Administrator's Corner
STRATEGIES TO ENSURE EFFECTIVE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT BY: JEFF EVANS
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hether a school has effective improvement or development plans in place is a major contributing factor to the judgements made of leadership at all levels, from the director or principal through to subject coordinators and pastoral leaders. Along with accurate and realistic self-evaluation, the impact of school development strategies paints a clear picture of whether a leadership team have the capacity to improve provision. In a forward-thinking growth orientated school, the board of governors will play a clear and productive role in school development. One of my partner schools identified the most appropriate aspects of
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Term 1 Sep - Dec 2020
provision for each of their seven governors to learn more about, enabling them to contribute relevant skills from their own area of business or expertise. Governors became more knowledgeable in each of the six inspection standards and had a more direct impact in supporting the improvement agenda, for example, a HR executive led a review of staff recruitment and retention policy leading to more streamlined procedures and detailed exit interviews. A common inspection recommendation among KHDA or ADEK regulated private schools relates to the impact which governors have on the strategic development and overall quality of provision in their school; however in the words of a leading Abu Dhabi school principal
Class Time
achieving a healthy and delicate balance with governance of “eyes on, hands on� is best. In a minority of private schools at present, governors or investors can be overly involved in daily operations leading to issues with the autonomy and authority of school leaders becoming compromised. Consistency of expectations among middle leaders is also important, especially in schools with diverse staff teams from a variety of educational systems and backgrounds. With this in mind, at Learning Key we encourage middle leaders to work cross phase and share in quality assurance tasks, such as work scrutiny and focussed learning walks. Discussion, debate and reflection on any relevant external inspection or accreditation frameworks
