School self-evaluation: Measurement and reflection in the school improvement process

Research in Education, May 2001 by Wroe, Annette, Halsall, Rob

In many parts of the world the teaching profession has been under attack for the last two decades. In the United Kingdom the charge has been levelled, from Callaghan's Ruskin speech onwards, that schools have failed to meet the nation's needs and expectations. It has been accompanied by demands from policy makers for the measurement of performance and standards in schools. This is illustrated at an organisation level by demands for the introduction of performance tables in terms of national test and examination results, the publication of attendance records and enhanced public access to school inspection reports; and at the individual level by developments such as the introduction of teacher appraisal, the grading of lessons (i.e. of teachers) by school inspectors and proposals for performance-related pay. In short, `Schools have clearly become the focus of intensified surveillance ...' (Gray and Wilcox, 1995: 3), especially through the assessment of their performance and standards, which Stewart Sutherland, then Chief Inspector of Schools, stated as being `at the centre of OfStEd's responsibilities' (Sammons et al., 1994: foreword).

Largely as a result of statutory requirements, then, there has been a proliferation of data collection, especially of quantitative performance indicators. Moreover, data have been gathered not only by OfStEd (and an increasing number of academic researchers) but by the schools themselves, which have become increasingly data-driven organisations. Indeed, in the context of mounting pressure for school accountability and evidence of improved standards, it is hardly surprising that a focus on school self-evaluation has emerged alongside external scrutiny of school performance, and a wide range of literature is testimony to this (e.g. Saunders, 1996; MacBeath, 1999). The argument advanced in support of gathering performance data is well captured in the DfEE's Excellence in Schools (1997), which states that `The publication of performance data ... acts as a spur to improve performance ... The use within a school of reliable and consistent performance analyses enables teachers to assess progress by their pupils and to change teaching strategies accordingly' (pp. 25, 27). This quotation raises three questions. First, do such data and their publication act as a spur to improvement? They might well do so, especially by providing insight concerning the relative strengths and weaknesses within and between schools. Whether or not it will do so usefully, though, depends on the answer to the second question: how reliable and valid are the data? This is important, as their value as 'feedback' is defined by these characteristics. As Fitz-Gibbon (1996: 87-8) argues:

an important way to improve education is to increase the amount of valid feedback and to decrease the amount of misleading feedback; increase fair comparisons and decrease disinformation such as the overinterpreted generalizations and opinions offered by inspection and the disinformation of inadequate models ... The setting up of systems of monitoring with feedback is the most vital task of the next decade... Whilst we must increase the amount and quality of feedback... we also need to be concerned to eliminate from the system false feedback, misinformation ...

Third, even if the data are reliable and valid, are they meaningful to and 'accepted' by teachers, and does analysis of them enable teachers to decide how to change teaching strategies? What is important is the willingness and ability of schools and teachers to scrutinise the data, make sense of them and decide what action to take. As MacBeath et al. (1996) state, `One of the strongest features of self-evaluation is that it allows the school to reflect critically on external criteria, to set these against its own internally derived criteria and to consider the relative merits and appropriateness of both' (1996: 11). For school self-evaluation to be effective it needs to be conducted in a way which helps teachers to provide effective learning experiences and which helps to overcome some of the limitations of much research, not least much of the school effectiveness research, which, according to Elliott (1996: 211), fails

to describe practices from the practitioner's perspective, the perspective of one who is required to realise an educative personal relation with their pupils, the aims and content of curriculum activities, the pedagogical conditions which govern pupils' experience of them, and the community context in which they are developed.

Research aims and design

This article reports on research undertaken in an infant school, led by its head teacher, Annette Wroe. Its aim was to investigate the school's use of methods of self-evaluation in order to identify the best way forward regarding school self-evaluation so as to impact on classroom practice. Since 1994 the school has gathered quantitative data through standard tests and tasks; teacher assessments; standardised reading tests; monitoring and analysing the results of Key Stage 1 assessments and tests against county and national results; assessing children on entry into school; and benchmarking on schemes of work, e.g. identifying where one would expect an average child to be on schemes of work after a set time in school. Qualitative data have been gathered in several ways, including through a reflective approach to staff appraisal and class target setting; classroom visits by subject co-ordinators, followed by reflective discussion and writing; cross-moderation meetings where children's work is discussed, shared and evaluated; the tracking of children's work against learning objectives by teachers - the outcomes of which are discussed with the children and shared by teachers; interviewing of children and teachers by curriculum co-ordinators to assess the effectiveness of planning and the outcome of set learning objectives across year groups; and scrutiny of children's work, followed by staff discussion and agreed action. The key research questions were: