School improvement and quality management:

Experiences from Portugal

Hugo Caldeira
info@anotherstep.pt www.anotherstep.pt
Agenda
• “Another Step”
• School self-evaluation project
▫ Leadership
▫ Communication Plan
▫ Classroom work
• The place of CAF process
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Hugo Caldeira
20 years as Math teacher on a Secondary Level public School
Teacher
ICT and Management at Portuguese Catholic University (Lisbon) [Masters]

Research External evaluation of the national program on Adult Education Skills

Certification (“New Opportunities” program). Research group of the
Portuguese Catholic University

CAF Represent Portuguese Administration and Public Employment General

Directorate (DGAEP) on EIPA (European Institute of Public
Expert Administration) CAF Education Expert Group.
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Another Step (Portugal)

Portuguese CAF for “New Opportunities” program Centers project.
Ministry of
Education Safe use of Internet in Schools – National wide Framework

Municipalities Coaching, quality management (CAF), preparation of

strategic plans for educational development (regional level)

Schools Coaching more than 100 schools in Public and Private

Education on Self-Evaluation projects, with CAF
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Another Step (International)

Luanda Manual of best practices for citizen service and quality
(Angola) management (National School of Public Administration)

Yambol CAF for municipalities (European project)

(Bulgaria)

Nord- Schools best practices using CAF (Comenius Regio project,

Trøndelag with Sintra Municipality)
(Norway)
São Paulo Project with national Brazilian Chamber of e-commerce
(Brazil) (applying CAF in schools, with local sponsors)
School self-evaluation project
Our experience on helping school self-assessment projects
Challenge
• How to unite these 9 points with just four lines
without ever lifting the pencil from the paper?
Challenge
• How to unite these 9 points with just four lines
without ever lifting the pencil from the paper?
Challenge
• How to unite these 9 points with just four lines
without ever lifting the pencil from the paper?
Creativity and innovation
• New problems (or problems that remain) need
creative solutions

• Creativity is a process. Innovation is the

product of that process.
That’s what we do…
Creativity
is a key component of Leadership

Our work focuses on

Pedagogical work in
Leadership skills Communication plan
the classroom
Leadership
The way we work
Working with school Principal
(Director, school management team)
Diagnosis of the self-assessment school practices, results and reports (school reports and reports from our
national school inspectorate)
Proposal for intervention, detailing the actions to be implemented with a time schedule

Involvement of students, teachers, parents, non-teaching staff, local community partners (the self-assessment)

During the process, direct advice to the school and the self-assessment

Application of CAF, and presentation of a final report, with a suggested Improvement Action Plan

Planning of training needed (for teachers and non-teaching staff)

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Planning CAF Action in time

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4
How are we? Consolidation
That's how we Act! of good Act!
want to be? practices

Evaluate Evaluate
Mobilize New CAF
improvement improvement

Factual report Self- evaluation Self- evaluation

Improvement Action Plan Report Report
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Time schedule (project)

Teachers
The way we work
Working with teachers
Seminars Presentation of school improvement plan, to engage
people and talk about the role of each one

Training Leadership skills and meeting management

for all Communication plan
Classroom understanding and good practices sharing
1. Leadership skills and meetings
management
Leadership
• What is, and the skills needed
• How can we apply that in the school environment?
• How do we see ourselves as leader (in the classroom and in a
class meeting)?
School meetings management
• Can we suggest good practices?
1. Leadership skills and meetings
management

Output Document “Good practices

suggestions on Leadership
and meeting management”
2. Communication Plan

How do we communicate?
• Formal communication
• Online presence
Can we perform better?
• To whom do we communicate? And how effectively?
• Can we suggest good practices?
 Online presence

Dissemination Interaction Promote Training

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7 steps for a Communication Plan

To whom? What? By whom? How? When? Evaluation?

Students? Parents? On what media? How to measure the

What is important to Who should be
Teacher? Partners? Letter? Email? Voice impact and
communicate to responsible for the How early?
Non-teaching communication? effectiveness of
each audience? contact?
Staff?... School newspaper? communication?

We can use That profile (the

“community For what purpose? profile defines the Survey? Meeting?
For how long?
mediators” in these Inform? Invite? degree of Interviews?
populations? importance)?

