I used to be able to control an assembly walking up and down with your eyes and
you just look, I have lost it entirely.
Moving into the next strategy now
looking at the national self evaluation toolkit and this is an opportunity to
start to put some flesh on the bones hopefully this is right at the front
end of this process and I'll talk a little bit more about the contract and
the arrangements we have with Estyn and OECD but we're right to the front end of
it so if you're expecting a fully populated self-evaluation
toolkit that reflects everything that was said this morning and you just have
to fine tune it I'm sorry to disappoint you come back to the relationship
between co-construction and ownership but it isn't I promise you just a blank
sheet of paper.
As you know the challenge around developing a new framework for
evaluation and accountability arose out of the conference last year we
followed up on some of the actions that we committed to then and we've had the
consultation on things like teacher assessment and publication at school
level. The final response to the consultation will be coming out in May
but I generally believe you will be encouraged by what comes from there as
its that positive message about how we use information to evaluate the
progress and achievements of schools and how helpful it is to have some of that
information in the public domain we would probably likely to
continue to look at that at a national level it's on the impact of work you
need to wait until May in terms that detail comes out but I say you should be
encouraged by it but you challenged us to look at this national framework and
since then we've had I've had numerous engagements with groups of headteachers
Dean Vincent and the deputy directors has been working with groups of schools
as well and it's clear to me that you want us to work together to determine
what we think is important what you think is important for our schools and
then put that framework in place that genuinely values
all of the things that we believe to be important in schools and colleagues have
raised questions and challenges around that this morning.
As I introduce Meilyr and Marco it might be helpful if I say to you that everything really
needs to be put on the table we're not looking just a tweak level two plus
we're not looking to do all of this overnight but we're serious about
wanting to offer the opportunity to really shift what we're looking at what
we monitor what we evaluate what we assess and how we use that eventually in
terms of accountability so over the years it's been suggested that we should
build the self-evaluation around aspects of effective learning organisations and
particularly from those people who've been heavily involved in that program
and that we as leaders should be open to evaluating the effectiveness of our leadership.
This self evaluation framework I expect to be extended to
look at the self evaluation of regions, local authorities and national
government so as leaders of each of those levels we look at the impact of
our work particularly as it impacts on schools but also impacts on individual
pupil progress and I'd expect you to want to say things in this discussion
this workshop about the need to evaluate pupil progress and how we can break that
down, how we can exemplify that within the framework similarly we know that the
best outcomes come at the end of a long process of effective learning and how do
we measure and evaluate effective learning within this framework, finally
we're committed to the new Curriculum for Wales and maybe we should be
considering and acknowledging schools for the offering of the breadth of the
curriculum and and how relevant that curriculum is to the community it serves.
So in short, I'm encouraging you in this session not to think backwards to be
ambitious but at the same time rooted in some of the strong messages we had this
morning in terms of practicability.
As we move from this afternoon to tomorrow
we will be dealing with the stark reality we have to move from where we
are now to a period particularly around the implementation of the new curriculum
but we don't have to wait for that before we may take some big steps, but we
will have to move from where we are now to what you are going to be discussing
today around how we apply that this new framework to what we're doing so I
encourage you to be open-minded I encourage you to be ambitious about it
and I said there will be a session and it will be feedback at the end as to
where we go next with this but the Minister decided following the challenge
of last year in the work that we've done with both our headteacher
representatives, groups and with our partners - to think outside the box and
to go to OECD and Estyn and ask them to work collaboratively to deliver on this
this project and this program ultimately it will be the first all Wales,
I believe, model framework that will be able to be embedded across all of our
schools so there's no short level of challenge in this task but I genuinely
believe the capacity from our my experience of working very
collaboratively with Estyn in my two years in my two and a half years of my
current role we're also working with OECD bringing together those two sets of
experience, the skill sets of those two organisations. This is just the mixture
we want to have the autonomy, not only to develop the framework but they develop
the framework with you and for you because ultimately the two tests for me is
whether genuinely the people in this room feel ownership of what will emerge
in terms of the framework.
So with that, I'm delighted to invite Meilyr and Marko to the stage to lead this session
Okay, starting with a short overview. We will really keep it short by design because
we really want to hear from you so this is really by design you're only
going to see a few slides which is exceptional because most if you are ask
people from the OECD to present they're gonna give you at least 50 slides - this
is not gonna be the case.
Back to the why and the how which have been discussed. We're going to present a set of
key questions which we want you to answer which we're not gonna answer for
you and the plenary discussion. Very briefly the international context
because we are the OECD, so we need to give it, so what you're going through, the
development process of a self-evaluation toolkit - currently calling a toolkit - also
the name by the way is up for grabs that's also for you to say we're seeing
internationally a trend in the last twenty years much more towards school
self-evaluations become much more prominent it's in the context of course
of the growing autonomy. Schools I've been giving in the last thirty years
the OECD did a review, I think it's five years ago now, when a big report
came out was probably one of the biggest that we've ever done
we looked at some thirty education systems at assessment evaluation and the
frameworks as a whole and one big piece was of data school self evaluation
the lesson which I'm presenting here now and which actually also influenced some
of our reports I think what is it we released last year and the Welsh reform
journey the rapid school assessment but also the one already in 2014 were very
much inspired by that and drawn from these lessons. So what we do see is that
school self-evaluation has really gained in prominence in the last years.
