From the final report to a plan that runs, then onto the Commission's platform
Self-Evaluation Course: Unit Three
9 lessons
50 minutes
Nine lessons that carry the team from reading the final report to agreed priorities, from priorities to a plan with its four elements and five qualities, and then along the Commission's platform on both its accounts. Each lesson has a check question and a screen in "Farqad" where the idea is practised with confidence and clarity.
By the end of this track you will be able to…
Read the final report for its five aims, not its scores
Turn scores into priorities the team discusses and settles
Build a plan with its four elements and five qualities
Walk the Commission's platform as principal and as member, and know what each screen maps to in "Farqad"
1
Lesson 1
The final report: why it is written
The self-evaluation report is the document by which the school is judged against the Commission's standards, and it shows where the school excels and where it can improve. The team writes it for five aims, and each aim reads what the instruments gathered with precision and turns it into meaning.
It records the progress made against the targets of the improvement, development and sustainability plans, by the standards
It details the strategic priorities the school worked on during the cycle
It names the domains, standards and indicators that improved, and those still improving
It shows the main obstacles and challenges the improvement met
It recommends what the next cycle should do
A report that prints scores and stops meets none of the five aims. "Farqad" assembles the report from the instruments and leaves the team what no system assembles, the reading and the recommendation.
Check: progress in the report is recorded against what?
Against the targets of the improvement, development and sustainability plans, and by the standards of school evaluation and excellence. Not against the team's impression.
The report is not written from memory at the end of the cycle. The team carries it through delivery with two duties, and through them the record becomes a documented fact rather than a late opinion.
Document every process and procedure while the improvement programmes, initiatives and activities run
Record the progress made against the plans' targets and indicators, on the set timeline
"Farqad" keeps the record as the work happens: every visit, interview and document is filed with its date and its author, so the team finds the documentation ready when the recording is due.
Check: a programme ran for a full term and nothing of it was documented. What progress does the report record?
None. Recording is built on documentation that precedes it, so the first duty is the condition of the second.
The report becomes priorities in six steps that start on paper and end in a shared decision. We order them here as the guide orders them.
Print the final report of the self-evaluation results from the platform
Name the strengths and the areas for improvement in each domain
List the issues and development priorities by the results, scores and levels in each domain
Put the issues and priorities to the team members for discussion
Diagnose the school's capacity and development areas with the readiness form and the SWOT analysis
Settle the issues and priorities the improvement plan and the development and sustainability plan will be built on
Check: are the priorities fixed before they are put to the team?
No. They are put to the members for discussion, then the reality is diagnosed, then they are settled. A priority never discussed is one person's decision.
Before a priority is chosen the team diagnoses the school's capacity to carry it. SWOT reads inside and outside in four boxes, and the readiness form supplies the figures that make each box a fact rather than an impression.
Reading
What it asks
Where "Farqad" holds it
Strengths
What the school does well and can build on
The report's high-scoring indicators
Weaknesses
What the school does not do well yet
The report's low-scoring indicators
Opportunities
What outside the school can be drawn on
The readiness form's community and partnership data
Threats
What outside the school may hold it back
The readiness form's environment and planning data
The four readings and where the team draws them from
Check: a low attainment rate goes in which box?
A weakness. It is inside the school and in its hands to change; opportunities and threats are for what lies outside.
The procedural guide builds the improvement, development and sustainability plan from four elements, and a plan missing one becomes a wish list. We show the elements first and detail each in its own lesson.
The qualities a plan must have to be built
The priorities and the improvement, development and sustainability programmes
The goals of improvement, development and sustainability
The programmes, initiatives and delivery procedures
Check: a plan lists programmes but names no goal. What is missing?
A whole element, the goals. A programme is a means, and the goal is what the means is measured by.
A plan is judged before it runs by five qualities. We use them as a checklist, and a missing quality sends the plan back to the team before it leaves it.
Clear, so its goals and delivery steps are understood by every member of staff
Flexible, so it changes when the school meets an obstacle that blocks some programmes
Resourced, so the means are named before a programme is promised
Shared, so staff, families and the community take part in building it
Embedded in the school's operating plan
The fifth quality is the one most often forgotten. An improvement plan that lives outside the operating plan competes with it for time and people, and loses.
Check: a plan that is clear, flexible, resourced and shared, but kept as a file apart from the operating plan. Is it complete?
No. It lacks the fifth quality, embedding in the operating plan, and without it the other four stay on paper.
Goals are built on the school's own reality, needs and means, and are worded by the criteria that make a goal measurable. Then come the programmes and initiatives, with five delivery conditions the guide lists.
Each programme names who delivers it, when, for whom, and by which performance indicators
The operating plans are aligned with it so it becomes part of daily practice
Delivery starts and the self-evaluation team follows it
Follow-up uses instruments the school chooses, clear, practical and documentable
The follow-up and the evaluation of the plans are documented
Check: a follow-up instrument is clear and practical, but its results are kept nowhere. Does it serve?
Not yet. The guide asks three things, clear, practical and documentable. A follow-up that is not documented is not recorded in the report.
The principal's journey on the Commission's platform
The Commission's platform offers two accounts: the principal's and the team member's. The principal starts with an account and walks four screens, and each screen has its counterpart in "Farqad" so your data moves between them with confidence and precision.
A request to start the self-evaluation, sent for each school or shared building
The school's data, then the team members added by national ID
A progress screen: one card per instrument with its type, status, participants, minimum sample and minimum per member
Closing the evaluation, then the detailed report, the improvement plan and printing
On the platform
In "Farqad"
What it means
New
Planning
The request is in and no instrument has started
Evaluation started
Active
The instruments are being run and their progress reported
Report ready
Closed
The instruments are complete, the cycle is closed and the report written
External evaluation
Outside "Farqad"
The Commission accepts the readiness form, then runs the external evaluation and shows its result
The platform's states and their counterparts in "Farqad"
"Farqad" does not accept the readiness form and does not issue the external evaluation result; both are the Commission's. "Farqad" readies the data, complete and precise, so uploading it to the platform is copying rather than redoing.
Check: who accepts the readiness form?
The Commission, on its platform. "Farqad" readies the form in its seven components and computes its completion; acceptance lies outside it.
A team member signs in to their own account and finds the readiness form and the instruments. The course recommends an order for the instruments, and each instrument has a form whose statements are rated one by one with a reason.
The readiness form first, in seven steps from the school's data to school planning
Then the instruments in the recommended order: the learner survey, then the principal interview, then the student counsellor interview
Each statement in the form is rated on four grades with a reason box
An instrument can be paused, a new form opened, or a remedial form recorded when it is run again
The platform grades each statement on four levels: weak, medium, good and high. "Farqad" records the indicator's score on four levels as well: weak, acceptable, good and distinguished. Carry the judgement by its rank, not its name; the second rank here is the second rank there.
Check: which instrument does the member start with after the readiness form?
The learner survey, then the principal interview, then the student counsellor interview. A recommended order, not a lock; "Farqad" opens all six instruments together and leaves the order to the team.