SELF-EVALUATION
AFTER THE SEF
What do
governors
really need to
know about
school
development
and progress?
IF…
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THE SEF IS DEAD…
 September 2010 Education Secretary Gove announces the
death of the SEF, with ef fect from 22 nd July 2011:
 “The SEF asks teachers and heads to collect and verify facts
and figures about their school in preparation for their Ofsted
inspection…the process takes days out of heads’ time and can
cost schools tens of thousands of pounds. The Secretar y of
State has asked Ofsted to ditch it .”
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…LONG LIVE THE SEF
 “Of course, inspectors will continue to take account of
schools’ self-evaluation…Completion of the SEF has never
been an Ofsted requirement.
 Of course, it will be critical that schools continue to evaluate
their performance.
 We expect that schools should always be able to provide some
summative evidence of self -evaluation, which might include an
assessment of performance against the key inspection
judgements, but there will not be a common way for schools
to present this evidence.”
 Ofsted consultation on current framework
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OFSTED FRAMEWORK 2012
 What is the relationship between school self -evaluation and
inspection?
 Self-evaluation is now well established in schools, providing
the basis for planning for development and improvement .
 Inspection takes account of, and contributes to, a school’s
self-evaluation.
 Schools may present a written summary of their selfevaluation to inspectors.
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OUTSTANDING GOVERNANCE
 Outstanding governance supports honest, insightful self evaluation by the school, recognising problems and
supporting the steps needed to address them.
 Ef fective governing bodies systematically monitor their
school’s progress towards meeting agreed development
targets. Information about what is going well and why, and
what is not going well and why, is shared.
 Governors are well informed and knowledgeable because they
are given high- quality, accurate information that is concise
and focused on pupil achievement .
 S c h o o l g o v e r n a nc e : L e a r n in g f r o m t h e b e s t
 O f s te d 2 01 1
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INSPECTION FOCUSES ON..
 Overall ef fectiveness
 Inspector s evaluate the quality of the education provided in the school. In
doing this, they consider the evidence gathered to suppor t their
evaluations of the four key judgements:




„ ac hievement of pupils at the sc hool
„ quality of teac hing in the sc hool
„ quality of leader ship in and management of the sc hool
„ behaviour and safety of pupils at the sc hool.
 They also consider:
 the extent to whic h the education provided meets the needs of the range of
pupils at the sc hool
 how well the sc hool promotes all pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and
cultural development
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OFSTED: SEPTEMBER 2012
 “We need clear and demanding criteria for a school to be
judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’. A good school should have at
least good teaching, and an outstanding school should have
outstanding teaching. Good and outstanding leadership of
teaching and learning drives improvement and knows that the
culture of the school and the progress of pupils depend on it .”
 Sir Michael Wilshaw
 HMCI
 9 Feb 2012
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SEPTEMBER 2012
 schools cannot be judged ‘outstanding’ unless their teaching is
‘outstanding’
 schools will only be deemed to be providing an acceptable standard of
education where they are judged to be ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’
 a single judgement of ‘requires improvement’ will replace the
current ‘satisfactor y’ judgement and ‘notice to improve’ categor y
 schools judged as ‘requires improvement’ will be subject to a full re inspection earlier than is currently the case
 a school can only be judged as ‘requires improvement’ on two
consecutive inspections before it is deemed to require ‘special
measures’
 inspections will be under taken without notice being provided to the
school
 inspectors should under take an analysis of an anonymised summar y,
provided by the school, of the outcomes of the most recent
per formance management of all teacher s within the school, as par t of
the evidence for a judgement on Leadership and Management.
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IS THERE MORE TO LIFE THAN OFSTED?