That has implications because we also need to be clear of course what rigorous school
self-evaluation should be so what we did see is a lot of countries of that
identified criteria so what do you consider quality when we just heard
about the framework of what is a good school in Scotland
you've seen them internationally many of those instruments it's very much what we
consider some of the better ones and you make some judgements about this and
this analysis as well is the ones that have been
designed with the profession and actually by the profession, so I think
Wales is really drawn from that international good practice so these
tools and instruments have been developed they often go much further
than just a booklet but it's also often in terms of capacity building so I
actually don't like the term 'capacity building' because it seems to be
something that you do external to people. I prefer the term that you use in Wales
is 'professional learning' when you're really evoking capacity in the system so
that's very much as part of this exercise as well but there needs to be
attention to making sure that people are comfortable and have this think or
consider they have the skills to take forward this self-evaluation process.
The engagement with the community is essential
so that's goes beyond the school. Students are very important I've worked
it now quite intensely for the last especially the last two years now
and every time the student voice comes up or the pupil voice comes up - and I
think you take it very seriously and rightfully - so my guess is that they've
also framed quite prominently in the toolkit that you're going to develop or will develop it yourselves
And the promotion of peer learning is what we're seeing so around the self-evaluation process we see in a lot of
countries condition like New Zealand and Flanders Belgium or even the Netherlands
they see a lot of collaboration between schools happening to learn from each
other being a critical friend role and drawing from each other's strengths also
dare I say that compared internationally you're very well
positioned we see a lot of collaboration and sincere collaboration happening
between the schools and just stepping back a few years and was part of the
review team in 2013 that has grown exponentially. The system infrastructure
you put in place with the regional consortia or other place I think you're
actually very well positioned to take that next step - and new out-of-the-box
thinking self evaluation toolkit or whatever gonna you want to call it
I'm gonna speak in Welsh so you need your headphones.
O ran y cyd-destun Cymreig,
ni di clywed yn barod y bore ma bod pob agwedd bron o addysg yng Nghymru
wedi newid neu yn newid a dyma'r newid mwyaf yn fy mhrofiad i yn fy ngyrfa broffesiynol i y newid
mwyaf sylfaenol 'rwy'n teimlo yn addysg yn Nghymru ers yr 80au a'r 90au.
Bryd hynny 'roedd system addysg Cymru yn
debyg iawn i un Lloegr ond bellach mae nhw'n wahanol ac yn gwahaniaethu fwyfwy.
Ac yn benodol, mae'r cyfeiriad y newid yng Nghymru fel mewn nifer o wledydd eraill
fel y glywson ni y bore ma tuag at ddiwylliant o gyd adeiladu, o gyd weithio ac o hunanwella.
Engraifft o'r cyd-adeiladu yma yw, wrth gwrs, yw'r ffordd mae'r Cwricwlwm newydd yn cael ei ddatblygu
Ond mae diwygio addysg yn llawer mwy na Cwricwlwm newydd yn unig, mae'n cynnwys
pedwar amcan ac un ohonyn nhw yw datblygu system asesu, gw erthuso ac atebolrwydd gadarn.
Mae diwygio addysg yng Nghymru wedi selio ar hunan-wella felly mae angen hunan-arfarnu o ansawdd uchel.
Ar hyn o bryd, mae hunan arfarnu a chynllunio gwella yn amrywio o ran ansawdd yng Nghymru
Mae gennym ni arfer ardderchog wrth gwrs ond mae'n un o'r meysydd arolygu gwanaf.
A lle mae gwendidau mae hunan-arfarnu yn ddigwyddiad yn rhywbeth i eraill nid proses sy'n allweddol i wella ysgol.
A dyw e ddim yn help bod nifer o fframweithiau hunan-arfarnu
a gwelliant yn bodoli
So I'm not going to repeat what you've heard excellently expressed this morning
I just want to summarize that
there are currently several self evaluation and improvement frameworks so
there is an argument for developing a common understanding of what we mean by
good self evaluation and improvement planning. One framework that we can all
agree on and all use including the Inspectorate
and and the consortia as a basis for our work and that's the purpose of this
project to develop that common understanding and the agreed framework
through a process of co-construction so co-construction means that we're here to
listen to your ideas so now it's over to you to begin the design stage.
There are three questions that we'd like the tables to discuss you've got 45
minutes. What works what doesn't work and what would you like to see included in
the new framework and after you've discussed that we'll have a plenary and
we'd like each table to feedback very briefly some comments on each of the
three questions so you'll have to nominate a spokesperson so I hope that's perfectly
clear the intention is co-construction we
genuinely want to hear what you have to say it is the beginning of this process
and we're very high tech we've got a piece of paper for you to actually fill
in the questions and we'll be collecting those and that will form the
the starting point of the project we don't want to influence your line of
thought at the moment so I'm just going to leave it at that so your 45 minutes
starts now