Self Evaluation & School Development at
Llanyrafon Primary School
Robust evaluation and accountability arrangements to support a self-improving system’ is one of the four enabling objectives of the new curriculum. To be successful, it is crucial that all aspects of the schools system are aligned with and support the new curriculum and its underlying principles.
The OECD’s report to Welsh Government, ‘Achieving the new curriculum for Wales’, emphasised this point.
Self-evaluation is an integral and ongoing process at Llanyrafon Primary School. It takes place informally, day to day, through discussion and interaction and more formally through planned activities such as analysis of data, lesson observations, scrutinising pupils' work, reviewing practices and procedures, monitoring curriculum coverage, monitoring standards and responding to external evaluative processes.
An important part of self-evaluation is also listening to the views of pupils, parents, governors, staff and anyone else who may have an involvement and interest in the school. Again, the gathering of such views can take place informally through, for example, chats on the yard or over a coffee in the staff room. On other occasions, it takes a more formal approach, through a questionnaire or an invitation to come in to discussion an issue. At all times, your views are important to us.
Pupils' views are particularly important to us; they are why we are all here. Llanyrafon Primary School ensures that pupils know they have an important voice in the school and they are also reminded of their right to have a say on things which directly affect them, as set out in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The School Council provides an excellent way for pupil voice to be represented across the school but pupils know they can always share their views or opinions directly with whomever they wish to speak to.
When carrying out honest self-evaluation, the school asks itself three questions in order to create a Self-Evaluation Report (SER):
By asking these questions, we identify what is going well but we also identify what we need to concentrate on to improve further. These areas for improvement then form the school's priorities for the following academic year and are set out in the School's Development Plan (SDP).
Some of the priorities that school has identified for the academic year 2022-23 include:
| 2022/2023 | |
| 1 | STANDARDS Secure progression in skills, knowledge and experience to ensure learners attain high levels of achievement with a particular focus upon listening, reading and writing, Welsh Oracy and Mathematics and Numeracy |
| 2 | HEALTH AND WELLBEING Secure a whole school approach that enables health and wellbeing to permeate all aspects of school life Improve provision both in and outside the classroom so that all children are happy, resilient and able to engage with others and their learning |
| 3 | TEACHING AND LEARNING Implement a broad and balanced ACHIEVE teaching and learning curriculum to challenge the needs of all learners Further develop and implement processes of ALN to ensure an inclusive system where all learners achieve potential |
| 4 | LEADERSHIP Develop a robust system of distributed leadership across the school Further develop peer working and collaboration across the cluster to raise standards and leadership across the school |