Degree of
importance?
2. Communication Plan

Output Document
“Communication Plan for
our School”
3. Classroom understanding and good
practices sharing
Classroom
• What is our conception of the “classroom”?
• What is the concept of “classroom” shared in the strategic
documents of the school (educational project, regulations…)?
• Do we all agree on that understanding?
Good Practices
• Can we suggest good practices to observe in the classroom and
act, seeking the improvement of our students?
3. Classroom understanding and good
practices sharing

Output Document “Good practices

suggestions on classroom
pedagogical actions”
CAF
The place for CAF Model:
• Make a diagnosis,
• Promote self-awareness, benchmarking and bench
learning
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Strategic dimensions of the report

Filling in a grid of self-evaluation, scoring
the defined indicators, identifying strengths
1. Self-Assessment
Organizational

Team review and areas for improvement, based on

evidence for each indicator of each of the
diagnosis

criteria and their sub criteria.

2. Satisfaction surveys Questionnaires / surveys, where the

(staff, teachers, respondent gives his opinion on issues
students, parents, and related to the operation and performance
partners/ stakeholders)
(results) of the organization.

Improvement Actions Plan

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ENABLERS Overall consistency of

the scores assigned to
different criteria
(curve shape)
Initiatives Ponctuation
Distribuição pontuação - meios
implemented55
and
evaluated 50
(3, 4)
45
40
Frequency

35 Critério 1
30 Critério 2
25
20 Critério 3
15
Critério 4
10
5 Critério 5
0
Frequência Frequência Frequência Frequência Frequência
1 2 3 4 5
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RESULTS Good results for

satisfaction of
We should expect
citizens/customers
better results forDistribuiçãoPonctuation
pontuação - resultados
criteria 855and 9…
50
45
40
Frequency

35
30 Critério 6
25 Critério 7
20
15 Critério 8
10 Critério 9
5
0
Frequência Frequência Frequência Frequência Frequência
1 2 3 4 5
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Overall results Start of the process:

a low level of
ownership of the
Averagespor critério
Médias pontuação process
4,00
3,50
3,00 CAf CNO
Média pontuação

2,50 CAf 2000

Over time, the
2,00 CAf 2002 process becomes
1,50 QUALIS 2007 more demanding,
1,00 QUALIS 2006 we witness the
0,50 EFQM appropriation of the
0,00
CAF model ,and
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
people are more
awake to the quality
Criteria
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How to interpret the results (3 CAF moments) ?

Evolution of
results

Confrontation
with the targets set
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Trends analysis
It’s not (just) the scoring that matters but, above all, their
actual trend
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Self-evaluation Team results (SE

grid) What can we say?
• Why these results?
• Clear evolution of scores
for criteria 1, 6 and 8.
• Was it a strategic
investment in these
areas? (a better
Communication
Plan?)
• Global improvement in
all aspects, except
criterion 9.
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Surveys
What can we say?
• Global improvement in
all aspects
• Why these results?
• What we did (well) to
achieve these results?
• There is (still) a lot to
improve, but the path is
right.
• How to ensure the
continuation of this
trend?
Learning together
Share information
Compare our results
“More Education” Platform
Compare with ourselves
Compare with others
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Key Performance Indicators

Understand • Main objectives and milestones
Education Strategy • Defined projects and actions

Define Scope of the • Region/District, # of schools

Quality Project • Target population

Define analysis • Categories

Criteria • Metrics

Agree Perfomance • Match with Quality objectives

Indicators • Available data
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The indicators
Context Resources Operation Results Finance Management CAF

Coverage Physical Access Sucess Investiment Objectives Enablers

Security and Costs per

Occupation Human Transition Resources Results
Safety student

… Tecnological … … … Strategy Compare

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And then?
In addition to the knowledge about CAF, and relations
between different sub criterion, what else is important to
the success of self-assessment in the organization?
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What we have learned…

Necessary effective involvement of leadership and people in the process

Should have a clear communication process and seek the commitment

of local community on the improvement process
Must ensure the satisfaction of the needs of the self assessment team
(time, space, materials,…)
“Evaluation” should appears naturally from the Vision for the strategic
development and quality improvement of the organization
We need to have more attention concerning Classroom work and
collaboration between teachers
Questões?
 FIM

Um pequeno passo para um grande desafio

www.anotherstep.pt