School Review

8. Advice for small schools

Matching of reviewers

The School Review Unit will match schools to a reviewer with expertise in working with schools with 200 enrolments or fewer.

Professional learning

In addition to the briefings available to all schools, schools with 200 enrolments or fewer can access a pre-review self-evaluation (PRSE) workshop tailored to needs of smaller schools.

A special half-hour pre-review briefing is also offered to schools with 30 enrolments or fewer in the term prior to the scheduled review. The School Review Unit will contact principals to arrange a suitable time.

Further information on professional learning is available in the Preparing for a school review guidance chapter.

Time release to participate in school review activities

Schools with up to 100 enrolments are eligible to claim reimbursement for up to 2 days of casual relief teacher (CRT) coverage to support completion of the PRSE and/or participation in review days.

Schools submit reimbursement requests through the Schools Targeted Funding Portal after the review is completed. Further information on claiming the reimbursement is provided to schools before the review begins.

For more information refer to the Schools Targeted Funding Portal.

For a quick guide on how to use the portal, refer to Submitting a reimbursement request (PDF).

Cluster reviews

Schools may express interest in a cluster review, which involves undertaking a review together with one or more local and/or similar schools.

The principal, in partnership with the senior education improvement leader (SEIL) and reviewer, can agree what activities will be shared or separated. For example, schools may have joint fieldwork but separate panel meetings. If desired, the cluster schools can develop common key directions for the next School Strategic Plan (SSP).

Annex or hub schools that have a shared SSP can combine their school reviews, sharing review days and the review report.

If schools are interested in a cluster review, this can be discussed with their SEIL, who will follow-up with the School Review Unit to coordinate.

Advice on the use of data for smaller schools

Data coaches will proactively contact schools with 200 enrolments or fewer to offer support, including to measure achievement against the previous SSP, identify other outcome measures or help set target levels for the new SSP. If further support is needed or your school has not been contacted, contact the Data coach hotline on 03 7022 0366 or School.Performance.Data@education.vic.gov.au

Use 3-year aggregated data sets

When using data with cohorts of fewer than 100 students, using a 3-year aggregated data set will be more robust than a single year of data. It is recommended that when setting new targets, the baseline is calculated on the mean over 3 years, rather than a single year of data.

When setting a new 3-year baseline, review panels should calculate the mean of the percentages of each year, rather than calculating a mean of the total number of students over the 3 years.

Similarly, when evaluating the achievement of targets, it is recommended to use the mean over 3 years, rather than a single year of data.

Use existing locally generated data sets

Existing locally generated data sources can be useful and reliable sources of information for evaluating school improvement across all school contexts. In small schools, the use of local data supports in depth analysis and discussion of student outcomes. Small schools are not required to collect additional data as part of the school review process, rather a focus should be placed on existing data sources.

In addition to data captured through fieldwork, focus groups and interviews, school review panels may examine other existing local data, including:

• professional conversations and reflections from the teacher and/or principal
• individual student work/artefacts
• records of observational data, such as classroom observations
• teacher assessment records, such as formative and summative assessment rubrics
• classroom management data recorded on the learning management system (LMS)
• locally developed surveys and community feedback, such as parent letters/emails or teacher notes from parent-teacher interviews
• progress reporting results (if available) or report comments.

Review panels can use locally generated data to:

• evaluate progress towards goals – for example, the goal ‘improve student numeracy outcomes’ could be verified through analysis of a representative sample of student work across the strategic plan period, analysis of teacher feedback on student work, progress reporting or report comments
• evaluate and diagnose areas of strength and growth – for example, to identify strengths and areas for growth, review panels may utilise the observational data gathered through fieldwork and feedback from student focus groups alongside wellbeing data in the LMS and records of parent feedback
• set targets – when access to data sets is not available due to low cohort numbers, review panels could identify an existing data set from a schools’ systems and processes like the learning management system, observation notes and protocols, or Individual Education Plans (IEPs).

Additional advice on target setting for schools with 100 enrolments or fewer

Victorian Curriculum Teacher Judgements

The review panel may wish to consider setting benchmarks and targets that are aggregated within a domain, such as aggregating the mean of the 3 modes of English or aggregating the mean of the 3 strands of Mathematics.

VCE Scores

An adjusted VCE Study Score will only be produced if there are more than 5 students enrolled per subject. Where an adjusted VCE Study Score is not produced, the school review panel may wish to consider using the mean of all VCE Study Scores and/or VCE English.

Department of Education perception surveys (AToSS, SSS, POS)

Where there are less than 6 respondents to the Attitudes to School Survey (AToSS), and less than 4 respondents to the School Staff Survey (SSS) or Parent Opinion Survey (POS), data is not supplied to schools. Schools may choose to assess community perceptions through other existing means of feedback such as parent teacher interviews, local surveys and data, feedback received via email/phone/in-person or based on observational data from key staff.

Attendance (average absence rate)

Absence data is scalable – it applies to each student in the same way it applies to smaller or larger groups of students. School review panels for small schools may wish to set targets for the percentage of students with absence rates >20 days and <20 days, or <10 days, depending on the school’s starting point.

Schools who have experienced fluctuations in their attendance data over the past 3 years may choose to set attendance targets that excludes the impact of COVID-19, such as unapproved absences or non-medical absences.

Additional advice on target setting for schools with 30 enrolments or fewer

In addition to the general advice and advice for schools with 100 enrolments or fewer above, the guidance below applies to schools with 30 enrolments or fewer, who may find that their year-level cohorts are too small for the modifications above and require additional differentiation to develop meaningful targets and measure impact.

Take an adjusted approach to target setting using ‘target stems’

The review panel may recommend that schools with 30 enrolments or fewer set ‘target stems’ in their SSP, and ‘complete the stem’ through the 12-month targets in the Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) based on the different cohorts they have each year.

Monitor student achievement and growth against individual goals

The school review panel may wish to develop targets that monitor the growth of students against individual goals, rather than by cohort achievement on standardised measure.

For further advice or support please contact the School Planning and Annual Reporting Unit at Improvement.Support@education.vic.gov.au