Va
alid
date
ed
self-e
eva
aluation
deen Ciity Cou
uncil
Aberd
Educa
ational Psych
hology Servic
ces
8 April 2016
Contents
Page
1.
What is va
W
alidated self-evalua
ation in Ed
ducationall Psycholo
ogy
Services?
?
1
2.
W
What was
s validated
d self-evalluation in Aberdeen
n City Cou
uncil’s
Education
nal Psycho
ology Serv
rvice?
1
3.
W
What did HM Inspectors learrn about th
he quality of self-evvaluation
in Aberde
een City Council’s E
Educationa
al Psycho
ology Servvice?
2
4.
W
What does the Educational P
Psycholog
gy Service
e plan to d
do next?
4
5.
What is Aberdeen
W
A
City
C Coun cil’s Educ
cational Ps
sychologyy
Service’s capacity for
f improv
vement?
5
1. What is validated self-evaluation in Educational Psychology Services?
Validated self-evaluation (VSE) is an evaluative activity which supports and challenges
the work of Educational Psychology Services (EPS) by working collaboratively. It
involves a partnership between the Education Authority, EPS and HM Inspectors,
Education Scotland. In EPS the VSE focuses on two key themes.


Learning and Teaching.
Partnership Working.
The themes reflect the Scottish Government’s national priorities and relate to the
contributions made by EPS to raising attainment, addressing disadvantage and
supporting and implementing, Getting it Right For Every Child (GIRFEC). Both themes
also allow EPS to evidence the impact and outcomes of early intervention and
prevention across the full range of their service delivery.
In addition to the core themes, services can choose an additional one to reflect their
own context. An additional area may relate to the core themes or reflect other quality
indicators which impact on the service’s ability to improve outcomes for its stakeholders.
For example, leadership, or the delivery of the five Currie (2002)1 functions of
consultation and advice, assessment, intervention, professional development and
research and development.
2. What was validated self-evaluation in Aberdeen City Council’s Educational
Psychology Service?
Aberdeen City Council’s Educational Psychology Service (ACCEPS), worked with the
Inclusion Team in Education and Children’s Services (ECS) and key partners on their
VSE. They used the VSE, to deepen their existing knowledge and understanding of
their strengths and areas for development in a number of key areas of service delivery.
The service vision is ‘using psychology to improve wellbeing, empower children and
young people to achieve their potential and support lifelong learning in Aberdeen’. They
selected two themes from their self-evaluation which contributed strongly to the
authority’s priorities:


the impact of ACCEPS in facilitating transitions to a new additional support needs
(ASN) environment, training and supporting the transition of school leavers; and
the effectiveness of the ACCEPS in working in partnership to meet the needs of
communities in times of crisis, children and young people who are looked after out of
authority, the service delivery framework, and the strategic review of inclusion.
The service recognised the challenge of delivering a service where demand outstripped
capacity. They were keen to use the VSE process to explore areas where they
considered they could make a positive impact and continue to prioritise in the future.
For the VSE, ACCEPS purposefully selected a number of areas of work at different
stages in the self-evaluation cycle. Their work on Seasons for Growth, training and
ASN transition had previously been evaluated with stakeholders and partners.
1
Currie (2002), Review of Provision of Educational Psychology Services in Scotland.
Scottish Executive.
1
ACCEPS’ partnership theme was ongoing and the service had engaged social work
colleagues in a focus group and conducted analysis of the findings. There had also
been a thematic analysis of Educational Psychologist (EP) involvement with looked after
children. The evaluation of Critical Incidents was at an earlier stage of development.
The service wanted to build on the quality and effectiveness of planning with partners
that was highlighted as an area for development in the Joint Inspection of Services for
Children and Young People in Aberdeen City (2015). They wanted to look more closely
at the impact and outcomes which had been achieved as a result of the above
interventions. Each themed group comprised of relevant partners and agencies, for
example, senior officers from within ECS such as Inclusion Team members, and the
Development Officer for Policy and Equality. Social work partners were represented in
the partnership theme but not in the teaching and learning theme. All members of
ACCEPS were involved in the themed groups and in the preparation for the VSE.
In planning for the VSE, a wide range of activities was put in place. Activities included
focus groups, visits to schools, and individual interviews with professionals. In addition
to this, there were two activities which covered both themes recognising the role of
partnership working in teaching and learning. There was a wide range of partners
present at all activities including representatives from schools, ECS, community child
health, allied health professionals, primary mental health, Police Scotland, North East
Scotland College, communities, Housing and Infrastructure, a foster care agency, social
work, parents, foster carers and young people. Challenge questions such as: what is
the unique impact of the EPS and how do we know? were displayed on the tables and
on the walls to encourage a deeper discussion.
Each themed group was chaired by a depute principal psychologist with a main-grade
chair assist. An EP acted as a scribe at each activity taking notes on a computer, in
addition to this the chair/chair assist scribed using solution oriented methodology to
prompt discussion and record issues on flip chart paper.
After each activity, the themed groups reflected on what they had learnt, and began to
identify strengths and areas for improvement. The service brought together the theme
group leads across the VSE process to share their findings across both themes. In this
way, theme group members were able to see emerging strengths and areas for further
development across and within each theme, and in relation to the overall self-evaluation
process. Through such joint evaluative activity, Education Scotland staff were able to
assess the rigour of the EPS’ self-evaluation processes and the robustness of the
evidence used to evaluate performance and service delivery.
3. What did HM Inspectors learn about the quality of self-evaluation in Aberdeen
City Council’s Educational Psychology Service?
The service provided a good self-evaluation report which identified their strengths and
areas for improvement using evidence to support their evaluative statements. The
self-evaluation provided a focus for the themed areas in both Learning and Teaching
and Partnership working and as the week unfolded further refinement and narrowing of
focus took place. During the VSE, it became clear that ACCEPS were adding value to
the continuing professional development being offered at individual, and more recently
associated school group, levels within the ECS directorate.
2
As the week unfolded, the service engaged in honest and more challenging dialogue
with their partners and with the Education Scotland team. Service team members, in
their themed groups, demonstrated the ability to drill down better and ask more focused
questions when this was modeled by the Education Scotland team. Feedback and
reflection at the end of each activity led to more appropriately challenging questions
being asked during subsequent activities.
The Education Scotland team found that the service’s range of self-evaluation methods
such as the use of focus groups, person centred planning, and Planning for Alternative
Tomorrows with Hope provided an effective range of evaluative activities. The EPS
had prepared very helpful background papers on each of the activities which had been
circulated to partners attending the group. In addition each activity started with a brief
synopsis of the aim of the activity. Despite the themed groups being large, the chair
effectively sought to ensure that all voices were heard and encouraged. The use of
solution oriented questions did enable discussion to focus on actions, but the general
nature of the questions did not allow for sufficient discussion of impact and outcomes
on teaching and learning. In relation to the whole range of activities across the
teaching and learning theme, there needed to be a clearer focus and specificity about
the areas of exploration. For example, in relation to training it would have been more
helpful to take one or two specific areas of training, similar to the approach taken with
the Seasons for Growth programme, and then to consider in more detail their impact on
teaching and learning. This could have been achieved by interviews with staff, pupils,
and quality improvement officers. In response to feedback from Education Scotland,
additional activities were added during the VSE. For instance, the service included a
series of individual interviews with key strategic managers to help provide greater
clarity about the key areas which they felt needed improvement. Activities were
appropriate and they would have been further improved by involving partners more in
setting questions and testing out hypotheses about service delivery in each theme.
The very positive relationships with partners, parents, children and young people and
the range of partners involved in the self-evaluation activities was a strength. The EPS’
ability to reflect on their learning was also strong, enabling them to adjust their
evaluations as the VSE progressed. The EPS took greater ownership of the joint
reflection as the week continued and were able to identify recurring higher order
themes which they recorded and returned to in their feedback.
The theme leads created a supportive and respectful ethos for partners who were
empowered to explore areas for improvement. The service benefited from the
challenge and questioning provided by partners and responded positively by reflecting
on their practice and the implications for future engagement. There was shared
learning about partners’ roles and how they could collaborate more effectively. In
exploring the service’s impact on looked after children and Critical Incidents, it was
agreed that partners would meet together again to devise protocols and ways of
working to get the best impact from EPs. In the service delivery theme head teachers
gave examples of the EPS making an impact at the strategic level. For example, whole
school training on dyslexia, and working with groups of children to alleviate exam stress.
The partnership theme highlighted that the skill set of the EPS was widely recognised
and appreciated by partners. Assessment and analysis of children with complex needs
was highly valued by colleagues in social work, particularly when considering how to
3
meet the needs of looked after children. The rapid response in collaborating with
partners in Inclusion and other professionals in response to Critical Incidents was also
valued. The service was willing to embrace new ways of working and to build capacity
in others, for example, reviewing casework priorities and building confidence in schools
to take greater ownership of the processes around GIRFEC.
The psychological service contributed positively to the post-16 strategic group,
particularly in the development of the Youth Aspirations Survey.
ACCEPS recognised the need to ensure that they built into the planning process an
impact and outcome assessment, sustainability measures, and where appropriate, an
exit strategy as demonstrated by the Seasons for Growth activity.
During the week, ACCEPS became clearer with partners about the added value they
could bring to the directorate, for example, working more systemically with schools and
the authority to use psychology to inform a wider range of practice to raise attainment
for all. Senior leaders within the authority also appreciated the opportunity provided by
the VSE for further reflection about the wider role of ACCEPS at the strategic level.
These are key areas for further improvement. Close support was put in place prior to
and during the activity week by senior leaders.
The ACCEPS’ reflective dialogue and the systematic recording of the outcomes from
the VSE activities were effective in improving the quality of their self-evaluation and
capacity to triangulate evidence.
4. What does the Educational Psychology Service plan to do next?
The service identified strengths and areas for development within each of the
two themed areas. These can be found on the ACCEPS’ website.
Education Scotland and ACCEPS agreed on the following next steps to improve their
self-evaluation processes further:




further strengthen communication within the EPS, inclusion team and stakeholders;
continue to utilise and build upon the psychological knowledge and expertise of the
service to make a creative and innovative strategic contribution to local and national
policy initiatives and strategic priorities;
extend the role of ACCEPS beyond the traditional ASN population to impact more
widely across all children and young people; and
use research skills to support action research and to continue to build capacity in
others to deliver key outcomes, building in a needs analysis, smarter evaluation of
outcomes and a clear exit strategy for the EPS.
4
5. What is Aberdeen City Council’s Educational Psychology Service’s capacity
for improvement?
Education Scotland validated ACCEPS self-evaluation and has agreed to work in
partnership with the service and authority to help develop their improvement areas to
ensure continuous improvement. The principal psychologist is using opportunities to
develop distributive leadership within the service aiming to strike the right balance
between important ASN work and services for all children, young people and families.
The ECS directorate welcomed the emphasis that the VSE placed on the expertise,
core skills and evidence-based practice in supporting service improvement.
Nicola Robertson
Lead Facilitator
8 April 2016
Further information about the EPS VSE reports and self-evaluation can be found on the
service’s website www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/eps
5
Education Scotland
Denholm House
Almondvale Business Park
Almondvale Way
Livingston EH54 6GA
T +44 (0)131 244 4330
E enquiries@educationscotland.gov.uk
www.educationscotland.gov.uk