Curriculum for Excellence

Improving through self-evaluation

A photo of two members of staff in discussion at work

Good practice and advice for effective evaluation of learning, teaching and assessment are available in The Journey to Excellence publications and digital resources. The second edition of 'The Child at the Centre' and the third edition of 'How good is our school?' are part of this series. They present a framework of quality indicators which will help staff to work out where their school is in improving its quality and aiming for excellence. The same set of indicators are also used by quality improvement officers and HM Inspectors.

Evaluating the curriculum

'Improving our curriculum though self-evaluation' focuses on using the Quality Indicator: The Curriculum to help schools and centres to evaluate and improve their curriculum.

'Improving our curriculum though self-evaluation' has four themes which staff can use to review and evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum:

  1. The rationale and design of the curriculum
  2. The development of the curriculum
  3. Programmes and courses
  4. Transitions

HMIE website: Improving our curriculum though self-evaluation

PDF icon PDF file: Improving our curriculum though self-evaluation (224KB)

Evaluating outcomes for learners

'Improving outcomes for learners through self-evaluation' provides advice on the application of three Quality Indicators:

  • 1.1 Improvements in performance
  • 2.1 Learners’ experiences
  • 5.3 Meeting learning needs.

It also provides advice on applying Quality Indicator 5.9 Improvement through self-evaluation.

Its purpose is to help staff in schools and pre-school centres to take a closer look at these four Quality Indicators. It has been written for pre-school centres and primary, special and secondary schools.

HMIE website: Improving outcomes for learners through self-evaluation

Related documents

Improving Scottish Education 2005 - 2008

This report from HMIE gives an overview of Scottish education. It provides an update on progress since the previous report in 2006 and identifies issues to be addressed.

The report draws on findings across all sectors of the inspection and review programmes, aspect inspection tasks and HMIE's wider knowledge of the education system as gathered through liaison activities, engagement with research and activities in other inspection contexts