Co-Operative School Evaluation Project (File Format PDF 550KB)

COOPERATIVE SCHOOL EVALUATION PROJECT
INTRODUCTION
The comprehensive trial process involved document analysis and in-depth interviews with school stakeholders -
providers, management, teachers, parents and students. The trial process confirmed the indicators as an accurate
reflection of good planning practice in both non-curricular and curricular areas. They helped schools involved in
self-evaluation to reflect on their own performance in planning. The indicators also allowed external evaluators to
work with schools in identifying good planning practice. By looking at a number of different schools, external
evaluators identified key system issues in the promotion of good planning practice.
• Schools work well when there is a supportive infrastructure for planning. Infrastructure refers to policy
initiatives from central or regional administration, and to an internal structure that allows flexible responses
to these needs.
• Schools tend to be very pragmatic in the design and implementation of policies. However, they tend to
leave issues of impact to external policy makers. Few schools had processes in place to evaluate the impact
of any policy on performance.
Introduction
The Cooperative School Evaluation Project (CSEP) was an international project organised under the auspices of the
European Network of Policy Makers for the Evaluation of Education Systems. The project was managed by the
Inspectorate of the Department of Education and Science in Ireland through a representative Steering Committee.
Three member countries from the Network participated in the project: Finland, Ireland, and Norway. The Secretariat
for the project was based in the Office of the School Development Planning Initiative, an agency managed by the
Teacher Education Section of the Irish Department of Education and Science.
The European Network of Policy Makers for the Evaluation of Education Systems is an intergovernmental
organisation, composed of senior officials in ministries of education, inspectorates and evaluation agencies in the EU
member states and other European countries. It seeks to promote cooperation between member states in the
evaluation of school-based education. The Network promotes best practice in various aspects of school evaluation
and the use of evaluation outcomes to inform and develop educational policies at national level. The CSEP Project
is one of a number of research projects organised under the auspices of the Network. The Secretariat of the Network
is based in the Ministère de l’Education Nationale in Paris.
The theme of CSEP is expressed in the subtitle of the project: A Study of the Development of Non-Curricular School
Policies in a School Development Planning Context. The project involved a study of the planning processes
underpinning the formulation of non-curricular school policies across a range of primary and secondary schools. It
entailed the drawing up, testing, and refinement of quality indicators for evaluating school performance in the area
of policy development.
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