Introduction

What is a good school?

There is much talk about (and progress with) ‘school improvement’. The rhetoric, however, does not always match the reality.

There are ten things that do happen in a good school. These areas are always a 'work in progress' in every school - as all schools, of course, face the challenges of continuous quality improvement and developing truly 21st century learning! There can also be setbacks with some things along with great strides forward in others.

As well, some of these ten things are not done consistently or are longer-term goals due to a lack of time and resources that make it difficult for schools to do everything that they would like to do.

Obvious areas include the costs of new facilities, state-of-the-art technology and the provision of a comprehensive curriculum.

But for a careful, systematic, objective way of assessing a school (to evaluate what it is doing well now and the extent to which it is proactively seeking to shape the future of education), you and your friends may want to use the following ten-part checklist.

Who created this checklist?

Our checklist is the product of hundreds of individuals who shared their knowledge and experience with us. Specifically, it is:

• Informed by the ideas and experiences of many parents and students of diverse backgrounds - and from across the government, independent and Catholic education sectors - who discussed with us the characteristics of a good school
• Based on the views of many principals and teachers who provided us with key criteria for what comprises a good school and also helped us to understand the challenges that all schools face as well as the constraints on what schools can do.

The value for you of this checklist

Why is such a comprehensive ten-part checklist needed?

It is not a quick and simple task to assess a school. It obviously takes time to really 'get to know' a school - to see beyond surface appearances to realities, beyond immediate impressions to future possibilities, beyond assumptions to truths. This challenge is made more difficult by the marketing campaigns of some schools.

This is not to blame schools for doing this (because of competition), but marketing by its very nature obviously has the effect of narrowly focussing parents' attention on some aspects of a good school and obscuring the big challenges facing all schools!

A checklist can thus support you to think more holistically about your child's education as well as assist all school community members to more clearly see all of the many factors that serve to make up a good school. This can also help to look beyond a one-point-in-time snapshot of a school to a school in the making.

Leadership teams, staff committees, school councils and boards, parents and friends groups and SRCs can also use the checklist to identify areas for improvement and monitor progress over time.

Bringing together a wide range of views about a good school, examples of key questions that can be asked to gain information about each of the ten most important areas are as follows.

1. Leadership

Is there a strong sense of really focusing on the future? A clear vision and direction in which the school needs to move toward?

Do the school's leaders convey a strong sense of new beginnings in education? Do they openly and objectively discuss not only the school's achievements but also the challenges - and difficulties - in developing a truly 21st century education for all students?

As a good test of a school's leadership level, are just some students (i.e., a 1950s prefect model of leadership) or are many students of all backgrounds involved in leadership? For example:

• Within the classroom as technology or team leaders
• As peer tutors and mentors or as peer mediators
• As community workers and problem-solvers
• As members of the SRC/JSC and school policy making teams
• As editors and contributors to student publications and wikis
• As sports or performing arts coaches.

Are parents encouraged and supported to play leadership roles in the school? For example, in helping to develop school policies?

2. Shared decision making

How are the principal and leadership team, teachers, parents and students involved in decision-making? Is this really valued?

Does the school's governing body (school council or board) have a high profile? Does the school's newsletter and website promote the work of the council and access to all council members as well as to key documents such as financial reports and minutes?

In essence, is there a high level of transparency and accountability to the school community?

Does the school have a clear plan for the future with shared school-family-community goals?

Does the school publicly display its shared vision and goals in understandable, explicit terms everywhere (e.g., on its website and posters on classroom walls)?

3. Management, Values and Behaviour

Does the school seem to be well-managed? Are school events well-organised?

Do key school leaders have good people management skills?

Is there genuine warmth between students and teachers? Is the school a safe, respectful place?

Is there a well-publicised policy about values, behaviour and relationships? Does it apply to all school community members? How is the success or otherwise of the policy monitored?

Are conflicts and complaints managed well? Is a process for handling any concerns or complaints made clear in a leaflet?

4. Teaching and learning

Do school documents and the school's leaders convey a strong sense of continuous improvement and innovation in teaching and learning? Is this communicated well to parents and students?

Are there positive, open and collaborative relationships between teachers and students?

