Governors and Senior Leaders at Saxon Wood School recognise the link between self-evaluation and school improvement planning and know that accurate judgements about the school’s performance leads to highly effective planning for future improvements. They recognise that self-evaluation enables them to justify their judgements, and present focused plans for development and improvement.

Robust school self-evaluation (SSE) underpins the school improvement planning cycle. It gives focus to gathering and analysing a range of evidence and making accurate judgements. The cycle involves on-going review, updated planning, implementation and evaluation throughout the school year.

The school carries out an in-depth evaluation of its performance, identifying strengths and areas for improvement or development. These findings are then written up in a self-evaluation report. Using the report, we then produce Strategic Intents that span 3 years and a School Strategic Development Plan (SSDP) that covers the following year’s objectives.

The plan is based around the four Ofsted judgement areas, as well as including details about how the school will deliver effective provision for spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC). It is not a list of everything which the school will do during the year; but it is a list of the key objectives which school leaders need to address if the school is to remain or move towards excellent outcomes for pupils.

The SSDP is then implemented, monitored and evaluated on a regular basis to assess the impact the school improvement plan is having on improving outcomes and performance. Findings are shared with governors and staff and the improvement plan is modified to respond to the evaluation findings.

Monitoring

The SSDP and Self Evaluation are used on a continual basis to drive improvement. They are frequently updated and regularly monitored. Governors receive regular, termly updates on progress towards targets in the plan.

Appraisals

The staff’s appraisal objectives link to the priorities for the school, and our CPD programme supports the targets and objectives.

School Self Evaluation

School self-evaluation (SSE) is a collaborative, reflective process of internal school review. It provides teachers with a means of systematically looking at how they teach and how pupils learn and helps schools and teachers to improve outcomes for learners.

At Saxon Wood School we have introduced a cycle of School Self Evaluation for continuous reflection and improvement:

• Learning walks 
• Learning conversations
• Peer to peer observations
• Planning scrutiny
• Pupil progress meetings
• Weekly moderation / reflection 
• Half termly moderation 
• Half termly quality assurance
• Staff Appraisals

Strategic Intentions

Quality of Education

• To further develop teaching, learning and assessment

Personal Development

• To create and implement a whole school wellbeing strategy.

Leadership and Management

• To continue to strengthen distributive leadership across the school that leads to measurable impact