After a few months off because of the recent coronavirus crisis, we finally had our first meeting regarding the section C of the self-study with the teaching staff. The leadership team (principal and vice-principals) as well as other campuses coordinators were invited, too.
The goal of the meeting was mainly to be introduced to the Section C (curriculum) of the self-study.
First, I quickly reminded the teachers their roles in the evaluation (according to the Guide to programme evaluation):
The teachers
• meet in groups by subject or in the case of the PYP, by grade level, to reflect upon and discuss the collaborative nature of their planning, curriculum writing, pedagogy and assessment methods over the course of the previous five years
• complete the Standard C section of the self-study
• may be observed during a visit. Lessons should be conducted as they normally are.
• meet with the IB team as part of a larger group of same subject or same grade level teachers during the visit.
Then, without having looked at the standards and practices, the teachers thought in teaching pairs about the classroom practices they are very proud of and wrote them down on sticky notes. Then, I had them quickly read the section C of the self-study and we tried to link the sticky notes to the different standards (C1. Collaborative planning; C2. Written curriculum; C3. Teaching and learning; C4: Assessment).
Hopefully, the teachers realized that what they are already doing in their class has relevance in the PYP and the self-study.
However, I realized that most of the teachers didn't think about the standards and practices when they reflected about their own practices, mostly because most of them had never seen them before this meeting, and that I had to do the work of linking what they told me to the practice, afterwards the meeting.
Therefore, in the next meeting, we will have a more detailed look at each standards and practices and make groups to start the process of assessing ourselves and the school.
In the meanwhile, I asked the teachers to get familiar with the documents as we will work with it for ... maybe the rest of the year.
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