School Report Cards Issued
Academic Achievement, Teaching Approaches, Parent Satisfaction Gauged
During April parents with students at Independent, Ministry of Education and
private Arabic schools can expect to receive individual school report cards from
their child’s school, giving them a broad overview of key academic, pedagogic
and social areas related to the school.
School report cards provide information about 277 schools on a wide range of
issues such as how the school performed on the QCEA, how satisfied parents are
with educational provisions and extra-curricular activities, what approach
teachers take to general instruction and dealing with students who may have
learning difficulties, and whether students enjoy their classes. There is also
basic description of the schools, such as the number of teachers, average class
size and facilities available.
The
main target of the report cards is parents, who are meant
to use the reports as one of the many tools needed to consider which school might be best
for their own child. The main goal is a very
constructive one, which is hopefully to make our schools better and make our
schools more accountable by ensuring parents are more actively and truly
involved,” said Michael Byrne, director of the School Evaluation Office at the
Evaluation Institute.
Mr. Byrne cautions against using the report cards as the definitive word on a
school, or focusing on any one area of the reports, such as how the school’s
students performed on the QCEA relative to students in other schools. It’s not designed to be a report card like a student
report card,” Mr. Byrne said.
Reports have been available on-line since early March. Paper copies are now
being distributed to all Independent, Ministry of Education and private Arabic
schools, a task which has proved to be a major production and logistic
challenge. School principals receive copies of their report for themselves,
their staff and each parent; in addition, schools are sent binder sets
containing copies of all 277 reports. Parents also receive a booklet which
provides some guidance about how to read and better understand the reports;
these booklets are also available on-line. Though printing some 300,000 report
cards is an intimidating task, SEC officials say they are committed to
delivering hard copies since many parents do not yet have easy access to the
Internet.
Report cards
provide data not only about the school, but also comparative
data about public and private schools catering to the same grade
levels.
The sources of information, compiled during the 2004 - 2005 school year, are
multiple: questionnaires completed by parents, students, teachers and
principals; school visits; school records; and QCEA results. Schools will also
receive from the SEC far more information than is contained on the card, in the
form of a school report which is a compendium of more detailed statistical data. School principals can decide what to do with the additional material, such as using it for internal review purposes and / or sharing it with school staff or parents.
While the Evaluation Institute is now
finishing the distribution of paper copies of the school
report cards, it is already collecting the data for the next ones,
which it hopes to distribute towards the end of 2006.
Some aspects of the work on the initial reports were undertaken with the
support of international organizations, but the great majority of it has been
undertaken locally, according to SEC officials.
The next release should be even more relevant, since it will allow parents to
consider a school’s development over time. School
report cards are something that should engage and empower parents enabling them to become more informed about and
involved in schools,” said Mr. Byrne.
