Find the Quality Standards for leading whole-school self-evaluation, exemplifications and a self-evaluation tool.
Quality Standards and exemplifications
The Quality Standards for leading whole-school self-evaluation will help you to review and improve current practice in your school.
Select a heading to read the Quality Standard and related exemplification.
- Identifying strengths and areas for development
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Quality Standard a
School self-evaluation processes identify strengths and specific areas for development.
Exemplification
Senior and middle leaders make effective use of the school improvement cycle and all core elements to articulate the school’s strengths and key priorities and outline the school’s strategy for improvement, ensuring focus and impact on pupils’ learning, progress and attainment.
- Using data to set targets for improvement
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Quality Standard b
The school uses all available data to set ambitious targets for improvement.
Exemplification
The school sets targets in all year groups that include appropriate additional challenge to ensure the accelerated progress of all pupils identified as falling behind or making little or no progress. The targets take account of each pupil’s prior attainment, national expectation as well as prediction models and membership of groups at risk of underperforming. This also includes setting targets for improved behaviour and attendance, where appropriate.
The year group and pupil targets are linked to individual performance management objectives which are monitored and reviewed effectively by school leadership through the school’s performance management procedures.
The school makes effective use of accurate end-of-year predictions for classes/cohorts to monitor progress towards intended outcomes within the year, adapting and revising the focus of school improvement activity and subsequent support for staff.
- Establishing a shared overview and ownership of priorities
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Quality Standard c
Headteacher, senior leaders, staff, governors and all stakeholders and partners have a shared overview and ownership of the school’s improvement priorities.
Exemplification
Through effective consultation with all staff, governors, partners and stakeholders, senior leaders establish the school’s improvement priorities, linked to the school’s vision and culture for learning.
Current school improvement priorities are effectively communicated, understood and owned by all staff, stakeholders and partners, including governors.
All staff fully understand their shared role and responsibility to impact on improved outcomes for pupils, including progress and attainment, which are reflected in personal performance management objectives, where appropriate.
Specific high-impact actions are planned to address the school’s priorities, linked to individual performance management objectives, where appropriate.
- Building capacity to sustain improvement
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Quality Standard d
School improvement activity builds capacity to ensure improvement is sustainable.
Exemplification
Senior and middle leaders:
- identify effective practice that could and should be replicated and transferred within school and across schools
- ensure all planned school improvement activity is adopted, adapted and innovated appropriately across the whole school.
- Continuous self-evaluation
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Quality Standard e
Continuous self-evaluation leads to focused, high-impact action(s) governed by the needs of the pupils, families and the community.
Exemplification
The views and perceptions of governors, staff, pupils, families and the wider community are actively sought when identifying school improvement priorities, planning school improvement activity and evaluating the impact of actions on pupils’ learning, progress and attainment.
Quality Standards self-evaluation tool
Download the Self-assessment tool for Leading whole-school self-evaluation (DOC-79 KB) Attachments . This tool can help you make sure that leadership of self-evaluation is strong, while identifying strengths and development areas based on a range of evidence and shared ownership of school improvement priorities.
