Count Us In
Presented on Monday 23 June 2008
The Journey to Excellence
Christine Knight, HMIe
Part 1:Aiming for excellence
Part 2:Exploring Excellence
Part 3:How Good is our school? Child at the centre
Part 4:Planning for Excellence
Part 5: Journeys to Excellence
Notes: As Scottish schools 'grow up' in their approaches to and experience with self-evaluation, we need to focus more on its purpose.
What comes after self-evaluation – ACTION!
Are there other activities - Support/challenge and challenge/support -
appreciate enquiry through building on strengths - visioning whereby
you paint a picture of the future – where you want your school
or service to be in three years' time - and create that future.
Which is most professionally challenging?
Who should do this?
Examination of features of excellence
Notes: Each dimension is supported in four ways - voices in your head, teased out into features and sub-features, short illustrations or snapshots, and grids showing the positive aspects of what is good and what excellence might look like based on real schools.
A Culture of Learning
- Making learning an object of attention
- Making learning an object of conversation
- Making learning an object of reflection
- Making learning an object of learning
John Macbeath
What do you think of this list?
The big ten classroom factors?
- having a positive attitude
- the development of a pleasant social / psychological climate in the classroom
- having high expectations of what pupils can achieve
- lesson clarity
- effective time management
- strong lesson structuring
- the use of a variety of teaching methods
- using and incorporating pupils' ideas
- using appropriate and varied questioning [Reynolds]
Notes: Some people need to focus on the craft of teaching. For too long we have not focused sufficiently on this.
Notes: All of the QIs – again emphasising the structure with colour.
Showing that the capacity to improve depends on so many factors and can touch all areas.
Planning for Excellence
Key Ideas for Planning for Excellence
- Start from shared vision and values – use dimensions of excellence
- Use HGIOS3 indicators judiciously to find out current position - and then move on
- One high level improvement plan
- Focus on outcomes for children
- Real engagement of all partners
Key ideas - 2
- A dynamic process with adjustable targets
- Proportionate planning
- Flexibility for schools and services as long as they deliver
- Plans are aspirational and do not include maintenance agenda
- NOT ABOUT PRO FORMA!
Planning your own journey
- Start with quality indicator - learners' experiences good starting point.
- Choose theme or aspect of theme, for example, "our learners are motivated and actively involved in their own learning and development".
- Choose small number of pupils.
- Read sections in JTE Part 1 and 2
- Read section in "Count Us In: Achieving success for deaf pupils"
- Go to JTE website and look at learning trail
- Observe your pupils
- How can you move from good to great?
- Make a plan, try out some things
- Evaluate and review.