Developing a conceptual framework for school review

In 2012, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported on its review of educational assessment and evaluation practices in New Zealand (Nusche, Laveault, MacBeath, & Santiago, 2012). The report highlights the focus on improvement, the high degree of trust in students, teachers and school leaders, the responsiveness to diverse learners and the commitment to evidence-based policy and practice. It also states that, ‘New Zealand has probably gone furthest among countries internationally towards a collaborative school evaluation model’ (p. 95). The overall summary of the New Zealand approach reads as follows:

While there is still room for improvement, such as further resolving the tensions between improvement and accountability and providing more support to schools to enable them to undertake self-review¹ more effectively, the report endorses the approach to school evaluation that New Zealand is taking. This chapter outlines the genesis of the vision to put self-review at the heart of school evaluation, describes the iterative and collaborative process of developing an underpinning theoretical framework and discusses initial responses to this change in direction. The companion chapter is an ‘insider’ perspective on changing the professional culture of school review.