One of the dilemmas of the middle leadership role in primary schools is that monitoring and evaluation are vital elements, yet they can be very time-consuming and difficult to do rigorously and effectively.
However, it is crucial to have at least some form of monitoring and evaluation in place so that you know what is happening within your subject, phase or other area of leadership in your primary school. This extract looks at the importance of and methods of monitoring and evaluation in primary schools.
Developing a range of types will give you a breadth of evidence and enable you to collate your findings to gain an overall picture. This is often called ‘triangulating the evidence’ even when leaders are collating from more than three sources!
Your Monitoring & Evaluation Policy will clearly outline which subjects within your school are to be monitored, when, and by whom.
Ensure you have a copy of the school’s ‘Monitoring and Evaluation Policy’ or equivalent policy. This will be your starting point and give you an understanding of how the systems work. In effective schools, this will be well established, and you should be able to glean a lot of information and relevant paperwork from senior leaders.
However, some schools spend a tremendous amount of time monitoring in various ways but do not spend enough time evaluating the evidence they have collected.
Monitoring and evaluation for middle leaders in primary schools
So, when planning any form of monitoring, ensure you also plan time to evaluate and decide what criteria you will base your evaluation upon.
Monitoring without evaluation is just a time-consuming way of accumulating paperwork! It will make no difference to anything in the school. However, effective monitoring with evaluation will give you a clear insight into the school's workings, enable the identification of best practice, and inform action planning (Section 5).
Methods of monitoring and evaluation for middle leaders in primary schools
Monitoring is often associated with lesson observations, but this is only one method that can be used in schools.
Lesson observations are very time-consuming and may not provide the necessary evidence, depending on what you focus on.
Which are used in your school? Check this against your school’s Monitoring and Evaluation Policy.
The table will enable you to check which are used in your school and also to tick if they are relevant to your Middle Leadership role.
You can then plan to use a range of relevant strategies over time to gain a complete picture of standards and outcomes in your area of leadership.
The importance of feedback after monitoring and evaluation
After any form of monitoring, you must give some form of feedback, even if only to thank those involved and explain the general findings initially.
Your colleagues will want to know the outcomes of any monitoring activity. Feedback lets them know that the monitoring is valuable and brings your work closer to a ‘done with’ model rather than a ‘done to’ model from their perspective.
The school’s Monitoring and Evaluation Policy should explain the feedback procedures so ensure these are followed.
Continue the conversation on monitoring and evaluation for middle leaders in primary schools.
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