There are a number of characteristics of effective schools that have been identified by researchers. I'm providing a brief list of critical elements that you could use in performing an informal assessment of your school's effectiveness. In no particular order, here is a distilled list of attributes that your school should work towards. Read through each and keep a tally of how you scored out of 14.

1. Strong supportive Administrative leadership that provides instructional guidance and autonomy to school staff;
2. Teachers expected more children to graduate, go to college, and become readers and good citizens;
3. Teachers were more satisfied with opportunities to try new things and to adjust teaching techniques to individual pupil needs, where they had control over their programs;
4. Parent-Teacher and Principal-Teacher relationships were more satisfactory;
5. Schools look at their assessment data and do something about it;
6. Schools had longer instructional days that maximized learning time in academic subjects;
7. Teachers relied almost entirely on teacher-developed tests and some subjective evaluation of student achievement;
8. A climate that improves and sustains instructional effectiveness, where you can find good instructional practices in every classroom, and staff involvement in school improvement;
9. Staff professional development based on school needs and planned collaboratively and collegially with teachers;
10. School-wide, visible recognition and promotion of academic success and commitment to student learning;
11. School climate that fostered collaborative planning;
12. Development and communication of clear goal-focused activities towards sustainable objectives and high expectations;
13. Long-range planning and coordination, shared consensus on values and goals, stability and continuity of key staff;
14. Fostering an environment of order and clear, firm, and consistent discipline, in an atmosphere where is learning is safe, orderly, and conducive to learning;
15. Teachers emphasized homework and study, accountability and responsibility for outcomes;
16. A caring family atmosphere based on cooperation and trust, where parents are involved in student learning, and there are positive community relations.

Well, how did you do? To be considered an effective school you should have scored at least +12. If you didn't, you should go back and identify areas of weakness, and put together your own mini-action plan to focus on improvement for the balance of the school year. If you're putting together your own school, these would be invaluable when you're developing your "educational philosophy."

NEXT STEP
 
, HEG and our team are experienced with private and public school evaluations. We're actually heading over to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, right now to evaluate three private schools.

We're confident that HEG's combined experience with independent school improvement and evaluation will broaden the capacity of your school and its sustainable operation. We're ideally positioned to carry out the comprehensive evaluation study to assess your school's performance, covering governance, administration, academic, financial, operations, and the summative development report with our comprehensive set of strategies and supporting action plans for your Board and Administration to lead your school's development. Our evaluation process identifies areas needing organizational improvement to support school revitalization and sustainability.

 If you'd like to learn more about how our school evaluation services, please email HEG or call  our direct line at +1-604-868-0002 to find out more.