大咖继续陪聊国际学校认证（二）All About Accreditation

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这是“我们只谈K12"第二十三篇原创文章，欢迎转发分享，未经公众号授权请勿转载。

这篇是接之前John聊国际学校认证的姐妹篇，主要针对学校为准备通过认证而进行的可长达一年的self study（自我学习，也有人称其为“自我审查”）过程。上次的文章点击此处《大咖陪你聊国际学校认证那些事儿 All About Accreditation (Bilingual Version)》可阅读。关于John的多重身份，读者自行脑补上篇文章即可。‍

文章 John Royce / 翻译 龚琴 (Helen)

一、自我学习简介

Once the preliminary visit gives the go-ahead, the school begins a period of self-study. For most schools, this is by far the most important and valuable part of the whole process. Members of the school community, mostly teachers and administrators but often with parents and members of the governing board serving as well, serve on committees which look into the aspects of the school which the visiting team will report on.

最初始的学校参观结束后，学校就会开始一段时间的自我学习。对于大多数学校来说，这是整个认证过程中最为重要及宝贵的一环。学校社区的各个成员，大多数为老师及学校管理者，通常还加上学生家长及学校董事会成员，组成各种委员会，对认证团队报告中涉及的各方面进行深入考察。

二、涉及方面

Mini-committees look into these aspects of school life, and each committee produces a self-study report which includes observations of what is in place, supported by evidence to confirm that it is, an assessment of how well they meet the indicators for each standard which applies to their committee, a report on what each committee thinks is particularly good and recommendations for improvement where the committee feels that the school is not as good as it might be. The section committees report on: 

School Guiding Statements

Teaching and Learning (Individual subjects)

Teaching and Learning (Horizontal)

Teaching and Learning (Vertical)

Governance & Leadership

Faculty & Support Staff

Access to teaching/ learning

School Culture

Operational Systems.

各小型委员小组考察的同时，需出具一份俗称“自我学习”的报告，包括哪些已完成的方面，并为其提供证据支持。这份报告可以称之为一次自我测评，针对每项标准，对自身完成好坏给予评判。各委员小组在报告中需指出自身做的特别好的方面及觉得学校做的可能不那么好并需要改进的方面。各委员会需要对下述指定方面进行报告阐述：

学校指导性语句(通常包括学校使命宣言，办学理念，愿景等)

教与学（各学科）

教与学（横向的）

教与学（纵向的）

治理与领导

教职员工与支持人员

教与学获取方式/渠道

学校文化

运行系统

In addition, schools must conduct a standardised international opinion survey in which all members of the school community, teachers, students, support staff, administration, the governing body, parents, and sometimes school alumni too, give their ratings of aspects of school life and education with regard to each of these areas.

除此之外，学校还需要进行一次标准化的国际民意测验，这涉及到学校社区所有成员，教师，学生，支持人员，管理者，董事会，家长，有时甚至会包括以前的校友。所有人员需要对刚才提及的学校生活及教育各方面给出自己的打分。

The school is also asked to provide Strategies for Improvement，which address what it feels are the most pressing and needed recommendations for improvement made by the committees and/or coming out of the opinion surveys.

另外，根据各委员会和（或）根据民意调查结果提出需要改进的方面，学校需要据此对那些觉得迫切需要改进的问题提出相应解决策略。

三、委员会小组成员选取

In my experience, the best self-studies are produced by committees whose members include those with inside interest and knowledge of the area investigated and also those with no direct involvement in that aspect of school life. The latter group often ask pertinent questions which demand consideration. Those who working more directly and everyday with aspects of school life are sometimes too close to what they are doing to question why they are doing these things, and it takes an outsider to make the insider step back and consider – or reconsider. Conversely, outsiders are often enlightened as to why things are done the way they are done; there is realisation of the constraints which may hinder a desire more efficient or effective processes.

就我个人经验而言，我觉得委员会小组要想达到最好的自我学习效果，各小组成员的挑选就显得尤为重要。成员应该包括那些对该方面有兴趣的，对涉及的方面比较了解的，但是在日常工作中又没有直接涉及该方面的最为合适。这些成员通常能提出一些让人值得思考的相关问题。而恰恰是那些每天直接参与到学校各个方面的成员则有时无法提出类似的相关问题，症结在于他们与这些方面接触太过密切，以致于有时不会去质疑他们为什么要做这些事情。此时，圈外人就能帮助这些内行人退一步来思考，或重新思考。反过来，圈外人也通常会因此受到启发或恍然大悟：“喔，为什么原来事情会以这样的方式进行！”他们同时也会对很多阻碍工作效率的因素报以理解。

四、自我学习意义所在

The self-study process can take a year to complete. Many schools do not wait until the full report is put together, ready to be sent to the visiting team. They recognise areas in which improvement needs to be and can be made and start doing something about it long before the visiting team arrives. It is often the case that, by the time of the visit, many issues have already been addressed and resolved, or are in process of resolution. The school does not wait for the visiting team to confirm the problem and to recommend its resolution.

自我学习过程可以长达一年，许多学校并不会等到完整的报告全部完成，并呈交给认证团队后才开始行动。通常在认证团队到达之前，学校就会对自身已经意识到的需要改进的方面以及可以改进的方面采取行动，这样当认证团队到达后，许多报告中提及的问题已经得到解决或正在解决中。学校并不会，也无需等到认证团队确认这些问题的存在并提供解决方案。

The self-study forces a school to look at itself in ways which may not be possible in the normal hurly-burly of everyday schooling.  Recommendations made by self-study committees force improvement; they do not have to wait for the outsiders to come in and make the same recommendations. There is ownership and internal recognition of the problems. This is one of the reasons why the self-study process is so valuable.

自我学习迫使学校以一种通常在忙碌的日常教学环境中无法达到的方式去看待自身。自我学习组成的委员小组会提出改进建议，这就促使学校主动进步。正如前所说，他们无需等待外部人员进来，然后提出类似的建议。这让学校有了更多的自主权，也是对学校某些问题展开的一次内部认知，这也是为什么自我学习过程如此宝贵的最根本原因所在。

The report is normally finished about two months before the visit is scheduled to take place. The team is provided with the report and investigates the same areas. While there is usually agreement with the school’s ratings of itself, the visitors will sometimes think that the school has rated itself too high, and sometimes too low.  It is often the case that, since the low rating was given, the school or department has addressed the issue so that the team can legitimately raise the rating.

自我学习报告通常在认证团队到达两个月前完成。认证团队收到报告后，会对各个方面进行调查。虽然通常认证团队会对学校的自我评估及打分表示认同，但有时也会出现学校对自身要么评分过高或过低的情况。对于后者评分过低的现象，只要学校或相关部门已经解决了相关问题，认证成员就可以合理的对某项评分作出相应提高。