EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

THE OBSERVATORY OF QUALITY A Handbook on how to set up an observatory of quality in school

ANNEX 1: THE EQUAL PROJECT

Escola Profissional de Desenvolvimento Rural de Serpa SERPA, PORTUGAL

Marielundsgymnasiet NORRKOPING, SWEDEN

Istituto Tecnico per Geometri e Liceo Tecnico “Alessio Tramello” - PIACENZA, ITALY

Roc Friese Poort LEEUWARDEN, THE NETHERLANDS

EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

Table of Contents 1

THE PARTNERSHIP

2

2

THE PROJECT

4

3

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

5

3.1

Project’s aims

5

3.2

Impact expected

5

3.3

Activities

5

3.3.1

First year

5

3.3.2

Second Year

6

3.3.3

Third Year

6

4

ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT

5

THE FINAL PRODUCT

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EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

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THE PARTNERSHIP CO – ORDINATOR

ESCOLA PROFISSIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO DE SERPA (VOCATIONAL SCHOOL FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT OF SERPA) Herdade da Bemposta, Apartado 26 7830 Serpa - Portugal Address: + 351 284 540 440 Phone: + 351 284 540 449 Fax: [email protected] E-mail: www.epdrs.pt Website: Luís de Matos Barradas Principal: Contact person: João Pereira Santos / [email protected]

PARTNERS MARIELUNDSGYMNASIET Stockholmsvagen 35 602 17 Norrkoping - Sweden Address: + 46 11 15 33 94 Phone: + 46 11 18 60 22 Fax: [email protected] E-mail: http://edu.norrkoping.se/marielund/ Website: Lars Blomgren Principal: Contact person: Nelson Santa Eufémia ISTITUTO TECNICO COMMERCIALE E PER GEOMETRI “ALESSIO TRAMELLO” (COMMERCIAL AND TOPOGRAPHY TECHNICAL SCHOOL “ALESSIO TRAMELLO”) Via Mattei, 33 29 100 Piacenza - Italy Address: + 39 0523 454050 Phone: + 39 0523 454030 Fax: [email protected] E-mail: www.tramello.it Website: Franco Balestra Principal: Contact person: Marco Affaticati / [email protected] ROC FRIESE POORT (REGIONAL EDUCATION CENTER FRIESE POORT) Wilaarderburen 1 8924 JK Leeuwarden - Netherlands Address: + 31 58 265 5200 Phone: + 31 58 265 5220 Fax: [email protected] E-mail: www.friesepoort.nl Website: Dean Postma Principal: Contact person: Jan Arends / [email protected]

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EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

PARTNERS Address: Phone: Fax: E-mail: Website: Principal: Contact person:

RIGAS MEZAPARKA VIDUSSKOLA Inculkalna iela 2 LV – 1014 Riga - Latvia + 371 7 51 86 16 + 371 7 51 81 65 [email protected] http://www.rsdc.lv/rmvsk/ Arija Priplonska Vera Muhina

This school was part of the partnership only during the school year 2002 – 2003 (1st year of the Project)

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EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

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THE PROJECT

Schools are, probably, the institutions in which it is more difficult to measure quality and also to define it. Usually, the school’s quality is measured in a simple and incomplete way, considering the success/failure levels of the students. But the school’s quality is larger than that: it has to do with the way that, everyday, hundreds of people work in a certain space, during several years of their lives. This project aims to, within the universe that comprehends partnership, find the quality criteria. What is the meaning of quality for the school’s users; what do they expect from it and what is legitimate to expect from it and, ultimately, how can one reach quality in school. Being school the working place of so many people, it is proper to consider that its quality depends on the quality of each individual, including its students, in the way that each person plays his/her role. It also depends on the way people fit in and feel within it. Based on a reflexion focussed on several schools and shared by all partners involved, we intend to mobilize the school’s community in the search for quality. The definition of the quality’s criteria will be the first step and, by doing that, a Quality Observatory will be created. This Observatory, through self-evaluation systems, may help each individual to find its right belonging within the school’s environment. If people learn how to be professional then school will be a better place for all of us.

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EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

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OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

3.1 • • • • • • • •

Project’s aims

To increase the schools’ quality as educational institutions; To improve the levels of teachers, students and other workers; To develop the schools’ organization and culture; To stimulate the cooperation and the European communication in the educational domain; To know the different European educational realities in what regards the schools’ organization and management; To develop the participants’ linguistic competences; To stimulate the use of information and communication technologies; To promote the educational and school success.

