Focused evaluation - leading internal evaluation

Purpose - improve student outcomes through identifying and addressing areas for improvement and create knowledge about what works, for which students and why. Motivation to improve outcomes for ALL learners must be the driver for internal evaluation to be effective.

Strategic Evaluation - Related to vision/values/goals/targets.  Are we realising these, is progress being made? Schoolwide, involve community, in-depth, take time. Example Q: 'To what extent are ALL our learners experiencing success?'  

Regular Evaluation - Everday business as usual evaluations/inquiries to asses effectiveness of programmes or interventions. Vary in scope & depth and feedback into strategic/annual plans. Example Q: 'How effective are our strategies for accelearating the progress of target learner?'.

Emergent Evaluation - response to unforeseen issues/events. Arise due to noticings, being aware, routine scanning or monitoring. Example Q: 'What is happening here and is this okay?'.

Leading internal evaluation

Learners must always be at the heart of all discussions and change.

Align all evaluation with school vision and strategic goals.

Collaborative approach approach the school to all have the urgency to improve.

'How will this impact our learners?'  

'What impact did this have for our learners?'

'Are the impacts equitable for all?'

'How do we know?'

'How can we do better again?'

Use evidence to guide all of this.  Student achievement and engagement evidence in particular, both qualitative and quantitative data. 

Strategically plan improvement actions to really focus on what is needed to improve the most.

Extend participation in all internal evaluations throughout all levels of the school.

Create conditions and opportunities to engage in robust evaluative discussions.

Extend good internal evaluation practices already evident in the school and impacting positively on student outcomes - allow them to lead specific reviews.

Provide opportunities to  share practice and new learning with others.

Expect all to particpate during early stages and introduce new ideas incrementally to scaffold participation. 

Templates to structure evaluative reasoning.

External PLD explicity targets what needs to improve.  Use existing groups and teams to facilitate this - leaders can take a step back.

Relational trust is a pre-requisite for this all to occur.

Leaders always scanning for issues, while also focusing sustained inquiry on selected issues.

Embed an 'inquiry habit of mind' to get shifts in thinking.

Give sufficient time to inquiry.

Processes and Reasoning

Don't just go through the steps.

Ask good questions.

Collect good data.

Analyse & make-sense of data.

Reason clearly & robustly why/how your response will affect change for improvement. 

Q - What is happening here?

Noticing

What is happening for learners here?

Is this what we expected?

Should we be concerned?

Do we need to take a closer look?

Use many eyes through which to notice things - especially students.

Noticing could come from:

- achievement data

- teacher observations

- teacher reflections

- student/parent surveys

- focus groups

- meetings

- complaints

- behavioural data

- conversations

- hunches/gut feelings

- anecdotal evidence

- feedback 

Investigating

Seek to obtain a complete picture of what is happening and why before making any decisions.

Examine relevant research evidence.

Investigate what 'good' looks like - good practice guidelines eg. external pld, other schools, BES.

Investigate kinds of practice that were likely to make the most difference for all learners - are the improvements good enough?

Investigate together to build a shared understanding.

Collect more data: interviews, planning checks, observations, videos, student work etc.

Leaders be clear about what data is sufficient to understand the issue. 

'What do we already know about this?'

'What do we need to find out?'

'How might we do this?'

Don't assume what others knowledge, beliefs and attitudes are.

Take into account how different people could contribute in different ways.

Pull together what you/others already know, so you can identify gaps in knowledge.

Q - So what?

Collaborative Sense-making

Not a totally separate process to investigating.

Sense-making of data probably informed further data collection/research.

They are interwoven.

Understand that data/evidence can provide an incomplete picture or representation of issue, and there are more complex & underlying realities.

Evaluate quality of data collected and analyse & scrutinise it well.

Understand the strengths & limitations of forms of data.

Use expertise on staff to unpack and cuild capability of others to understand and use data.

Work together to interpret and report findings.

Share insights and test interpretations they made.

'What is our data telling us?'

'What insights does it provide?'

'Is this good enough?'

'What might we need to explore further?'

Understand strengths of school from data and where improvements are needed.

Use this to inform responses.

Prioritising to take action

Prioritise actions to plan for change in practice.

'What do we need to do and why?'

'How big is the change we are planning?'

'What strengths do we have to draw on?'

'What support might be needed?'

Be clear about capability and capacity and what support will be needed.

Support the change you want to make by resourcing it and saying no to other things.

Don't get distracted.

Focus on providing well-targeted, timely PLD to support improved teaching practice.

Can adapt things such as curriculum design, assessment practices, performance management.

Plan carefully for how change will be managed. 

Link evaluation findings to criteria for success - what will this look like & how will we know whether its working or not?

Monitoring and evaluating impact

It doesn't end with implemenation or improvement actions.

It's crucial to monitor impact.  This must be systematic.  The biggest shifts are those that shift teaching practice. 

'What is happening as a result of our improvement actions?'

'What evidence do we have of progress?'

'Is this good enough?'

'Do we need to adjust what we are doing?'

'What are we learning here?'

Ongoing noticing, investigating and sense-making is important.

Further changes or adjustments might be needed.

Recognise and celebrate successes.

Idea: Start by asking these questions with your team.

'What processes do we currently use for evaluation and review?'

'How do our processes match up with these?'

'Which parts do we do well?  How do we know?'

'How could we use these processes to improve our evaluation practices?'

'What extent do our organisational conditions provide evaluation?'

'How well do our policies, systems, practices embed evaluation practices?'

'Do we have the relational trust needed to support collabs and risk taking?'

'How deliberate are we in our use of internal evaluation processes to support individual and collective learning?'

Effective Evaluation can answer the following questions. 

'How are learners performing in relation to valued outcomes?'

'How improvement actions taken have impacted on learner outcomes & what differences are being made?'

'What needs to  be changed & what further action is required?'

'What are the patterns and trends in outcomes over time?'

'What kinds of practices are likely to make the most difference for diverse learners & in what contexts?'

'Are the improvements good enough in terms of our school vision & values?'

(ERO Internal Evaluation: Good Practice)

(ERO Effective School Evaluation)