Appraisal & Performance Management Procedure

Effective self-evaluation is a critical first step towards school improvement. Getting it right ensures a clear identification of a school’s strengths and areas for improvement. Armed with this information, school leaders can reinforce the practice that underpins the school’s strengths and outline actions and procedures to address areas for improvement. This guidance document outlines key strategies to get it right.

All independent schools in England must meet the independent school standards (ISS). It is a condition of their registration with the Department for Education (DfE) and the single most important piece of legislation for any independent school that aims to keep its doors open. The latest inspection statistics published by Ofsted (at the time this guidance was last updated) showed that approximately 27% of schools failed meet the ISS during standard inspections between September 2019 and March 2020. The same data showed that 58% of schools who had previously failed to meet the standards were unable to demonstrate compliance during follow-up progress monitoring inspections. We developed a 4 - step strategy which, if implemented effectively, will help school leaders ensure consistent compliance with the ISS. This strategy was put together specifically to address all the reasons schools fail to meet the ISS. Here are these 4 steps.

If you have just been inspected and it didn’t go well, you are not going to be in a good place. You most certainly feel disappointed, maybe angry, perhaps you don’t agree with the outcome and are looking at ways of challenging it. Unfortunately, you can’t afford to spend too much time in that state because you will most likely be receiving a progress monitoring inspection in as little as 6 months! Here is a strategy you can follow in order to quickly recover from a poor inspection outcome. This guidance document is for the leaders of non-association independent schools.

This template makes it possible for school leaders to monitor every aspect of the schools provision. It includes criteria from the most up to date version of Ofsted’s “Non-association independent school inspection handbook” and a section for you to add criteria from your school’s vision, mission, value statements. This tool comes in a word and excel version.

If you prefer to keep an electronic admissions register - this is for you. Make sure you meet the requirements of paragraph 15 of the independent school standards by using this template. Be sure to follow the instructions.

This template is for school leaders. It helps those who are responsible for evaluating teachers planning focus their work and be able to identify, at a glance any common strenghts or areas of weakness in teachers long term planning. This document was originally designed for leaders of non-association independent schools but I am hoping you will find it useful for your context.

Audit of Promotion of Fundamental British Values

Audit of SMSC

Survey Questionnaire for Pupils

Parent & Carer Survey

Staff Survey

For schools that do not have a a management information system for recording critical behaviour incidents.

This is for schools who admit pupils by referral from local authority commissioners.

Simple Learning Walk Template

Behaviour Observation Template - MBWA

Lesson Observation Summary Template

Formal Lesson Observation Template

Formal Observation Summary Template

This is a guidance document for school leaders to support their improvement planning process. Effective improvement plans rely on the accurate identification of areas for improvement through self – evaluation. For this reason, this document should be read in conjunction with “Self-evaluation-getting it right!”