Purple Tod Consulting

Dear Colleague

It gives me great pleasure to introduce two new programmes of professional development provided by Purple Tod Consulting;

1. Purple Tod “Practical Coaching for the School Management Team (SMT) as Collective Instructional Leadership”
2. Whole School Evaluation (WSE) – Purple Tod “Practical Coaching for School Self Evaluation (SSE)
3. RATIONALE
4. The SMT lacks the appreciation, understanding and focus of its primary task being curriculum implementation, administration and management. They lack the insight to serve the school as a collective but rather operate as Dr Gallie puts it, as subject managers and administrators, NOT CURRICULUM MANAGERS
5. The rationale is based on a research paper by Francine de Clercq from the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand (FEB 2015) making a critical examination of WSE states that;
   1. “Based on their research of 24 schools, they concluded that external accountability does not assist most schools to improve, except those with strong, internal organisational capacity”
   2. “Also staff in most black schools are overburdened by the demands of the new curriculum and assessment policies, while senior management are faced with the implementation of these policies, in addition to additional financial and managerial responsibilities. In these circumstances, it is an extra challenge for staff and management to develop the rigorous evaluation expertise which would enable them to reflect genuinely on the school and its staff, and use the evaluation and appraisal opportunities of IQMS to strengthen their SIP”
   3. “The experience of school development planning, required by the South African Schools Act (SASA,1996), has already shown that many struggling schools lack the knowledge and capacity to reflect and plan for the development of their schools (CEPD, 2002). Many schools struggle to conduct a SWOT analysis effectively, and draw up a genuine school development planning process. These processes are often followed only in token compliance with government policy (Xaba, 2006)”
   4. “Only this kind of school-specific evaluation can lay the basis for improvement but, more importantly, only this approach can develop stronger internal accountability”
   5. “The fact that issues of instructional leadership, leadership strategies and school culture do not appear (WSE policy) is rather puzzling”

De Clerq continues to make the following arguments;

“The adoption of an appropriate model of school monitoring for improvement requires two steps: The first step requires methodical quantitative and qualitative evidence on the performance of different levels of the schooling system”

“Quantifiable comparable data is necessary, but it is limited in identifying the sources and reasons` for problem areas in the system; therefore, in-depth qualitative data is also necessary for understanding the multi-layered and interrelated sources and causes of problem areas. Further, quantitative and qualitative evidence for the monitoring process can also be supplemented by documentation, observation of practice, and gathering stakeholders' views”

“Based on this rigorous understanding of the nature of the schooling system, the second step in devising a model of school improvement consists of developing a 'theory of action' for improvement (Fullan, 2003)”

“In 2001, it introduced its Whole-School Evaluation (WSE) policy (DoE, 2001) to monitor the schooling system”

“Although most monitoring systems have been promoted as a method of school improvement, teachers in schools have tended to resent and oppose what they see as a system of inspection or supervision on the grounds that it is mere rhetoric to mask the national department's need to control the quality of schooling”

“All national school evaluation systems are based' on a change model which combines pressure on and support of schools. In the case of WSE, the DoE presents this school evaluation system as a rational and professional exercise which will improve schools and benefit all school stakeholders”

“The 2001 WSE strategy combines a form of internal and external evaluation to find out how schools are performing. The evaluation processes stipulates that schools need to account for their performance by evaluating themselves annually, on the basis of nationally agreed evaluation criteria. This school self-evaluation leads to a school improvement plan (SIP), submitted to education District Offices which, in turn, develop their own District Improvement Plan (DIP), to incorporate the SIPs of their schools. Schools also submit their self-evaluation and SIP documents, together with other relevant school information, to the provincial office in charge of WSE, which then use it when its WSE team visits schools on a three-to-five year cycle”

 “The internal school evaluation is based on the understanding that schools themselves are best placed to reflect on the quality of the work they do, to decide on the evidence needed to make judgements on the activities and performance of the school, and to identify areas and strategies for improvement. While McBeath (1999) argued that school self-evaluation is key in producing ownership over the way forward, it can be insufficient on its own because schools can become complacent in their zones of comfort, and play down their more difficult challenges. For this reason, external evaluators are often brought in to verify the school's self-evaluation and write their own evaluation report with recommendations. Such a step is supposed to help schools in the identification of their priorities and development plans”

“WSE system stipulates a separate sequential internal and external evaluation, in the belief that the external evaluation/inspection will strengthen and enrich the internal one”

“Another problematic assumption of the WSE system is that evaluators have or will develop the expertise and professionalism necessary to undertake effectively the internal or external evaluation.

