The Journey to Excellence: Using Part 4 – Planning for Excellence

Planning for excellence, Part 4 of the HMIE resource How good is our school? – The Journey to Excellence, builds on previous advice about planning for improvement.

It shows how the whole school community can use the dimensions of excellence in Part 1 Aiming for Excellence and Part 2 Exploring Excellence, alongside the quality indicators in Part 3 How good are we now? and The child at the centre to decide what the school is aiming for and how it is going to get there.

Planning for excellence takes improvement planning to the next level. Schools are used to asking the question, “How good is our school?” Scottish schools are now ready to ask three further questions:

• How good can we be?

• How do we get there?

• What have we achieved?

The aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the links between school planning and planning in other contexts and to consider how planning for excellence brings about improved outcomes for children and young people.

Elisabeth Ritchie, HM Assistant Chief Inspector, has overall responsibility for additional support needs, inclusion, inspections of secondary and special schools and the development of the five-part The Journey to Excellence project. 

She joined HMIE in 1998 and has been responsible for a range of different projects including international links; evaluation and improvement of HMIE's work; oversight of the How good is our school series of self-evaluation guides; and work on frameworks of quality indicators for different sectors of the education system.  She was appointed HM Assistant Chief Inspector in 2004. 

Elisabeth started her education career teaching English and became English Adviser for Grampian Regional Council and then Secondary Adviser and Education Officer for Aberdeen City Council.

Michael Wood, HM Inspector, leads the team responsible for the development of the digital resource The Journey to Excellence. 

He joined HMIE in 1997 and has been responsible for aspects of HMIE's work relating to primary education, HMIE evaluation and improvement and development of quality indicators for schools.

He became HM District Inspector in 2006.  Before Michael joined HMIE, he was a primary headteacher.

Sally Fulton, National Development Officer, has been seconded to HMIE and Learning and Teaching Scotland to support The Journey to Excellence development.

Sally works with education authorities, schools and early years centres in promoting and supporting the use of the five-part resource, and demonstrating its relationship with the Curriculum for Excellence and other national programmes. Sally's substantive post is Education Officer for Stirling Council. 

Before joining Stirling Council Sally was a primary headteacher.  Sally has also been an Associate Assessor with HMIe for over five years. The Journey to Excellence team will deliver these seminars in collaboration with staff from schools.