School Improvement Planning

School Improvement

School Improvement is an ongoing process that involves all members of the school community. Managing the process can be an arduous and time consuming task though. This post explores the key tasks and features of an effective School Improvement Plan / Process and considers ways in which the process can be streamlined to ensure that action and impact are maximised, rather than the process itself being the most obvious feature.

What are the key tasks involved in School Improvement?

The Key Tasks involved in any School Improvement Plan are relatively easy to identify. In essence a school will answer a series of questions when identifying the tasks that will need to be undertaken:

How will School Improvement be measured?

There is a wide range of information available to schools that can be used to analyse School Improvement in context and against other schools nationally. This data will come in the form of teacher assessments, monitoring data, information from the PANDA, baseline data, work scrutiny, other schools and guidance from external bodies such as Ofsted, subject associations and QCA. The issue here is the way that this information is collated, evaluated and disseminated. There is a real danger of people in school being swamped with data and losing sight of the real objectives of the exercise: that of improving teaching and learning and the quality of pupil work, attainment and attitude etc.

How is the vision and process of School Improvement shared?

An effective School Improvement plan will involve all members of the school community and will be the result of a shared evaluation and vision for the future. Sharing this vision and ensuring that it is understood and ‘bought into’ by all stakeholders is important and can be achieved through a variety of means. For example:

All of this takes up a lot of teacher and administration time. To do it effectively there will be reviews of teacher, class, key stage, sub group progress on a regular basis; meetings happening throughout the year and a seemingly never-ending process of developing teacher skills and targeting skills that are identified as areas of possible weakness.

How then can the process be done in a more streamlined manner?

Most schools invest a huge investment in time associated with School Improvement. There will be hours of staff meetings, further meetings of Senior and Middle managers and time and money allocated to training, consultancy etc. What appears to be lacking in many schools – and I’ve worked as a teacher or consultant in hundreds – is a similar investment in infrastructure that can support School Improvement, or a lack of awareness of how things that are often already in place in schools can be utilised to cut down the time and administrative burden of tackling School Improvement. The following are examples of things that outstanding schools are doing to make the process work most effectively for them and their school community:

Make use of the e-solutions already in school. If you use a VLE for pupils there is nothing to stop you doing the same for staff. This way courses can be established that track the school improvement plan over the course of the year and provide links to useful guidance; a shared repository of documentation and evidence relating to school Improvement and a means of sharing thoughts, online, at the time at which someone has a good idea or thought about any aspect of the schools development. The result? Good practice is disseminated quickly and effectively. It is usually ‘to the point’ and clearly focussed. This means that long-winded explanations aren’t required in meetings, so time is saved and the focus changes from coming up with ideas to developing ways of implementing them. This results in improvements and a happier, better equipped staff. An easy to understand overview of how to set this up using Moodle can be found on this page or for Primary Schools, these guides to setting up groups and courses in Learnanywhere may be more appropriate.
Speed up communications with parents through use of short, clear, messages on a regular basis. Avoid the expense of reprographics and the time consumed administering this by utilising SMS messaging which is now incorporated into some websites that are available or specialist SMS packages for schools.
Use ‘add ons’ and adaptations of Moodle to make use of features that automatically track progress against a series of competencies. This automatically alerts administrators as to the current state of affairs and ensures that missed deadlines are spotted and that any areas in which the School Improvement Plan’s objectives are not being met can be addressed positively at an early stage, with a higher chance of turning the situation around. One of the most impressive of these Moodle adaptations is the use of Totara to manage learning and development planning. To see how the Totara system extends Moodle, see this pdf comparison chart.
Disseminate key data and targets via easy to access and comment on electronic mechanisms. A simple google document can illustrate key targets, illustrate targeted groups and use conditional formatting to show how far towards completion any given task is. This is easy, effective, fast and highly cost effective. For further information call 0800 862 0131 to find out how Webanywhere can help you implement this e-solution for your school.
Management of CPD via online interfaces. This streamlines the CPD programme and ensures that staff with similar training requirements can be sent information at the same time. Monitoring of documentation for Performance management, collation of evidence and commenting by mentors or colleagues. This minimises the need for large paper based files; makes sharing of resources faster; enables group commenting to share ideas and speed up progress. As Totara enables competency based assessment for people on a specific course this means that Performance Management or NQT training, for example, can be conducted quickly and effectively via dissemination of online materials in combination with more traditional means. This is likely to be extremely useful for anyone wishing to attain chartered teacher status in the future (as the time spent using online CPD will be accurately logged – ensuring the 35 hours CPD is monitored) and is known to be one of the ways in which the proposed M Level for teachers courses will be conducted.
Cut down on the time that office staff are spending dealing with minor administrative duties by utilising tools such as Payschool to ensure that office staff are focussing on important issues rather than having to count money and issue receipts. This also minimises the impact on lessons and helps to prevent bullying and issues relating to the loss / theft of money.
Make something of the evaluation process. There are lots of exemplar matrices out there which suggest a ratings system, typically a 0-5 score based on current success / impact (See http://www.tda.gov.uk/local-authority/school-improvement/~/media/resources/local-authority/sipf/sipf_solutions_matrix_ox.pdf for a TDA example). Whilst these are fine for Senior management to use as an overview document they lack any day to day usability in the classroom or in weekly meetings. Use of ICT can help to make these statistics more meaningful. The Calendar function in a school website or VLE can be used to highlight focus areas for any given period of time; a simple resource exchange can be established in which ideas, resources and skills can be shared and discussed. All of these can be achieved via a CMS website such as School Jotter or in a Staff area of a VLE such as Moodle or Learnanywhere.

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