Policy and practice: including parents and students in school self-evaluation

Abstract

As with school self-evaluation in most European countries, the Irish education system now promotes the involvement and inclusion of stakeholders such as parents and students in the evaluation process. Yet, in the Irish context, there is limited research exploring the role of these stakeholders in this internal mode of school evaluation. To address this lacuna, this research draws on a national survey of post-primary school principals and interviews conducted with 109 stakeholders now placed at the centre of the evaluation process: school staff, parents and students. While there are some optimistic indications in the data, this research highlights that only slight progress has been made in terms of including parents and students in school self-evaluation in Ireland. The data presented in this paper corroborate that many age-old obstacles in the Irish context still exist and continue to dominate. Ultimately, this research concludes that changes in policy do not necessarily produce changes in practice.

Keywords:

• school self-evaluation
• student voice
• parent voice
• decision-making

Notes on contributors

Martin Brown, work at EQI, The Centre for Evaluation Quality and Inspection, School of Policy and Practice, DCU Institute of Education.

Gerry McNamara, work at EQI, The Centre for Evaluation Quality and Inspection, School of Policy and Practice, DCU Institute of Education.

Shivaun O'Brien work at EQI, The Centre for Evaluation Quality and Inspection, School of Policy and Practice, DCU Institute of Education.

Craig Skerritt is Policy and International Programmes Manager at the Royal Irish Academy and the School of Policy and Practice, Doctoral research scholarship recipient at DCU Institute of Education.

Joe O'Hara, work at EQI, The Centre for Evaluation Quality and Inspection, School of Policy and Practice, DCU Institute of Education.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported with funding from the European Commission [grand number: 2017-1-IE01-KA201-025693].