Yet this is questionable, especially in South Africa”

“Apart from external and internal accountability mentioned above, there are different kinds of school accountabilities”

“The literature on accountability points to internal school accountability as one of the most effective accountabilities to develop in schools, but it is often difficult to achieve”

“By asking schools to do their own self-evaluation, the South African WSE policy aims to promote a form of internal accountability. Under the coordination of the school management WSE aims to lead to an agreed way forward, in the form of the SIP which is owned and implemented by the school. The WSE policy also specifies that external accountability (in the form of external evaluators or supervisors) verifies all schools' internal evaluation every three-to-five years”

“Lessons from school reform and school improvement literature suggest that both outside-in interventions and inside-out strategies which are tailored to the school context are needed (Hopkins & Levine, 2000; Muller & Roberts, 2000). The exact focus of school improvement interventions is also important. Whether at the level of school input, organizational, cultural and environment variables, the interventions should impact on the teaching and learning process and on improve learners' achievements (Hopkins & McGilchrist, 1998). The school support literature suggests that generic school support is no longer as significant as previously considered”

THE PROPOSAL

1. The following modules forms the basis of the coaching process – modules are selected based on local requirement and conditions, input by the employer and emerging needs.

FOCUS – CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION & MANAGEMENT AS A SMT COLLECTIVE

MODULE 1 – “SETTING THE STAGE

MODULE 2 – “THEORY”

MODULE 3 – “Management By Walking About (MBWA)”

MODULE 4 – “The Paper Analysis” – SIP

MODULE 5 – School-based Research

MODULE 6 – “School-BASED ASSESSMENT – An Item and Error analysis”

MODULE 7 – “School Monitoring & Evaluation”

MODULE 8 – “School Orientation & Induction, Coaching & Mentoring”

MODULE 9 –“LEARNER DISCIPLINE – A CONCEPTUAL MODEL (CIRCLE OF COURAGE AND DQ FACTOR)”

MODULE 10 – “ASSESSMENT FOR AND ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING”

MODULE 11 – “School Improvement – A Conceptual model”

MoDULE 12 – “Role OF HOME vis-à-vis SCHOOL”

MODULE 13 –“Feedback to the employer”

MODULE 14 – “WHOLE SCHOOL EVALUATION – CONDUCT OF SCHOOL SELF-EVALUATION”

2.Purple Tod Consulting will conduct (provide clarity, guidance and assistance including the use of Purple Tod tools and instruments) a WSE-SSE with a school for a period of ONE WEEK followed by a comprehensive and focused school report – which include analysis of data, cross-referencing and triangulation. Data analysis will be represented in various and appropriate graph forms and summaries.

CONCLUSSION

The synergy between the NSLA 2016 and the Purple Tod programmes are evident;

2015 NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR LEARNER ATTAINMENT (NSLA) FRAMEWORK

TOWARDS ACHIEVING SCHOOLING 2025

“The Schooling 2025 and the 2014 Action plan outlines what the government will be doing to make Grade R to 12 schooling better, but also explains the contributions that each one of the stakeholders in the schooling communities could make towards achieving the goals of the plan.

There are 27 national goals that should be achieved by the education department, 13 of which are output goals dealing with better school results and enrolment of learners. The remaining 14 are the departmental inputs aimed at making the first 13 goals achievable. The NSLA attempts to meet the targets set out in Action Plan 2014 towards Schooling 2025 to improve learning and teaching in the schooling system.”

The synergy speaks directly to the following sections;

Section 1: Management and Leadership

Strategic Activities

•Improve parent and community participation in the governance of schools

• Completing district and circuit/Area Office (AO) plans considering the provincial plan - to set district targets with specific emphasis on the exit classes

• Updating profiles of all schools on a provided template for informed intervention and support - Profile to include audit of teacher qualification and specialization

•Monitoring; support and guidance to schools on:

Curriculum coverage

Correct time tables

In-school monitoring

Monthly staff meetings

Management meetings

Analysis of performance

Staffing

Section 3: Primary/GET Schools: Multi-grade; Foundation Phase; Intermediate Phase; and Senior Phase.

Strategic Objectives are learner performance in Language & Mathematics

•Monitor the implementation of CAPS in multi-grade schools.

•Strengthening Curriculum implementation and SBA in Multi-Grade Schools

•Monitoring and support the implementation of School-Based Assessment (SBA) and ANA

• Ensuring availability of all relevant policies/documents for all subjects offered in Grades 3/6/9 to the relevant subject teachers

•Monitor, evaluate and support the implementation of CAPS in Grades 3/6/9

•Monitor and support the teaching of Mathematics in Grades 3/6/9 as per CAPS requirements.

•Strengthen support to improve ANA performance in Languages and Mathematics in GRADES 3/6/9

•Monitor and support the Implementation of School Based Assessment (SBA) in Grades 3/6/9

•Ensuring planning by all teachers in line with CAPS requirements – Grades 3/6/9

Section 5: Mathematics, Science and Technology

Goal 1: Increase the number of learners in Grade 3 who by the end of the year have mastered the minimum Language and Mathematics competencies for Grade 3.

Goal 2: Increase the number of learners in Grade 6 who by the end of the year have mastered the minimum language and mathematics competencies for Grade 6.

Goal 3: Increase the number of learners in Grade 9 who by the end of the year have mastered the minimum language and mathematics competencies for Grade 9.

TRAINING PRINCIPLES

• One-on-one
• Active learning model
• High on conceptual appreciation
• High on active research
• Knowledge & skills transfer
• Integrated approach (conditional)
• Adult and experiential learning model
• Interactive and participative
• Learner is at the centre of the learning & teaching process
• Flexibility

Warm and sincere greetings

Selvin John Daniels

DIRECTOR