Tips, Tricks, and FAQs
1. How might we best organise the process of gathering evidence?
Accrediting groups will outline their standards clearly and it is suggested that electronic folders are set up according to those standards. Each folder for each standard should then have the same sub-folders for general information relevant for each standard, a folder for the documents that will be completed by the respective team, as well as folders for collection of evidence. This process can then be expanded out for each sub-standard within each standard. For example, the CIS process has four broad ‘drivers’ as seen below, and each one has several sub-elements.
In this example drawn from CIS, Domain A, Purpose & Direction, has six standards. Within Google Drive, for example, the accreditation team leader could set up folders as noted here, continuing for each of the six standards:
→ Domain A: Purpose & Direction → General Information / Instructions
→ A1 → Evaluation of Standard → Evidence
→ A2 → Evaluation of Standard → Evidence
→ A3 → Evaluation of Standard → Evidence
2. How might we get ‘buy in’ from the board, parents, staff and students?
The main purpose of engaging in accreditation is to drive school improvement.
The process is long, demands a great deal of time and energy from the entire school community, and can be expensive.
To be successful, the community must buy into the process and be well involved, as this will generate meaningful results to fuel the improvement that will come. In order to help ensure buy-in, a few tips are:
Bring key stakeholders together at the outset to share the purpose and outline the process. Proactively plan and employ strategies and protocols to allow people to ask clarifying questions. Share from the outset the schedule for preparing and engaging in the process so that stakeholders can see that time has been well allotted.
Empower committee chairs to be independent - don’t have members of the senior leadership team on committees, as possible (some committees will require the presence of senior leadership). Take time, in the beginning, to train the committee chairs in key expectations and protocols for leading their respective sections.
Empower all stakeholders to share their opinions in the data collection phase. To do this, provide surveys in multiple languages, for example, to allow parents or school employees who may not be fluent in English, if the process is predominantly done in English. Make sure that committee chairs set agendas and employ purposeful protocols to solicit information from all committee members in various forms (written and oral).
Allow time during regular school hours for committees to work and prepare their respective sections. Stakeholders will engage more fully and the process will be seen to be valued if it is not something ‘added on’ to long and demanding days.
Provide food and coffee/tea to fuel the conversations when committees meet. While it may seem trite, people connect well over food and drink, and will be valued by the provisions thereof.
3. What are some key tips for organising the team’s visit?
Student Presence - a key focus for many accrediting bodies is to see that within the school students are well empowered in the learning process, as well as being involved in the school in various ways.
Make sure that students are included in as many elements of the team’s visit as possible.
Some ideas are:
Have students lead the school tour.
Have students emcee the opening session in which the visiting team is introduced to the community … making sure to have an opening session in which the visiting team is introduced to the school’s community.
Have students share their work at the opening session with the visiting team.
Include students in as many committees as possible, where appropriate. Be sure to have them present at the interview sessions the visiting team has with the respective committees.
Open Access to School - the visiting team members will be in and out of all parts of the school.
Be sure to provide them with all that is needed to make this as smooth as possible - from keys, to maps, to ensuring that students, teachers, support staff, and any security know who the
Visiting team members are and that they will be throughout the school. This access also relates to the various supporting documents and systems used to house these documents. Be sure that visiting team members have excellent wifi access, as well as access to any and all software systems needed to access key information, for example, Managebac, or Google Drive.
Well Fueled - accreditation visits are demanding on the team members, with days sometimes stretching from 7:00 am through to midnight with the report writing.
Be sure that the team members have easy and plentiful access to food and drinks throughout the day, as well as space in the school to catch their breath.
4. How best to schedule the process of committee work?
One of the most important parts of the accreditation process is getting the respective committees to complete their sections well. Within this part, the collection of supporting evidence is of paramount importance, and can be quite time-consuming. Some schools choose to schedule time in shorter sections over longer periods of time, allocating a monthly faculty meeting over the year for committees to work. While this spreads out the work and allows committees time to work between meetings, there is also the challenge of work becoming fragmented, and with follow through not being as thorough.
Instead of meeting for short periods of time over many weeks or months, it is suggested that substantial periods of time be allocated so that groups can work for extended periods of time.
This will allow for greater concentration on the completion of required elements, and will allow for committees to collect evidence as they complete the self-assessment.
Working for longer, more intense periods of time like this will also help the accreditation leader follow up with work that is not done. If two full professional development days are given to teams to work, for example, then at the end of this time more of the respective sections will likely be done and it will be easier to follow up. One reason for this is that more committee members will be present to complete the work, as these two working days can more easily be protected than 10-12 one-hour sessions spread out over the year.
5. How best to track the completion of committee work?
One simple way to track the completion of the work is to have a document outlining the key steps according to the timeline, with each committee having its required parts outlined. As the dates pass, committee chairs are asked to simply note that the work is done. The document can be shared as part of the general information available to all involved and this not only shows the community the positive progress that is being made but also provides built-in public accountability. It could be something as simple as a table to track progress as noted here:
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