School visits

Accrediting organisations will vary in terms of the number and types of school visits as part of the overall process. In general, however, the process will go through the following steps and include on-site visits as noted.

1. Preliminary visit

This is a preparatory visit by a small team and the point is to work with the school’s senior leadership team to ensure that the process is clarified and well understood.

There will typically be a broad report that will need to be prepared, the purpose of which is to allow the team to determine the school’s readiness for engaging in the accreditation process.

2. Self-study/preparatory phase

Following the preliminary visit, the school’s readiness to move forward with the accreditation process will be indicated. It may be the case that certain recommendations must be met before the school can move forward, or the school may simply be given a green light to begin.

The self-study/preparatory phase is the most important aspect of the accreditation process, and the most demanding.

It requires the school community to engage committees in collecting, assembling and analysing data in order to show the degree to which required standards are met. During this phase, the accreditation leaders will have to formally track progress and compile all supporting data in a way that the visiting team can easily access. Respective committees will typically have to complete a summary narrative or fact sheet against key indicators and cross-reference supporting data, draw conclusions, including plans to improve, and once completed, the accreditation leader will have to provide an overall summary of the process.

This phase may take more than one year to complete and will require proactive planning in regard to allocating time for committees to engage in their work.

3. Team Visit

Once the self-study/preparatory phase is completed, it will be submitted to the accrediting organisation to determine if the school is ready for the site visit. It could be the case that further supporting data is required ahead of setting up the visit. Once the self-study is deemed complete, dates for the visit, a visiting team leader, and team members will be shared with the school.

The main purpose of the visit is for the visiting team to verify information submitted through the self-study/preparatory phase in order to validate the process and determine an outcome of the accreditation process.

While not as demanding as the self-study/preparatory phase, the team visit is often the most stressful part of the accreditation process as it feels like the culmination of all the time and effort put into the process, and it feels like a final judgement will be made about the overall quality of the school.

It is important for the accreditation leader, along with the senior leadership team, to be proactive and purposeful in managing this stage to help alleviate the stress that will be present.

The team visit can last up to a week for certain organisations and requires a great deal of logistical support. From hotels, transportation, and food for the visiting team, to ensuring all supporting materials are easily accessible, to arranging the team to have access to all teachers for classroom visits, there are myriad details to coordinate.

It is suggested that a small team be assigned to manage these logistical details and that the team be available throughout the team’s presence on campus.

There are a few common and key elements to the visit as noted here:

• Host a welcome event with key stakeholders.

• Facilitate a tour of the school.

• Provide presentation of visiting team’s workroom.

• Assign meeting rooms for visiting team to meet with stakeholder groups.

• Ensure the Visiting Team has access to all key supporting documents. Some teams may request hard copies.

• Request further data and supporting documents.

The main element of the visit will be the interviews that the visiting team will have with the various committee groups.

Following the team’s visit, they will be charged with writing a summary report outlining the school’s overall preparedness in meeting the standards. Before departing, the team’s leader will typically meet with the senior leadership team and will typically give an oral summary of the visit’s key findings. An official judgement will not be shared, but a general indication may well be shared. For certain organisations, the IB, for example, an oral sharing of findings against each standard will be shared. The final report will be issued some weeks later by the accrediting body.

In terms of the summary report, various organisations have differing summative evaluation categories. It is often the case that the summary findings fall into one of the following broad categories:

• Accreditation is fully granted.

• Accreditation is conditionally granted, with some minor recommendations that must be completed by a given date.

• Accreditation is conditionally granted, with several recommendations (matters to be addressed) that must be completed by a given date. May involve a further visit.

• Accreditation is not granted, with numerous recommendations that must be addressed before another on-site visit to reevaluate.

• Accreditation is not granted, and the process can be undertaken anew, with extensive feedback given.