Tony Davis Blog · Centre for Creative Quality Improvement - Part 5

When do you feel is the best time to evaluate your self-assessment strategy? In January, when you’re into the new year and halfway through your annual cycle? After Easter, when some begin to think about the annual ‘syphoning off’ in preparation for the end of the year (and when there’s still time to make changes)? Or October, when system architects are at their most aware of the challenges of this work? I hope you’ll agree with me that self assessment […]

Never take Ofsted’s (or Estyn’s, or ETI’s or Education Scotland’s) lead on self assessment; if you do, it is likely to give you major problems. This is what we’ll be looking at in this week’s open session on Friday (June 24th): www.ccqi.org.uk/SAR. Many education providers find the logic of building their self-assessment system on the rock of the inspection framework inescapable. Inspectors may even infer (particularly the part-time ones) that this is exactly what you should do.. but you really […]

In this Friday afternoon’s open session (17 June) we’ll be looking at perfecting development-plan writing. Delegates will also be given some simple tools to evaluate their own plan and judge whether or not it’s fit for purpose: www.ccqi.org.uk/qip. Does that come across a little dry as an introduction? I hope not, as development planning is one of the most creative parts of any education-related day job. Trouble is, for many, it feels overly bureaucratic and is often fundamentally flawed by […]

Too often, engaging and varied assessment practice is the casualty of a couple of bits of well-established custom and practice: ‘thick’ schemes of work, and the phrase ‘teaching, learning and assessment’. If you’ve a moment, try these tests yourself, and see if you empathise with the challenges. There’s also one more issue, but let’s look at the other two first. TLA. We say it without really thinking about it. It basically says: We teach. They learn. We check learning. This […]

In this Thursday’s open session, we’ll be looking at how to run the evaluative conversation following a lesson observation. It might sound counterintuitive, but the last people you should look to for a model of good practice are Ofsted inspectors. I mean no disrespect, I was a full-time inspector for many years, it’s just that they have a different job to do. Their job is a condition of funding. Your job is at the heart of your organisation’s culture. When […]