ABSTRACT
Self evaluation: schools speaking for themselves In 1986 the publication of Home from School had caught the attention of Tory Minister Michael Forsyth who contacted HMCI Archie McGlynn at the Scottish Office and asked him to get in touch with the author with a brief to update the report. While the resulting publication, Home from School: its current relevance 9 was not to become a major best seller, it laid the foundations for deeper inquiry into the school effect, addressing the perennial questions – ‘What makes a good school?’, ‘Who knows?’ and ‘How do they know?’ These were the framing questions for a national survey of parental expectations, emanating in a series of four publications in 1990 entitled Talking about Schools . 10
These publications, which identified perceptions and expectations of ‘good schools’, illustrated just how much could be learned from tuning in to the voices of the key investors – parents – with a right to expect schools to repay their trust and goodwill. Documenting the range of expectations as well as a common core of concerns was the catalyst for further exploration and policy implication. To what extent could criteria for school self evaluation be built from the bottom up, from the perspectives of the key stakeholders?
