Evaluating your school's contribution to community cohesion
From September 2008 Ofsted will be evaluating a school's contribution to community cohesion as part of the inspection framework.
Ofsted's intentions are outlined in Ofsted News Issue 6, May 2008:
[Inspectors] will need to consider what the school knows about the communities it serves, how it has used that knowledge to promote community cohesion and serve the needs of its users, and how it knows whether its strategy is successful. The inspection judgement will be made within leadership and management and draws on a wide range of evidence, including the pupils' views.
Ofsted's guidance to inspectors re the community cohesion duty can be viewed and downloaded to print here.
A SEF pro forma with revised prompts re community cohesion can be viewed and downloaded to print here.
Self-evaluation
Existing self-evaluation practices can be used for Governors and leadership teams to form judgements about the impact community cohesion activity is having on the school's effectiveness.
The judgement is to be made in section 6b, Leadership and management: how effectively do you promote community cohesion.
The SEF prompts you to consider:
- how effectively do you serve the needs and promote the cohesiveness of the school's community, for example by promoting good relationships between learners from different backgrounds?
- how do you ensure that hard to reach groups engage effectively in the school's community?
- how do you contribute to community cohesion within the community in which the school is located?
- how effective is your contribution to the cohesiveness of the UK community, for example by promoting common identity and values, the appreciation and valuing of diversity, the awareness of human rights, and the skills for participating in society?
- how do you effectively contribute to the cohesiveness of the wider community, through developing learners' understanding of other communities both in Europe and globally?
- how effectively do you deliver the themes of community cohesion, through the quality of your provision; promotion of equity and excellence; and through the engagement of pupils with the school ethos and community?
When evaluating the contribution of the school's activities towards cohesion in your community, you should refer to the characteristics of your school to show that you able to analyse needs and meet those needs effectively.
Although the judgement is made in section 6b, it may be appropriate for your school to refer to and evaluate the contribution to community cohesion in other sections of the SEF. For example:
- section 2b, whether pupils from different backgrounds get on well with each other
- section 3a, learners' progress - including any groups that are achieving particularly wekk or are underachieving eg EAL pupils, Traveller children
- section 4b, whether learners feel safe from bullying, including religious, racial, homophobic incidents
- section 4e, how well do learners make a positive contribution to the community?
- section 5a, how well teaching meets individuals' learning needs, and how well teaching promotes understanding and valuing of people's diversity and equality
- section 5b, the extend to which the curriculum promotes equality of opportunity and helps pupils understand how we can live in a cohesive community, and the opportunities there are for pupils from different backgrounds to interact and work together
- section 5c, action taken to promote equality of opportunity, to ensure that all learners achieve good outcomes
Gathering evidence
- An action plan is not a statutory requirement, but schools might like to include actions taken to promote community cohesion more effectively in their School Improvement Plan and, if you have one, your Single Equalities and Diversity policy action plan.
- Teachernet has developed a six point planning framework based on the TDA School Improvement Framework which focuses on the key stages of:
- Prepare and engage
- Identify objectives
- Develop and prioritise solutions
- Deliver
- Personalisation
- Demonstrate impact
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A number of planning and discussion tools can be found in the different sections of the Community Cohesion area of this website.
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Contact Jane Walker and Gill Finch for further support to gather evidence, plan ahead and evaluate current practice.