3.2

Impact expected

We expect that, through this project, schools may raise their efficiency as educational institutions, that teachers, students and other staff improve their performance by playing an active role in the development of the educational project of the school they work for. 3.3

Activities

3.3.1 First year The project’s first year was dedicated to the discussion of quality in education. Each school tried to identify the meaning of this expression for students, teachers, staff and parents. There was a study done concerning the quality indicators. Beginning with a list of 50 quality indicators for schools, based on the opinion of experts in educational investigation, some other indicators were added, which had been considered relevant for one or more schools. After this final list, each partner school chose, once more after having heard the opinion of students, teachers, staff and parents, the quality indicators which were most significant to their reality and their educational project. A logotype and an Internet site were created and developed for the project, lodged on the sites of each of the schools involved in the project, and a leaflet for the project’s dissemination was designed. • •

November 2002: Project Meeting in Norrkoping, Sweden; May 2003: Project Meeting, Piacenza, Italy.

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EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

3.3.2 Second Year The project’s second year was dedicated to developing the quality indicators. After each school had identified its most important quality indicators, the results were compared and confronted, thus creating one only list, summing up the relative importance of each of the indicators in the whole of the four schools participating in the project. After the 16 most significant indicators had been chosen, descriptive files were developed for each of them, based on descriptors, which had been previously identified by the four schools. The project’s Internet site was updated, and a new dissemination leaflet was designed, referring to the activities which had been developed during the year. • •

November 2003: Project Meeting in Serpa, Portugal; May 2004: Project Meeting in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, with participation of students.

3.3.3 Third Year The project’s third year was dedicated to conceiving the tools of information gathering for each of the indicators. The several tools, which can be found in this manual, were designed and tested. The project’s Internet site was updated for its final version, and this manual was produced. • •

December 2004: Project Meeting in Piacenza, Italy, with participation of students. May 2005: Project Meeting in Serpa, Portugal, with participation of students.

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ORGANIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT

As we have seen before, this project started by, within the universe of this partnership, finding the quality criterion. What is the quality of the school for its different users; what does each one expect and what is legitimate to expect from the school; how can the quality in School be obtained. Thus, during the project’s first year, the activities were planned as follows: • • • •

The quality criterion: What is the quality in schools? How can the quality in schools be obtained? What role does each person play in obtaining the quality in schools? Opinion survey and gathering (questionnaires, inquiries, discussion groups); Investigation based on texts and literature; Creation of a website, through which the work can be consulted and the partners can communicate.

In the beginning of the school year, in each school there was a team nominated for the development of the project. This team began by researching and gathering information on the project’s subject, in order to prepare for its development and for the first project meeting. A framing document was produced (see annex 2), on the subject of quality in schools, which was distributed and analysed by all partners during the first meeting in Norrkoping, in December 2002, and which was the basis for the work to be done afterwords, with the following approach: 1. There was a list of quality indicators for the school created, based on the suggestions of experts, and with the contributions of the project’s partners; 2. Based on this list, a questionnaire was created (see annex 2), which was then given to the schools’ different users (teachers, students, non teaching staff and parents); 3. In this questionnaire, the school’s users were asked to evaluate the quality parametres present in the document, on a scale from 1 to 5, according to the importance each of them attributed to them; 4. The questionnaire also contained an open question, where each person was invited to present his/her notion of quality; 5. Each school could decide on whether to apply the questionnaire to the whole of its public, or only to a sample; 6. Each school organized a dossier with the presentation of this work (descriptive text and statistical analysis), which was presented during the second project meeting.

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EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

