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Self-evaluation · Improvement · Evidence

Stages of Self-Assessment

Schools engage in a continuous self-assessment process across five stages: Planning, Action, Collation & Online Assessment, Reflection & Action Planning, and Implementation & Review. This process enables schools to evaluate practices, engage stakeholders, identify improvement areas, and drive continuous institutional growth.

Stages of Self-Assessment by school

The internal process of SQAA is continuous, which involves reflection and assessment at every stage. Broadly, there are five stages of self-assessment by schools as given below. Reflection and Assessment lie at the heart of every stage of self-assessment.

Phase-1: Planning

Planning would be the first stage for Self-Assessment by schools, major elements of planning stage are depicted in given infographic.

Self-Assessment by School
Phase 1
Planning
Suggested Steps
  1. Communication of the advent of the process to all stakeholders of the school community.
  2. Formation of Core Learning Team (CLT).
  3. Identification of members and formation of Focus Groups along with CLT for understanding and decoding different domains.
  4. Creation of process flows for the working of the CLT and Focus Groups along with internal timelines.
Planning phase broadly covers those activities which will work as foundations for initial preparedness for reviewing existing practices in school in the light of SQAA Framework. Hence in the given infographic, it is mentioned to create following structures for leading and carrying out entire ‘Self-Assessment’ exercise:

CLT (Core Learning Team):

School self-assessment and school improvement planning is a continuous process. It is very important that the school leaders (management and principal) involve the school staff and stakeholders in these processes. So, the following can be the members of this team:
Member Representative from School Management
Principal
One Teacher from each level - pre primary, primary, middle and secondary
One student from each level - pre primary, primary, middle and secondary
Parent representatives from each level pre primary, primary, middle and secondary
One teacher from cocurricular domain
One Counsellor, Special Educator or Health Professional
Member Representative from School Management
One representative from School Administration
One IT Staff
Since the entire framework is based on self-assessment and self-disclosure, it is recommended that the school should appoint a Nodal Person for ensuring the selfassessment by the school on the framework. The Nodal Person will also be the member of the Core Learning Team.
Focus Groups: Focus groups would be the working arms of CLT. CLT would decide about the number of ‘Focus Groups’ keeping in mind suggested time frame for ‘SelfAssessment’ exercise so that each focus group would have adequate time for understanding, decoding and working as per requirements of allotted domains of SQAA Framework.

Once structures like CLT and Focus Groups have been set-up, next action would be specification of process flow along with internal timelines for completing ‘Self-Assessment’ exercise within suggested time frame. Process flow is basically listing out broad activities deriving from ‘Action and Collation’ stages of ‘Self-Assessment’ with time frame against each activity.

Phase-2: Action

Major elements of this stage have been depicted in below given infographic:

Self-Assessment by School
Phase 2
Action
Driving Questions

    REVIEW

  1. Where are we now?
  2. What are we doing?
  3. Why are we doing what we are doing?

    4. REFLECT

  4. Where do we want to go?
  5. What is working?
  6. What is not working?
  7. Where do we want to be?
Suggested Steps
  1. Develop understanding about mapping of domains, sub-domains, and standards of SQAA Framework through collaborative engagement for learning.
  2. Review and reflect over existing practices in the light of SQAA standards.
  3. Reflect over aligned and non-aligned domain wise practices in the light of SQAA Framework.
  4. Celebrate areas of strength; identify and prioritize areas of improvement.
As evident from above, the process of ‘Self-Assessment’ against SQAA Framework necessitates collaborative engagements of school community members. CLT and Focus groups constituted are required to play crucial role starting from understanding and decoding domains, sub–domains, standards, performance levels and associated performance indicators and mapping alignment & non-alignment of existing school practices with the standards as defined in SQAA Framework, collation of evidences and records, by prioritizing domain wise mprovement areas to work on continual improvement. Further, it would be clear that ‘Reviewing and Reflecting’ steps of ‘4R’ Quality Cycle would be employed widely in this stage of Self-Assessment.

Phase-3: Collation and Online Self-Assessment

This stage of Self-Assessment process signifies collaborative engagements in focus groups for deliberation and discussion related to standard wise supporting documents in the light of SQAA Framework, and further collation of supporting documents by CLT and Focus Groups. Once domain wise, sub domain wise and standard wise supporting documents are collated, next task would be online self-assessment on the SQAA Portal. Major elements of this stage of self-assessment are depicted in given infographics:

Self-Assessment by School
Phase 3
Collation and online self-assessment on the SQAA Portal
Suggested Steps
  1. Overall collation and collaborative reflection and review of existing practices and documents as per SQAA Framework.
  2. Self-assessment against each domain, sub-domain and standards using performance indicators by CLT and Focus Groups on the SQAA Portal.

Phase-4: Reflection and Development of School’s Action Plan/SelfImprovement Plan

On the basis of the reports generated online and the gaps identified by the CLT and Focus Groups during the self-assessment process, the schools will work on the highlighted improvement areas and prepare their action plan. Major elements of this phase have been presented below in infographic:

Self-Assessment by School
Phase 4
Reflection and Preparation of Action/Improvement Plan
Driving Questions

    RESPOND

  1. How are we going to get where we want to be?
Suggested Steps
  1. Review of the report generated online.
  2. Identify and prioritize areas with scope of improvement.
  3. Prepare action plan for improvement with definitive timelines and allocated roles and responsibilities.

Note:The preparation of plan is a must in order to complete the cycle of self-assessment. Otherwise the complete purpose of self-assessment will be defeated. It is also suggested that when the school is doing the self-assessment against the framework, they may also prepare domain wise self-improvement plan. A suggestive template for preparing Self Improvement Plan is given in annexure F.

Phase-5: Implementation of Action Plan/Self-Improvement Plan

Once school has drafted its Action Plan/Self-Improvement Plan, the next tasks would be implementation and working on Self-Improvement Plan. Major elements of this phase have been presented in below given infographic:

Self-Assessment by School
Phase 5
Implementation of Improvement Plan and Reflections
Driving Questions

    RATE

  1. How do we evaluate our efforts?
  2. Is what we are doing making a difference?
Suggested Steps
  1. Implementation of the action points within the timeframes.
  2. Review and reflect on the impact of the interventions taken.
  3. Identify gap areas.
  4. And the cycle for improvement continues.

The Process of Self-Assessment will allow the schools to move…….

FROM

  1. Data Analysis by school leaders for reporting purposes either to the Management or to the Board
  2. External Evaluation
  3. Piecemeal improvement -Quick Fix Approach
  4. Review at end of year in certain domains
  5. I think I know
  6. External Motivation

TO

  1. Data Analysis by school leaders for reporting purposes either to the Management or to the Board
  2. External Evaluation
  3. Piecemeal improvement -Quick Fix Approach
  4. Review at end of year in certain domains
  5. I think I know
  6. External Motivation

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