7. Are staff, children, young people and adult learners actively involved in improving the local community?

• Planning of the curriculum should encourage participation by, as well as being responsive to, the learner, who can and should influence and contribute to the process. This is particularly important for those children and young people who need additional support for their learning.
• Children and young people should have their views listened to and they should be involved in decisions that affect them.

• There is a well-established culture of self-evaluation in most Scottish schools and education authorities.
• Staff in establishments and services rigorously analyse attainment and achievement levels and trends, and monitor of the progress of individuals. This leads to effective intervention to support learners and improve their achievement and outcomes through their lives.
• Education authorities effectively collect and analyse data across education authorities to monitor the achievement and experiences of learners who face particular barriers to progress, and put in place effective intervention strategies.
• The views of all children, young people and adult learners are gathered and acted upon. Learners are actively involved in bringing about improvements, and understand the impact they have had.

In many establishments and services, the message that stands out is that outcomes and experiences are good for most children and young people. While this is to be celebrated, the question must still be asked: where outcomes are not strong for a small number of children and young people, how poor are they, and what can we do to improve this?

A culture of self-evaluation is becoming increasingly well embedded across the Scottish education system. In the best practice, staff stay focused on outcomes for learners. They ensure that all aspects of the learning and achievement of children and young people are taken into consideration, including out-of-school learning, in order to secure improvement. Learning activities are continually being evaluated and improved. However, HMIE inspections still show many services and establishments where the focus is on self-evaluation processes such as collecting data and views for their own sake, rather than to drive improvement. Too often there is insufficient focus on learners who are not doing well.

In the most effective establishments, children and young people are able to comment on the quality of their learning, are consulted on how the establishment can improve, and have a sense of joint ownership of their education. In the best practice, systems for advocacy allow the views of the most vulnerable young people to be heard. This is by no means universal, and too often the views of some children and young people are not actively sought.

Below are links to video clips from Journey to Excellence and other good practice resources. Each clip will lead you to related clips. Feel free to explore as much as you have time for, but do try to look at clips from areas you may not be entirely familiar with.

1. How well do I and my partners approach quality improvement, including using Learning Together, the GIRFEC wellbeing indicators, HMIE self-evaluation guides, and a wide range of CPD opportunities? Where are the weaknesses in our joint approaches, and what can I do to address these? How good are staff and partner agencies at knowing what is working well and sharing good practice?

2. What opportunities do our staff and partners have to discuss our practice, share knowledge of their skills and observe and help one another? How committed are we all to identifying areas for improvement and challenges for the future? Am I a member of a community of practitioners who discuss our practice?

3. To what extent are I and my partners engaged in identifying the aims and priorities for our own professional development? How proactive are we in furthering our own learning and in sharing this learning widely with colleagues as appropriate? Are some colleagues shy of sharing their own good practice, and discussing how it could be even better? Is there a culture of “we’re already as good as we’re ever going to get”?

4. To what extent are the children and young people in my establishment or service valued as active partners in their learning, and encouraged to contribute to developing their own learning experiences? How well do they recognise and value the role of staff as partners in their learning? Is learning controlled by staff?

5. When evaluating the quality of achievement, and learners’ experiences, how well do I get to the achievement and experiences of all learners, including those with circumstances which may give rise to barriers to their progress? Are we content with “most” achieving well or are we always trying to do better? How deeply do we look at data on attainment and achievement?