1. INNOVATING INSPECTIONS TO VALUE INNOVATIVE SCHOOLS
Contribution from Porto workshop, 13 and 14 September
Helder Guerreiro
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates

2. WORKSHOP REASONING
Inspectorates are known to be conservative and status quo institutions.
Schools and other education departments blame Inspectorates and the inspectors for being much focused on the accomplishment of norms, putting aside (or even criticizing) many of the creative and innovative school practices, even when there is evidence showing that they achieve good results.
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

3. INVITATION TO AN ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN THE WORKSHOP
if your Inspectorate:
has evolved to an innovative and challenging structure;
started inspections that go beyond checking legal conformity;
develops some kind of interesting and challenging partnership;
makes use of innovative techniques;
was involved in one well-succeeded project;
is developing more agile and simple procedures;
Is promoting innovation at school level,
Would you be able and willing to present it?
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

4. Quality Assurance in Flemish Education
How the Flemish inspectorate stimulates innovative schools
Frans De Bie and Ingrid Ocket (Belgium / Flemish Community)
Quality Assurance in Flemish Education
3 Key words: Autonomy, Support and Accountability
Role of the Inspectorate: check quality conditions, quality of educational processes and school policy; reporting; advising further recognition
The Use of the CIPO model
Quality examination (3 steps): preliminary enquiry, audit and inspection report
Final touch: conversation about the report, publication, no ranking
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

5. Respect of the set curriculum (contents, knowledge, knowhow…)
Inspection reports in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation: a different approach Franck Livin (Belgium / Francophone Community)
Respect of the set curriculum (contents, knowledge, knowhow…)
Adequacy between the learning activities and the competences
Assessment of competences
1. Inspectors’ missions
2. Methodology
3. Inspection reports
4. After the inspection
The report is addressed to the school’s principal or the local authorities and contains advice for the school’s principal / the teaching staff / the teachers.
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

6. Jurgita Maslauskite (Lithuania)
School external evaluation as a key to find success. Identifying positive practice and publishing it. Learning from successful practice
Jurgita Maslauskite (Lithuania)
Introducing the National Agency for school evaluation: The main task is to head self evaluation of the quality of school’s activities and to organize and coordinate external evaluation of the quality of schools’ activities all over the country .
Main features of school evaluation
A. Harmony between school self-evaluation and the external evaluation, because
the aim of both evaluation systems is to evaluate and improve the quality of a school.
B. External Evaluation as a key to find success:
Identifying positive practice
Publishing and disseminating
Learning from successful practice
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

7. Ivan Panayotov (Bulgaria)
How the Regional Inspectorates of Education in Bulgaria encourage the principals to introduce innovations in the school management
Ivan Panayotov (Bulgaria)
There are 28 Regional Inspectorates of Education in Bulgaria (RIE).
RIE supports the schools in their work in the projects included in the Operational Programme “HRD”
Priorities of RIE:
Improvement of methods of teaching
Expanding the range of educational process
Motivating schools for participating in EU programmes
Reducing the number of drop-off students
Joint participations of RIE and schools in LLP projects (2 examples)
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

8. How to assess the effectiveness of ICT use in Schools and classrooms?
Michel Perez (France)
Why inspectors need to assess the use of ICT?
Digital devices are more and more present in the teaching process;
Local authorities investing in ICT want to know what use is made of it;
New tools and systems appear every day on the market;
We know the benefits of computers in learning : autonomy, self-assessment, etc.
But : We are not sure that an appropriate use is made of the equipments; it is currently impossible to measure their contribution to the improvement of students' skills; efficiency mainly depends on the learning context and the quality of the teacher is a key element.
Conclusion: Inspectors need to have some efficient tools to help in the evaluation of the use of ICT in schools; inspectors need to provide a shared tool, fruit of a collaborative work; the evaluation framework should become an online tool for self-diagnosis, preparing the evaluators’ visit
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