How does the school assist all students to have powerful learning experiences such as an optimum mix of both academic and applied/practical learning in classroom and community settings? Is the school thinking about this major educational challenge?

Does the school have a shared policy framework for powerful or high-quality learning?

Does the school really cater for a student’s individual interests, differences and needs?

Is there really ‘personalised learning’ that does not shoehorn students into the old pigeon-holes (such as 'academic' and 'vocational' learning, high and low achievement, etc.)?

5. Curriculum

Is there a balanced, comprehensive curriculum which values all aspects of education - academic, vocational, physical and social?

For a secondary school, what is the curriculum range? It may be:

• Very broad - 49 or more Year 12 studies
• Broad - 41 to 49 studies
• Average - 24 to 41 studies
• Selective - up to 24 studies.

What co-curricular activities are available? These may include:

• Excursions, trips and camps
• Voluntary community work and work experience
• Student action teams
• Sister schools overseas.

Does the school provide clear guidelines about the curriculum as a whole and the expectations for students at each year level?

Does the curriculum provide plentiful opportunities for students to seamlessly combine academic concepts, theories and principles with applied learning and real world community problem solving?

Or is the school yet to move beyond the old academic-applied learning divide (a legacy of the 1950s and earlier) that constrains achievement for many, if not most, students?

6. Technology

What is the level of school and classroom use of information and communication technology?

Does the school have a technology plan based on the ideas of the school community and uniting teachers, parents and students?

How well are technologies (e.g., students co-creating wikis) used to build the home-school educational partnership?

Are e-mail and other technologies used to facilitate fast, effective communication between teachers and families? To let parents know immediately when students are absent, to offer tips on learning and to provide other information?

7. Communication and dialogue

What are the specific kinds of content-rich, two-way communication between the school and families?

Is there a plan for school communication?

Does the school's website enable students, parents and staff to access lesson plans, reports on student progress and homework?

Are parents informed at the beginning of the year about what ground will be covered in subjects and what the expectations are with student attendance, homework and participation?  

Does the school use homework diaries that are seen and signed by parents and teachers?

Is telephone contact with individual teachers accepted as a normal occurrence?

When was the last time the school held a forum in which teachers, parents and students were involved in co-developing school values or exploring key questions such as:

• In examining the future of learning, what fundamental problems are we trying to solve?
• What does learning of the future and what does schooling of the future look and sound like?

8. Diversity, Partnerships and Community

Is the school a melting pot of different races, cultures, religions and social class backgrounds? How is this celebrated and promoted? How are positive, respectful relations among students supported?

Will your child thus have a personal life story of mixing broadly with students from diverse social, cultural and religious backgrounds! Or is the school not representative of the broader community?

Does the school have really strong teams and partnerships? Is it part of a cluster of primary and secondary schools (to develop a P-12 model of schooling)?

Does it have strong links with a kindergarten and a college or university? With local government or external agencies such as health services?

Is the school an integral part of the local community? Do students take part in a variety of activities including after school community-based sports and other local community activities?

Is it involved in local community renewal (e.g., in replanting local areas and promoting biodiversity)?

Are students able to walk and bike to and from school? Or do students need to be driven to a school away from their local community (harming the environment due to increased car use and student health outcomes due to decreased physical activity)?

9. Performance and value-adding

How is the school’s performance monitored and evaluated? How is this communicated to the school community?

How are families able to readily access to up-to-date records of student performance? Is clear and informative feedback routinely provided to students?

Is the school adding educational value to student achievement beyond that which may be predicted given the social class backgrounds and prior attainments of students?

What is the evidence for this? Or is the school largely dependent on seeking to attract the most ‘desirable’ students as the main strategy to boost its results?

A school performance data system should include student outcome data, opinion data and demographic data that take into account the impact of student background through ‘like-school’ assessments. Such assessments can help to reveal the real added value.

10. Facilities and resources

Are the buildings modern and well-maintained? Are the grounds neat and safe?

Is there a good mix of large and small spaces for learning? Are there facilities for music, sport, technology, art and science?

Does the school feel warm and inviting, with student displays and obvious signs of student participation?

Conclusion

These ten areas all obviously interrelate and depend upon one another. This is what creates a good school over time.

This also means that a good school has a shared framework so as to plan for real educational change and improvement.