The results of the questionnaires were analysed in each school and presented during the second project meeting, in May 2003 in Piacenza, still during the first year. There was a comparison made between the results of the different schools, according to the characteristics of each of them and of each of the national educational systems, which lead teachers, students, staff and parents into, naturally, valuing one or the other issue concerning the quality of schools. During the project’s first year the Italian partner designed the project’s logotype, and the project’s co-ordinator designed its Internet site. The project’s second year was naturally the continuation of the work done during the previous year, with the focus essentially on the quality indicators. Thus, after each school had identified its quality indicators, the work was developed in the following steps: 1. The indicators, which were common to the different partner schools, were identified: during the first Project meeting, in November 2003, in Serpa, each of the schools presented its most significant quality indicators; 2. The indicators, on which the partners would work, were negotiated and defined, since they should not only reflect the whole of the involved schools, but also the most important of each one of them. 16 indicators were selected (as presented in the first part of this manual); 3. The chosen indicators were divided over the partner schools. Since the partnership consists of 4 schools, each school worked on 4 indicators; 4. During the time between the two project meetings each school found the descriptors of each of the indicators. This step was fundamental in order to be certain that each institution was talking of the same thing concerning each of the indicators since, as was said before, the reference universes differ considerably between the several schools and their educational systems. Therefore, this was a very sensitive issue, which required a hard negotiation process and extensive contacts. 5. During the second meeting of the project’s second year, in May 2004 in Leeauwarden, the descriptors were presented (see annex 2) and agreed upon amongst all partners. 6. During the same meeting the partners identified and agreed on the tools for information gathering to be created, to obtain the information necessary for each indicator, according to the identified descriptors.

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EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

The project’s third year was essentially dedicated to the tools for information gathering for each of the indicators. After the second meeting of the project’s second year each school began to prepare, within its work group, the tools for information gathering necessary for each indicator. Let us remember that the necessary information was determined by the already mentioned previous survey of descriptors. The first meeting of the project’s third year was held in Piacenza, in December 2004. There, each school presented the developed tools, and the strategy for the year was defined: 1. The tools for information gathering were presented and discussed. Small, punctual corrections were made; 2. The partners established the way of doing the testing. They established that each school would test two indicators: one common to all, which is the indicator “Level of satisfaction” and another indicator, at each school’s choice; 3. Each school should elaborate a report on the testing of its indicators, to be presented during the project’s last meeting. There were also decisions taken regarding the project’s final product, this manual, and which are explained in the next point. During the second meeting of the project’s third year (final meeting) in Serpa, in May 2005, the test results were presented. After this stage, the project came to an end, with the publication of this manual, which contains all the produced material. All the project activities were planned and evaluated by all partners together, during the project meetings. As a matter of fact, the cooperation and the sharing of knowledge were a fundamental principle during the development of the project, as well as was the flexibility to find the best solutions for each situation, since the cultural differences and the differences in the school organization of the partner countries are significant. In a project of this kind, related to the educational sciences and to pedagogic management, these differences and similarities can be relevant and difficult to resolve, because sometimes the institutionalized concepts and practices are, in fact, very different.

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EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

Thus, dialogue and an approach centered on the project’s interest were always priviledged. This interest always reflected the common interest and the maximum common denominator among the four partners. In other words, the experience and the individual knowledge of each of the institutions were used towards a common purpose, the construction of a quality observatory, which also reflects a common interest of the project, above the interest of each of the involved parts. To communicate, the partners had periodic contacts with each other, in order to keep informed about the project’s development. The priviledged contact language was English. The tasks were identical for all, having in mind the vocation and the possibilities of each participating school. The project’s co-ordinator was in charge of the construction and the maintenance of the project’s Internet site, as well as the conception of the leaflets (see annex 2). The co-ordinator was also responsible for the organization of the contacts on a regular basis, and the monitoring of the project’s development. The Italian partner was responsible for the creation of the project’s logotype and for the organization of this manual, as the project’s final product.

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EQUAL Experiencing Quality Socrates Programme – Comenius 1 – School Development Project

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THE FINAL PRODUCT

There are three final products of this project: the Internet site, the annual leaflets, and the manual. The project’s site is lodged on each of the school’s Internet site, with direct access through the project’s logotype. It was managed by the co-ordinator, who sent each of the updates to the partners. The site is bilingual, in English and in each country’s national language. It consists of the following sections: presentation of the project; description of the project; picture gallery; events; final products; contacts. Through the project’s site it is possible to access the sites of each of the schools in the partnership. The leaflets (see annex 2) are also bilingual (English and the national language) and were published at the end of each of the project’s years. Each partner was responsible for their duplication and distribution. The structure and contents are the same for all. Each of them presents the project and the work done during the year in question, drawing attention to the most relevant facts. This manual is the project’s main final product, and does not only reflect the several stages of the project’s development, but mainly the study done of the project’s subject, as well as all developed materials. It was designed by the partnership and all partners took active part in its contents, which were organized by the Italian partner. Although the manual is published on CD-ROM, it can also be printed.

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