Session title: The Self-Assessment Flip

Removing bureaucracy and redefining self assessment – fuelling the culture change

Duration

Half-day session.

Information for event organisers

The Preparing for Live Self Assessment session has helped many delegates understand exactly why they hate, or at best tolerate, the process of self assessment, which should be the valued centre of their professional routine. In practice, however, the culture shift to outstanding self assessment takes more than just a half-day input from an outsider. In many cases, the provider’s systems and procedures need at least realigning, if not reinventing, to focus solely on the analysis of impact on learning rather than self promotion and  justification through a list of ‘jobs done’.

Whilst The Self-Assessment Flip does not have a prerequisite session, it is designed to follow both Preparing for Live Self Assessment and a period of trial and adjustment by managers and their staff. It could be considered as a ‘shot in the arm’, or a gear change to help with the shift from a self-assessment system dominated by spin and masking, to an on-going evaluative experience that constantly scours provision for improvement themes.

However, though undeniably serious, this The Self-Assessment Flip is anything but worthy. Throughout the session, delegates battle in two teams, sometimes in large groups and sometimes in competing pairs. They play Blockbusters and The Generation Game, so that through debate, Q&A and even guesswork, they establish a fundamental rubric for self assessment. Against the Countdown clock, they sift evidence using the essential filters of impact and audit, and during the Best of Three game produce blueprint self-assessment text to guide the writing of the whole SAR. Delegates will understand how to use the Taxonomy of issues to look far below the generic headlines in the Common Inspection Framework and focus squarely on crisply articulating their issues, rather than endlessly rehearsing their symptoms. Never again will they write ‘retention rates’ under the issues heading of their development plan, and never again will they use an uplift in success rates as the measure by which they’ll monitor the on-going success of an improvement action. By the end of the session there will be one winning team – arguably made up of the staff most able to improve the quality of their learners’ experiences.

Publicity information for potential delegates

Sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach? Nagging self-assessment pro-forma way down on your to-do list? Is it that time of year again – time to crunch your data, bench-press your course management and Zumba your teaching and learning? For many staff, the only way to enjoy this process is to do the Self-Assessment Flip. So in this session, we’ll look at the real purpose of self assessment, its real audience, and exactly what it is that you should be writing.

By the end of the session you’ll have completed part of your report with blueprint text and have a new way of looking at development planning. If you don’t love self-assessment, this could be just the session you haven’t been looking for.

This session will enable delegates to:

• enjoy the process of self-assessment
• distinguish between issues and symptoms and use this understanding to edit their own self-assessment text
• distinguish between evidence of impact and audit of completed activities and use this understanding to edit their own evaluative writing
• write accurate and catalytic self-assessment text.

What the delegates say

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Timings

Half-day session. Typical uses in a staff development day include:

Contact

To discuss your requirements in detail, please phone or drop us a line.