Whether as a teacher, a learner, a leader or a community, the ability to reflect on what you are doing is key to doing anything well. To be able to identify what you are doing well, what you are not, what you need in order to do better and how you are going to address those needs is at the heart of the improvement practice.
Tomorrow we receive our first visit as a school from an external standards agency. Deciding a year ago to apply for international accreditation (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) was a big step. I had many doubts about whether our school needed international accreditation, whether that would best serve the community we work in or whether it was an appropriate direction to take the school in. It felt like we had greater priorities.
But the decision has been an excellent one. Whatever happens next (and I am excited about that), as I reflect
on what has happened to get us here, I feel a deep sense of pride in our school community. In the last two years, we've become a school driven by helping children learn whatever that might take in often extremely challenging circumstances. And that hasn't happened because we are being 'inspected' in the next two days. It's happened because that has become the core of what we do. We reflect. We look at who we are, what we are trying to do, how we do it and how we can do it better. And we look at it over and over again.
The next two days are going to be exciting for the school because it will be the first time experts have come into the school to assess what we are doing. It is a valuable opportunity.
Tomorrow we receive our first visit as a school from an external standards agency. Deciding a year ago to apply for international accreditation (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) was a big step. I had many doubts about whether our school needed international accreditation, whether that would best serve the community we work in or whether it was an appropriate direction to take the school in. It felt like we had greater priorities.
But the decision has been an excellent one. Whatever happens next (and I am excited about that), as I reflect
on what has happened to get us here, I feel a deep sense of pride in our school community. In the last two years, we've become a school driven by helping children learn whatever that might take in often extremely challenging circumstances. And that hasn't happened because we are being 'inspected' in the next two days. It's happened because that has become the core of what we do. We reflect. We look at who we are, what we are trying to do, how we do it and how we can do it better. And we look at it over and over again.
The next two days are going to be exciting for the school because it will be the first time experts have come into the school to assess what we are doing. It is a valuable opportunity.