Evaluation
Evaluation and reports should arise from informed professional judgement about student achievement,
and deliberate focused assessments, but not "gut-feel" alone.
Good teaching depends on "formative" assessment of student learning. This means using the information gained
from evidence of what the student knows and can do in relation to what is expected, to make decisions about
the next steps in teaching.
Just as assessments can tell teachers where students have strengths and gaps, looking at the data from
a whole-school perspective can tell management where the school's programmes have strengths and weaknesses,
and which teachers have strengths and weaknesses in what areas. Evaluation of that information helps
principals decide where changes or professional development are required.
Assessment information that is not used to inform decision making is not worth collecting.
A number of recent professional development programmes in literacy, within individual schools as well as
within clusters of schools, have shown that interventions designed to bring about gains in the long term have
produced significant improvements within the first year. Conversely, Dylan Wiliam has observed that
interventions that do not show gains within six months are unlikely to show significant gains in the long term.
If your strategy does not produce any improvement within the first year you probably need to adjust it.
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What progress have you made towards achieving your goal? Are your targets for student achievement
being reached? In all classrooms?
Is your strategy being implemented as planned?
If students in some classrooms did better than others, what did the teachers do that was different?
What are you going to do as a result of your analysis?
- Does the strategy need adjustment? In what way, and how will you make it happen?
- Should you consider resetting your priorities for improvement?
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Back to: Introduction
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