Adhyayan has been working quite closely with Shishuvan in Mumbai to re-examine the school’s systems in the light of key performance areas. Having engaged with various stakeholders in the school over the span of a year, we identified the key issues that required attention and worked out a School Improvement Plan to address these. All of this was done using the School Self Review and Evaluation (SSRE) tool created by Adhyayan.
In the area of Leadership and Management, the key priority was to increase the visible effectiveness of school leadership by ensuring learning walks and classroom observations to be undertaken by Heads of Department, the Principal and the Director.
In the area of Teaching and Learning, the focus this year was on improving the procedures used by teachers, particularly a variety of playway methods to achieve holistic development of children. The action plan for this included staff training programmes, workshops on Shishuvan pedagogy, regular feedback on lessons observed, and peer learning among teachers.
In the area of Curriculum, the key priority was to provide well for English teaching in the school through an English language curriculum including clear outcomes and reading lists for each grade in order to ensure continuity across the school. This was achieved by roping in the entire English department to work on a bank of activities to develop listening, speaking, reading and writing. In addition, the Empowering English Course has been made mandatory for all new teachers to maintain a high level of language proficiency among teachers, which will get reflected in the quality of their teaching as well.
Neha Chheda, the Principal of Shishuvan, says, “The SSRE tool has helped us streamline all our work and has given us a sense of direction. It has offered us a structured, scientific way of looking at our systems. The best thing is that SSRE is a really hands-on process. It is not like an inspection where you sit in an office and fill out forms. The Learning Walk has made a big difference. The senior administrative team of our school learnt how a walk of just 15 minutes can tell a lot about how things are going on. This is very important since we want to sustain the level of our school and also improve its quality.”