the school and how they
contribute to self-evaluation.
• authentic
• evidence-based
• school-led
… and should be driven by a clearly
defined strategy that aligns the
school’s purpose, process and people.
Start by challenging what you do, why
you are doing it, and what is changing
(improving) as a result of all the time,
energy and effort that is currently
being invested into self-evaluation …
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Nov - Dec 2018
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Class Time
To be truly effective, self-evaluation
cannot be owned by one individual
or be implemented in pockets or
silos by different groups of people,
each focusing on their own narrow
purpose. It requires a collaborative
approach underpinned by trust and
the distribution of leadership and
responsibilities throughout the school.
All stakeholders need to be engaged
and encouraged to make meaningful
contributions that add value to the
process. This requires all stakeholders
to have a clear role underpinned
by a specific set of responsibilities,
expectations and boundaries that
ensure purposeful interaction and
contribution to the school’s self-
evaluation.
Responsibilities
People need to know and understand
where their responsibilities for self-
evaluation begin and end.
Individuals need to be clear about the
specific tasks they are required to carry
out and also how they will be held to
account for the outcomes of these
activities.
When
everyone
understands
and can articulate their personal
responsibilities, self-evaluation is likely
to have greater cohesion because the
purpose becomes clearer and the
process becomes more relevant and
manageable to each individual’s day to
day practice.
Expectations
People need to know precisely what is
expected of them with regard to their