Enabling continuous and sustainable school improvement

Implementing a Collaborative Quality School Review Process to enable continuous and sustainable school improvement

Generally speaking, school staff feel most comfortable to discuss and action necessary change when they are empowered to own the process. Of course, there is a need to heighten accountability, but most success will be seen through a process that involves staff members as the creators and implementers of the work. To increase staff involvement and action school leaders are turning to Collaborative Quality Review processes.

Here are five reasons why…..

1. A Collaborative Quality School Review Process will plug the gap in knowledge, understanding and skills that inhibits the implementation of the full cycle of development and improvement.
2. The output is a true reflection of the school as it uses multiple data sources, involves diverse and representative stakeholder groups, and makes use of systematic assessment tools.
3. The process leads to transparent and meaningful accountability structure that permeates all school processes and stakeholders.
4. One vital defining factor of sustainable school improvement is a school’s capacity to analyze and understand itself. Collaborative Review Processes are designed to empower all school stakeholders in objectively and accurately analyzing the school’s current context.
5. The process is impact-based - stakeholders are subsequently able to plan future development and improvement, effectively enabling continuous and sustainable growth, and supporting the transformation of student outcomes.
   

Collaborative Quality Review Processes differ in their implementation methodology, but as a rule schools should expect to involve a representative group of teachers and possibly other stakeholders to lead the baseline review. Whoever is leading on the process should be responsible for ensuring that decision-making is collaborative, comprehensive and brings coherence, agreement and commitment to all members of the school community. Whether being led by internal staff or an external School Improvement Specialist, the process should empower the school through:

• A clear understanding of the power of continuous internal self/assessment
• A detailed understanding of the CQR process, tools and documents
• A model for empowering stakeholders in consistent development and improvement strategy and action
• Examples of review rubrics and other tools
• Knowledge on how to use review rubrics as a foundation for meaningful self-assessment

• Initial unique CQR rubrics created for Meridian MS to be used during the CQR

And by the end of the process, leaders will have a baseline analysis of their school which should be referenced during the annual analysis of student progress for subsequent strategy and action planning.