Objective and critical. The function of a self-evaluation

5 years ago I ran my first ever self-evaluation. It was very new ground for me. As a first step I brought together my team and we talked through what we did and the evidence against each Condition of Recognition. It was hard going, we needed plenty of breaks and different people taking us through, asking the questions about what things meant for us. Must have been 2 days in all. I remember feeling pretty weary. The upside was as individuals it affirmed who was responsible for particular areas, where our weaknesses were and the massive upside was the shared interpretation and understanding of the Conditions.

We recorded our evidence against each Condition and kept all the evidence in a huge Word document on a share drive. The next step was a meeting with 2 governing body members, the rest of the senior management team and my team again. Together we talked through, challenged and queried the evidence. Another mind blowing session, the best part of a day.

What followed was a summary of the process we had been through, the areas of weakness and the recommendations we had agreed as a group, to accept the conclusions and statement of compliance. This went in front of the governing body, with the 2 governing body members supporting the recommendations and being challenged on them. I felt good about the robustness of the process.

Looking at the recently published requirement (April 2016) for making statements of compliance, Ofqual asks for AOs to ‘objectively and critically’ assess compliance.

Do I think that was achieved then? Yes, involving the governing body members who were not part of operations, they were looking for facts of the matter, how things really worked, and the evidence of that. This met the ‘objective’ requirement. The governing body members, also the team, we were all pretty challenging about things, but were we ‘critical’? I like to think so, a team of smart, questioning individuals who were trying to get the basis of what exactly that Condition meant for the AO.

5 years later I have seen and heard of many different approaches to self-evaluation. All kinds of influences are present in self-evaluation: cultural, expedient, how the governing body wants, or is allowed to get involved; also time and timing issues, level of interest, or sense of how un/important it is.

For me, I'd like to emphasise how useful a learning exercise self-evaluation can be. How compliance can be owned and safeguarded by all the team when involved, and that shared open communications is a good thing on this front.

There is more than 5 months until the window for statements is closed. What can you do in that time frame to devise and deliver an objective and critical self-assessment?

Heather Venis

Principal of Awarding First

If you would like an informal chat about what you are doing, or what to do please get in touch with no obligation heather@awardingfirst.co.uk