3 Organising your data

All schools will be concerned about the same things: student attendance, student achievement, behaviour, parental involvement, etc. It is therefore helpful to develop a template that presents an annual review of the key issues in your school. The headings will help you develop a routine for collecting data.

Resource 2 provides a starting point that you are going to develop in Activity 6. The self-review form is divided into key areas, and within each area there is a space to summarise what you have found out (your analysis) and a space to list the evidence you have gathered. This is important because other people who might be interested in your self-review (such as the district education officer or members of the SMC) will need to be confident that your analysis is based on clear evidence.

Activity 6: Developing a self-review form

Look at Resource 2 and check that the categories fit your context and priorities.

Make a list of the evidence that you will need in order to complete each section. This can include quantitative data, observational data or survey and interview data.

Case Study 4: Ms Chadha’s self-review form

The SMC at Ms Chadha’s primary school was keen to know how ethics and morals were being promoted in the school, and how effective this was. As school leader, Ms Chadha started to identify on a self-review form what she was going to review (Table 1). She wrote these different focus areas in the column on the left. In the right-hand column, she listed the evidence that she was using to review each focus area. Notice how the evidence is a mixture of quantitative data, survey data and observational data. Ethics and moral education is clearly going well at this school.

Table 1 Ms Chadha’s self-review form.
Focus areas for reviewing ‘how far ethics and morals are promoted in the school’ Sources of evidence for review
We promote good, respectful relationships between students and teachers. Relationships in the school are good: there is very little bullying and students feel safe. We have introduced a new behaviour policy, with students taking responsibility for their own behaviour.
  • Parental survey reported that 94 per cent of students are happy at school.
  • Student survey reported that 93 per cent of students feel safe at school.
  • The number of reported instances of bullying has dropped from eight last year to two this year.
  • My learning walks in May and June confirmed successful implementation of the new policy.
We collectively celebrate festivals and the work of individuals who have made a contribution to society. At least one day each half-term is off-timetable with specific activities to raise students’ awareness of moral and ethical issues.
  • Data shows that attendance is consistently good on ‘festival’ days.
  • On these days, students are often involved in making artefacts and posters that are displayed in their classrooms.
  • We collectively celebrated the birthday of Iswab C. Vidyasagab (26 September) in recognition of his contribution to female education.
  • We marked ‘Teacher’s Day’ (5 September) with a celebration of the student–teacher relationship. Students made cards to thank their teachers, and teachers brought in sweets for their students. The chairman of the SMC visited school on that day and commented on the positive atmosphere.
We went out into the community to support disadvantaged groups, and invited members of the community to talk to students about their work.
  • Every class adopted a local charity and organised a fundraising event in school to raise money for that charity. A total of Rs. 20,000 was raised this year.
  • Six outside speakers visited this year. Feedback from students and parents was that 85 per cent of students enjoyed these events and learned something from them.

Once the self-review form is complete, it will form the basis for the school development plan (Stage 5 in Figure 2) – you may want to study the Perspective on leadership: leading the school development plan unit related to this next.

You should aim to organise the regular collection of data (Stage 6) so that:

  • the cycle of improvement is continual
  • data becomes readily accessible nad decisions are made on the basis of evidence.

In the final section of this unit the focus will be on five tools for self-review.

2 Data and information

4 Tools for self-review