As a leading provider of appraisal software to many multi-academy trusts, Derventio Education recognise the need to demonstrate quality in your provision. Furthermore, we understand the desire to achieve continual improvement for teaching and learning. In the backdrop of an ever changing landscape, we have identified a number of fundamental areas that will help you drive improvement. SchooliP is the simplest and most effective way to manage teacher and staff appraisal in your trust. The structure of our software creates a blueprint to secure continuous improvement.

Effectively Recording, Monitoring and Reviewing Progress

The pursuit of school improvement requires robust structure. A clear reporting mechanism is required that oversees your trustees, board, executives and schools. Trusts have many different layers and interactions up and down the hierarchy which are key to securing effective communication. SchooliP centres around the appraisal process and serves as a recording and monitoring tool. Every member of staff in your trust (teachers and non-teachers) can be appraised in SchooliP.

We find that the vast majority of our trusts utilise the teachers’ standards as a means of assessing their teachers. This generates a wealth of individual and collective data. Individual schools can be monitored at board level by using our MAT overview feature. The pursuit of school improvement requires quality assurance to take place. SchooliP aids this process as it facilitates self evaluation and observations can take place in real time using a tablet or laptop. This information can then be utilised to help inform short, medium and long term objectives.

Planning/Problem Solving

Planning is crucial in school improvement planning. Within schools and trusts, self evaluation is an ongoing and accepted process. This is a means of looking inwardly and determining ways to improve outcomes. It can be relatively easy to identify what needs to be improved; however, establishing priorities and co-ordinating efforts are the more challenging elements. This is where real progress is made. We suggest that planning is broken down into identifying priorities first and then strategically establishing how they will be solved.

Your review processes and key performance indicators will shape the areas that you need to prioritise. We recommend that a combination of internal and external parties are used to review your trust. This ensures that a full range of opinions are drawn. Collating information within SchooliP means that data from throughout your trust is readily available to help identify where improvements can be made.

It is important that your future planning makes practical use of the analysis that you have carried out. For instance, the most talented members of your staff body represent a valuable resource to disseminate throughout your trust. This could be support visits, mentoring or delivering INSET. SchooliP features a CPD management module, which allows courses to be requested, allocated and reviewed. This allows a bank of information to be developed over time which will rate the effectiveness of CPD. The knowledge gained from CPD serves as an important step to achieving continuous improvement.

External Reviews

We understand the importance of external parties as they help to validate what you are looking to achieve. On a regular basis your trust is reporting to a variety of external bodies. Therefore, regular scrutiny is the norm. Gathering outside opinions should never be a box ticking exercise. The role of someone from outside the organisation is to challenge you and offer their perspective. This serves to validate your strengths and offer insight into where improvements can be made.

SchooliP aids this process as all performance management information is automatically collated in one central place. The system allows for login details to be given to external parties and for performance reviews of departments and schools to take place. Not only does this save valuable time, it also means that large printing costs are avoided. We advise leaders to utilise external feedback to understand their trust/school more fully and to inform the decision making process.

Conclusion

Perspective is a significant part of continuous improvement. It is important to remember what really matters when striving to achieve continuous improvement. By becoming a more efficient trust, this will directly benefit your staff and your students. The hope is that staff will feel appreciated and will wish to forge their careers within your trust. By developing a robust process that incorporates planning, monitoring and review exercises your trust will establish a culture of continuous improvement.

SchooliP encourages this systematic whole trust approach to performance management. We know that our framework has a proven track record of securing continuous improvement.

Our team department would be delighted to tell you more about SchooliP. Please call them on 0333 0433 450. Alternatively, please email: info@derventioeducation.com or click here to arrange a demonstration.