Why SchooliP?
Why SchooliP?

Why SchooliP?

7 months ago I wrote an endorsement for SchooliP, about our first impressions of their product and shared that with the team. Back in early December we had invested approximately 30 hours of staff time getting to know SchooliP and we could already begin to forecast its value to our organisation; lesson observations – definitely, improving and supporting teaching – definitely, PRP – yes. Planning and communicating that plan – most definitely, self-evaluation, for sure.

However, (and in this case it really is however and not a preemptive pause), we were adamant that we wanted to introduce SchooliP to our leadership team before moving further forward. We failed to get off the leadership merry-go-round until the added impetus of Sir Michael Wilshaw’s letter to Headteachers (25th Feb 2013)  brought Performance Related Pay back onto the Principal’s agenda.

Inspectors evaluate already how effectively school leaders recognise and reward good teaching. In future, inspectors will ask schools for anonymised information from the last three years, which shows the proportions of teachers who have:

  • progressed along the main pay scale
  • progressed to, and through, the upper pay scale
  • progressed along the leadership scale
  • received additional responsibility payments, such as teaching and learning responsibility payments and special needs allowances.

The information provided should include information about patterns of progression through the different salary scale points, and comparisons between subject departments and/or teachers deployed in different key stages.

The start of Term 4, I took on the job of building our SchooliP. Armed with the most current staff list and almost all Lesson Observation forms from the past 9 months we went back to work with SchooliP. I say “almost all” – as that was what we had in our Lesson Observation folder. Never again will we have to here those words again.

Not NEW, but improving with every build, SchooliP

Just for the record, SchooliP is a relatively young product. It is being improved and being developed almost on a weekly basis. The support team are available every day, they answer email queries within hours (often sooner) and there is webinar support if you need or ask for it. The “After Support Team” lead by Steve, Luke and Jim have been first class. The team are open and honest, they take on board and develop your good ideas and calmly consider and reject your daft ideas. The team are keen to work with you.

As we engage with our Middle Leaders here is our experience of SchooliP.

What is SchooliP?

SchooliP will tell you they are a

‘cloud-based’ system that helps schools perform more effectively. It brings together Performance Management, Improvement Planning, Continual Professional Development (CPD), assessment against Teachers’ Standards and School Self-Evaluation into one, integrated, easy to use system.

I would agree, though I would place a far greater significance or stress the term integration.

SchooliP connects the four key areas of school improvement and management together, quite explicitly. It connects the ‘Quality of Teaching and Learning’ or observation processes and the ‘teaching or professional standards,’ ‘Performance Management,’ the ‘School Development Plan,’ and ‘School Self Evaluation.’ What is more important, is that whilst SchooliP can collect and monitor these four areas, it can also cross reference the evidence, allowing you to present and analyse your schools work, and ultimately reflect and assess the overall impact of your organisations work.

Yes, it is longer, but the SchooliP summary really does not do itself justice.

SchooliP can be used to capture Lesson Observation evidence (on the format you want) and then present, share and analyse that evidence. SchooliP can identity and compare department teaching quality, overall or by a focus point, by teacher type, by date or observation purpose (eg coaching or Performance). SchooliP now automatically assigns “area for improvement” to the staff members professional portfolio so that they can evidence their work to addressing them. Where appropriate, CPD can be aligned to set against specific areas. We know that the teacher and post threshold teacher standards are important and see self-assessment as an important dialogue opportunity though have also added  Subject and Progress Leaders Standards to help clarify the role expectations.

SchooliP also offers an opportunity to consolidate and manage performance management; with accountability and objectives set against school priorities or School Development Plan objectives or personal targets. SchooliP provides an opportunity for professional dialogue, for evidencing, for reflection and peer collaboration, for monitoring and record keeping. At any time, any line manager can engage with my staff on their objectives or evidence submitted towards achieving them. The SchooliP support team and our staff have been working to improve the objective setting process and we look forward to their future builds. SchooliP encourage performance management to be what it should be, support and professional development.

SchooliP can take a defined SEF item or comment and associate it with a specific school development plan task employed to address it, and all further tasks assigned to an umbrella school priority. So, if under achievement for the academically more able students has been identified in the SEF, inspectors will and can expect to see, the development plan responses and interventions plus the impact assessments or measures.

The development plan is powerful a tool. It requires significant forethought and scaffolding, (sadly we learnt our lesson the hard way). Simply, the schools “Priorities” drive the objectives. Objectives are further sub-divided into activities or tasks that are assigned to key staff for completion. Importantly these task can then be assigned and monitored against evaluation criteria with staff expected to consider the outcomes. Whole School objectives are then  connected and used to evidence the Self Evaluation.

Finally, SchooliP can manage and assign the responsibilities of the SEF to the appropriate staff. SchooliP negates the need for shared document drives, lessens the likelihood of the multiply versions of the same document or section of a document being revisited and removes the “attached” email tennis headache of self-evaluation. Not forgetting that the automated email prompts throughout the system are useful reminders to get things done (but do turn them off when you are building your SchooliP framework.) There are one or two other useful features, like reports and the diary, however that is more than enough for one post.

Now, if you are going to make the most of SchooliP , then you will most certainly benefit from starting with the end in mind. Rest assured, the support at SchooliP has been refreshingly welcoming, information and efficient. The forward planning time is important, there will no doubt be a vast structure to replicate and transfer to the SchooliP system, and as you do so, you will made brutally aware of the extent to which school management is both layered and interlaced. Simply, SchooliP assigns and manages the processes of school improvement so that you can focus on investigating the evidence and leading the impact.

Teaching and learning is at the forefront of almost all we do in schools and managing a school, its systems and processes, is an unforgiving task. SchooliP provides much needed support.

Alternatively it looks like this (presentation to SLT).

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