2 – Work file 14: Guidelines for self-evaluation of schools

When a school decides to go through a self-evaluation in terms of EDC/HRE it has to be aware of the fact that this will take a longer period of time, maybe even a school year. This may also be a challenging period which involves many different steps and activities.

The following list, taken from the tool “Quality Assurance of Education for Democratic Citizenship in Schools” (Council of Europe, Democratic Governance of Schools, 2005, p. 73) might be of help in order to remember the main guidelines:⁴⁵

• raising awareness of all stakeholders about the need for and process of self-evaluation of EDC/ HRE as a means for personal, professional and school improvement;
• making sure that all stakeholders are informed about the evaluative framework in EDC/HRE and its purpose;
• selecting the most appropriate approach for self-evaluation in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders and experts;
• designing valid and reliable evaluative tools (such as questionnaires, interview questions) with the assistance of experts from education research institutes or teacher-training facilities;
• preparing school staff and other stakeholders for evaluation, including their training in the use of evaluation tools; and
• creating a climate of truthfulness, honest reflection, trust, inclusion, accountability and responsibility for outcomes.

Recognise and diminish threatening connotations of evaluation. Understand the challenge of self-evaluation as a learning process. Develop evaluation knowledge and skills. Strengthen the commitment of all to school improvement.

45. When the tool was developed in 2005, the guidelines were only described as EDC guidelines. The extension to EDC/ HRE was added for this volume.