Ofsted's focus has narrowed.
Should ours narrow?
What else might we look at?
As well as current Ofsted foci the old SEF included:




Every Child Matters themes
School’s engagement with parents and carers
Ef fectiveness of partnerships
The ef fectiveness with which the school deploys resources to
achieve value for money
 What else would you include?
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CORE ELEMENTS OF SELF EVALUATION








achievement of pupils at the school
„quality of teaching in the school
„quality of leadership in and management of the school
„behaviour and safety of pupils at the school
Every Child Matters themes?
School’s engagement with parents and carers?
Ef fectiveness of partnerships?
Value for money?
 Your suggestions here………
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WHAT DO YOU MEAN – TOO
OPERATIONAL?
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WHERE DOES YOUR GOVERNING BODY
SIT?
High support
Supporters Club
‘We’re here to support the
head’.
Partners or critical friends
‘We share everything –good or
bad’.
Low challenge
Abdicators
‘We leave it to the
professionals’.
High challenge
Adversaries
‘We keep a very close eye on
the staff!’.
Low support
HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW WELL YOUR
SCHOOL IS DOING?
Doing…in what
areas?
How well should it
be doing?
How do we know?
What should we be
looking for?
Where might we find
it?
What questions
should we ask?
Who can we ask?
How do we know if
the answers are
reliable and honest?
What do we do if we
find they’re not?
GATHERING EVIDENCE
Inspectors








Data analysis
Validation of self-evaluation
Triangulation
Asking questions teachers, parents,
youngsters, governors,
head…
Observation
Comparison
Work sampling
Discussion between
inspectors
Governors
 Which techniques are
appropriate for us?
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 Self-evaluation
 Raw data and league
tables
 Value Added (VA) data
– RAISEonline
 Pupil tracking data
(anonymised)
 Ofsted report
 Headteacher’s report
 Subject leader report
 Link governor report
 School Improvement
or Development Plan
(and related progress
reports)
 School Awards
 GB and committee
minutes
 Feedback from
stakeholders
CALLS FOR AN EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVE
 It seems preposterous
that we have no
organised supply of
expert advisors to
support improvement.
 Recommendation: a new
nationwide support system
to facilitate advice, support
and collegiate school-toschool learning.
 Support needs to be
provided to ‘satisfactory’
schools, as well as those
with NtI.

 "It is no good just relying
on Ofsted to give the
judgment. By that time, it
is too late. We need some
sort of intermediary bodies
which can detect when
things aren't going well,
look at the data and have
their ear very close to the
ground to determine when
there is a certain issue.“
 Michael Wilshaw HMCI

Guardian Dec 2011
RSA 2011
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THE EXTERNAL, EXPERT PERSPECTIVE
Who we’ve lost:
School Improvement
Partner
Local authority
adviser/inspector
We still have:
Ofsted inspection
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Who else is there?
LA traded services
personnel
Independent
consultants
Colleagues in our
collaborative
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REFLECTION
 What’s happened to self -evaluation in my school?
 How do we keep track of how the school is doing?
 What performance indicators tell us best what we need to
know?
 How do we know if our head and colleagues are giving us the
unvarnished truth?
 What external perspectives do (and could) we access?
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T H E GOVE RN ORS W E RE I N C OM P LE TE AG RE E MENT –
E VE RY TH I NG WA S BLOOM I N ’ M A RVE LLOUS!
T H E Y M UST BE DOI N G A G RE AT J OB!
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WHAT ABOUT US?
 “The (outstanding)
governing bodies
constantly reflect on
their own
effectiveness and
readily make changes
to improve. They
consider their own
training needs, as
well as how they
organise their work.”
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 How well are we doing
– as a governing
body?
 What IMPACT do we
have?
 When did we last
evaluate ourselves as
a GB?
 What process did we
use?
 What did we do about
what we found out?
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SPOT THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR
SELF-EVALUATION
 Full governing body
 Committees
 Matters arising
 Headteacher’s report
 School development
plan
 School self-evaluation
 Committee reports
 Subject leaders’
reports
 Curriculum,
assessment, teaching
and learning
 Finance
 Staffing
 Premises
POSSIBLE APPROACHES
Poole Governor Services self-evaluation tool
Other self-evaluation tools on the web
Descriptors of governance – previous Ofsted
framework
Ofsted’s characteristics of outstanding GBs
Governor Mark – including supporting and
validating partner GB’s self-evaluation
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GB DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Goal
Actions
Outcomes
Who? Deadline Evaluator
Retain
effective
governors
1. Introduce an
induction policy for
new governors
New governors report
that induction was
helpful
MB
15.12
PG
2. Make meetings
more effective and
efficient
A Meetings do not
overrun
RN
10.3
HG
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B Governors report
improved satisfaction
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