How good is our school? (4th edition)
Professional learning events
November 2015
How good is our school? the journey:
www.educationscotland.gov.uk/resources/h/hgios4/
#HGIOS
4
Aims:
• Increase your knowledge and understanding of effective self-evaluation
using HGIOS?4.
• Support your professional reflections on using the quality indicators to
evaluate and improve your work
• Provide updates on key national developments and consider how
HGIOS?4 contributes to these:
Scottish Attainment Challenge
National Improvement Framework
National Improvement Hub
• Enable you to contribute to the development of the national
improvement hub
• Support networking and on-going professional dialogue about selfevaluation and improvement.
Effective self-evaluation using How
good is our school? (4th edition)
The Framework:
p15
How
are we
doing?
How
do we
know?
p.9
What are we going
to do now?
How good is our school? What makes effective
self-evaluation?
2002
2007
2015
Self-evaluation  Processes of self-  Commitment to  Collaborative
evaluation.
 Monitoring and
evaluation by
promoted staff.
 Reporting on
standards and
quality.
self-evaluation.
 Management of
self-evaluation.
 School
improvement.
approaches to
self-evaluation.
 Analysis and
evaluation of
intelligence and
data.
 Impact on
learners
successes and
achievements.
“Making sound
judgements about
the impact on
learners should
be central to selfevaluation” p.10
How
are we
doing?
p.20
How
do we
know?
What are we going
to do now?
An evaluation of excellent means that
“This aspect of the school’s work is outstanding and sectorleading. The experiences and achievements of all children
and young people are of a very high quality. An evaluation
of excellent represents an outstanding standard of
provision which exemplifies very best practice based on
achieving equity and inclusion and a deep professional
understanding which is being shared beyond the school to
support system-wide improvement. It implies that very high
levels of performance are sustainable and will be
maintained.” p. 62
“This new self-evaluation
framework highlights partnership
and collaboration as significant
features of a highly-effective
school and a high performing
learning system” p.7
Collaborative approaches to self-evaluation:
p.10
Group Discussion: 10 mins
In mixed groups of HTs/DHTs/PTs/CTs focus
on the level 5 illustration for QI 1.1 (p.20)
How is your current approach to selfevaluation similar/different from the
approaches described in the level 5
illustration?
Further discussion: 10 mins: Choose a theme
• Theme 1: How do you ensure “a shared
understanding of the school’s strengths and
improvement needs”? What are the benefits and
challenges of partnership/collaborative approaches to
self-evaluation?
• Theme 2: What types of intelligence and data do you
currently use? Which aspects of the illustration are your
current strengths? What might you need to improve on?
• Theme 3: To what extent do you currently ensure all
stakeholders are engaged in self-evaluation and take
responsibility for continuous improvement?
Taking a closer look at leadership
and management.
“The most successful education systems invest in
developing their teachers as reflective, accomplished
and enquiring professionals who are able, not simply to
teach successfully in relation to current external
expectations, but who have the capacity to engage fully
with the complexities of education and to be key actors
in shaping and leading educational change.” Teaching
Scotland's Future: Report of a review of teacher education in Scotland, G
Donaldson, Scottish Government (2011)
“Self-evaluation is an integral part of the
Professional Update process. As part of
engagement in the Professional Update
process individuals should self evaluate
using the Professional Standards relevant to
them and their context. But what should
this self-evaluation look like?
Self-evaluation can take many forms and
may occur at various stages in the
professional learning journey. It will also
involve a range of sources to help inform
you.”
http://www.gtcs.org.uk/standards/Self-evaluation/self-evaluation.aspx
“Self-evaluation and reflection are
an integral part of leadership
development and are the starting
point for engagement with the
Framework for Educational
Leadership.”
Self-evaluation should support you to:
• Reflect on what you have done
• Think about what you might do next
• Consider your own progress and development
• Deeply understand your professional practice, your professional
learning and the impact of this on your thinking, professional
actions, those you work with/support and the pupils and their
learning
http://www.scelframework.com/about-us/
Leadership and management
P.16
How good is our leadership and approach to improvement?
Quality Indicator
Themes:
1.1 Self-evaluation for self-improvement

Collaborative approaches to self-evaluation

Analysis and evaluation of intelligence and data

Ensuring impact on learners’ successes and
achievements

Professional engagement and collegiate working

Impact of career-long professional learning

Children and young people leading learning

Developing a shared vision, values and aims
relevant to the school and its community

Strategic planning for continuous improvement

Implementing improvement and change

Governance framework

Building and sustaining a professional staff team

Staff wellbeing and pastoral support

Management of finance for learning

Management of resources and environment for
learning
1.2 Leadership of learning
1.3 Leadership of change
1.4 Leadership and management of staff
1.5 Management of resources to promote equity
Self-evaluation – taking a closer look
p12
Group activity: 40 mins
Choose either QI 1.2 (p22) or QI 1.3 (p.24)
Focus on the themes of the level 5 illustration for
about 10 minutes each.
Record aspects of the level 5 illustration you think
are
(a) easy to evidence in your school/department/class
(b) quite difficult to evidence
Discuss the reasons for your opinion and how you
can address the areas of difficulty.
Making best use of the features of
highly-effective practice and
challenge questions.
Triangulation
p.11
Elevator Conversation – 2 minutes!
Which aspect of the triangle
do you tend to favour in your
self-evaluation?
• Quantitative data
• People’s Views
• Direct Observation
Self –evaluation: looking inwards
Where
are we
now?
How do
we know?
What
should we
do now?
P.9
Level 5 illustration based on each theme
Features of highly-effective practice
Challenge questions
Taking a closer look
Group activity: 20 mins
• Choose a Learning Provision or a Successes and
Achievements QI that you feel confident is an
area of strength.
• Focus on the features of highly-effective practice
for that QI and use them to reflect on what has
been achieved in your school/LA.
• Work together to produce a set of specific
features of highly-effective that you feel exist in
your own contexts.
Challenge questions:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Collegiate Working.
Enquiring Practitioners.
Well-informed change.
Professional Dialogue.
Sustainable Partnerships
Learning Culture.
Creative improvement.
Looking inwards, outwards and
forwards.
Contact us:
hgios4@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk