Document 1 – HGIOS web page
How Good Is Our School? (3rd edition) : Stakeholder Feedback – 2014/15
Between September and December 2014 we carried out individual interviews with a sample of headteachers and
Directors of Education. We asked them about approaches to self-evaluation and using the quality indicator approach.
A. Using HGIOS for self-evaluation and improvement:
1.
How relevant do your staff find HGIOS?
2.
To what extent are the three questions (How are we doing? How do we know? What are we going to do
now?) “at the heart of self-evaluation in your school/EA?”
3.
How is HGIOS currently used to support self-evaluation and secure improvement in your school/local
authority?
4.
What other self-evaluation and improvement tools are used by staff in your school/EA? Do you see these as
working alongside or replacing HGIOS?
5.
How do you ensure your staff are confident and effective in their use of HGIOS as a framework for selfevaluation and continuous improvement?
6.
To what extent is self-evaluation viewed as the responsibility of all staff in your school/EA? Does HGIOS
support this idea well enough?
B. How Good Is Our School? (3rd edition):
1. What are the overall strengths of this version of HGIOS?
2. How helpful is the structure/layout of the publication? How might it be improved?
3. The QIs are arranged under the six questions listed on page 8 and illustrated in appendix 4.
4. To what extent do these questions support self-evaluation and improvement? Are they still the right questions
to ask?
5. How useful are the nine key areas as levers for school improvement? Do you have any suggestions for
amending these?
6. Which QIs do you think are the most significant for effective self-evaluation and school improvement? Are
there any that you feel are no longer relevant?
7. Do your staff find any of the QIs particularly straightforward/ difficult/ confusing? Why?
8. How helpful are the QI level 2 and level 5 descriptors?
9.
What are your views on the six point scale? Is it something you would like to see retained, removed or
adjusted?
C. How Good Is Our School? (4th edition)
1. What aspects of HGIOS 3 would you like to see retained in a revised edition?
2. Are there any significant new messages which you think should be communicated within the new edition?
3. How can we make the new publication more accessible and user friendly for staff?
4. How can we ensure HGIOS continues to be used as a framework to support improvement as well as being a
scrutiny toolkit used by inspectors?
Document 1 – HGIOS web page
Here’s what they told us:
Overall schools like the HGIOS Framework. It is a tool which is valued and relevant.
Schools find the three overarching questions helpful. Staff confidence in using the
quality indicators is strong and growing. HGIOS works well alongside other
improvement toolkits. The triangulation of evidence which underpins the use of
HGIOS is considered as an effective approach to self-evaluation. Headteachers
find the six point scale helpful and most people felt it school be retained. HGIOS is
extensively and consistently used across all sectors of school education. There is a
strong sense of ownership of this framework across Scotland. Many people said
they like having a paper copy of the document and that this high quality publication
should be retained.
In developing a new version of HGIOS we were asked to consider streamlining the
quality indicators and to simplify the overall structure of the framework. Practitioners
see a lot of overlap in the current quality indicators which they feel could be
addressed in a new edition. Headteachers felt their staff did not always understand
the relationship between the quality indicators and often can’t see how they might
use if effectively. They thought we could illustrate the coherence of the framework
more clearly. They also thought the material could be presented more visually with
less text than the current version. They asked us to include a greater emphasis on
Getting It Right for Every Child and to revise the leadership quality indicators. Some
people suggested new quality indicators on Partnerships and Transitions would be
useful to strengthen the importance of these aspects of Scottish education.
It was generally agreed that there is a need to update the illustrations and in doing
so, we could provide more indications of the sorts of evidence that might underpin
effective self-evaluation. Many people felt the new framework should be made
relevant for all 3-18 contexts and that it could align better to the GTCS Professional
Standards. This would increase it’s relevance to staff at all levels. A few felt that we
should include descriptors of what excellence might look like for each quality
indicator. Everyone agreed that an on-line version of toolkit with links to other
improvement resources, such as exemplars of good practice, would be very helpful.
Some practitioners asked if we could develop a HGIOS APP to make the toolkit even
more accessible.
Finally, some of those we interviewed asked us to ensure coherence across all the
self-evaluation and improvement toolkits. The idea of a universal framework joining
up the quality indicators from across our agency and with other agencies was also
suggested by many.