Just wondering about self-studies.

Each time I go through a self-study, I feel more and more comfortable and I find the process increasingly useful. My first go around was in Istanbul in 2006. It was my first one in an international school-the UK state schools function differently. So back in 2006, the concept of a self-study was foreign to me and since the work started the year before I arrived in the school I was assigned to committees but my input was limited.

The next time, in 2011, I chaired a Secondary Curriculum committee and I understood the system and the real value of the work. While I was somehow disappointed by the report as I was hoping for more commendations, the recommendations and matters to be address became powerful components of the school improvement plan. I believe this is for two reasons: first of all, we, educators, may have some nebulous ideas about what works well and what does not work so well in our institutions. Or sometimes, we can pinpoint the issues but the ramifications are bigger than expected and then it may get lost in the daily practices of teaching a full load, grading, giving feedback, meetings etc. So it can be hard to identify exactly the elements to improve and/or to verbalise them. Therefore the external viewpoint of a visiting team becomes useful. Furthermore, team visitors are trained to formulate recommendations in a growth orientated way. The wording is important and it can instill the right mindset to make the necessary changes in a school.

This time around, in my school in Ecuador, I am grateful to be more heavily involved in horizontal and vertical reports of the self-study. The findings are not necessarily news to us, but it feels good to step back, reflect and write those down. It is also amazing to see how consistent some of the recommendations are even though different stakeholders in the school came up with them. We are halfway through the process but I already feel that the school is working to address some of the points to be improved and it just says how dynamic our school is.

In the next month or so I am going to be on a visiting team in a school in Colombia and I am really looking forward to this experience. The school has been sending us regular updates that make me feel like meeting the school community members even more. If I paraphrase John Heard, from the Council of International Schools, the aim of the visiting team report is to support the school in order to improve students’ learning. I believe this is a noble task and I am proud to take an active role both in my school and now in other schools.

While there are probably elements to refine in the accreditation process, when I compare with other types of school evaluations in the UK and in France, I find the approach in international schools healthy as it truly focuses on students’ growth and on collaboration between educators.

For what it’s worth…