9. Developing Insight and Internal Challenge
Stephen McShane (England)
Purposes of the Challenge and Analysis team
Provides internal challenge : evaluates inspection frameworks and informs practice
Uses analysis of evidence: briefs the Chief Inspector on educational policy and identifies good/best practice
Includes Ofsted’s international work and contacts with the academic community
Some recent projects
Satisfactory schools (leading to significant changes to schools framework) / Early Years registration process / Fostering and adoption / Education in children’s homes / ‘Early Entry’ at GCSE examinations / The Pupil Premium / Access and Achievement: analysis of the education of children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

10. Aileen Monaghan (Scotland)
Looking at transformational change in learning: using inspection to encourage modern educational practice
Aileen Monaghan (Scotland)
Introducing Education Scotland
National development and improvement agency for education
Charged with providing support and challenge to the education system
Strategic objectives:
Lead and support the successful implementation of the curriculum
Build the capacity of education practitioners to improve their own performance
Promote high quality professional learning and leadership
Stimulate creativity and innovation
Provide independent feedback on the quality of educational provision
Provide evidence-based advice to inform national policy
Develop our people and improve organisational capability
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

11. Innovative schools: what do we expect from inspections?
Álvaro Santos (headteacher; former chair of the national council of schools)
Inspectors could be the coaches who could help schools understand better and achieve or develop confidence in their work and trust in the people and their labour.
Inspectorate support to succeed will be welcome, valuable, and truly appreciated, because we are aware such strategies will only succeed “if they are born of a deep sense of purpose and commitment, courage and ambition, stemming from the leadership of the school. Great schools are more than the sum of their parts, but their parts must function well and work together consistently”
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

12. António Dias de Figueiredo
Innovation, Quality and the School Ecosystem: Challenges to the Inspectorate
António Dias de Figueiredo
(emeritus professor of Information Systems University of Coimbra)
TYPES OF INNOVATION
incremental innovation - build on existing thinking, products, processes,
organizations, or social systems. They can be routine improvements or they can be dramatic breakthroughs. They apply to what already exists.
Examples: Batteries that last longer, Televisions with better images.
disruptive innovation - addressed to people who do not have any solutions. People are happy to use them, in spite of their limitations, because no other solutions exist - they do not compete with anything.
Examples: the personal computer
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

13. António Dias de Figueiredo
Innovation, Quality and the School Ecosystem: Challenges to the Inspectorate
António Dias de Figueiredo
SCHOOLING
model transposed from industry to education in the 18th century
QUALITY
concept transposed from industry to education in the 20th century
INDUSTRIAL ERA
Fascination with the machine: Pedagogical and organizational processes reproduced the repeatability and accuracy of the machine
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

14. António Dias de Figueiredo
Innovation, Quality and the School Ecosystem: Challenges to the Inspectorate
António Dias de Figueiredo
(emeritus professor of Information Systems University of Coimbra)
INDUSTRIAL ERA
SOCIAL ERA
disciplinary learning
multidisciplinary learning
mechanical and industrial vision of learning
organic and social vision of learning
learning as ‘knowledge’ delivery (or ‘content’)
learning as transformation
predominance of leadership and collaboration
praise of uniformity
primacy of quantity
praise of difference
predominance of authority and hierarchy
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

15. António Dias de Figueiredo
Innovation, Quality and the School Ecosystem: Challenges to the Inspectorate
António Dias de Figueiredo
(emeritus professor of Information Systems University of Coimbra)
THE SCHOOL ECHOSYSTEM
Educational systems are networks of actors that reinforce each other into stable configurations . These stable configurations tend to prevent change
The promising path to innovation in the educational systems is through disruptive innovation that quietly grows in the margins of the system
Examples: Pilot schools trying out new school models; project-based learning; Experimental schools aimed at changing transformationally the degraded social communities
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

16. António Dias de Figueiredo
Innovation, Quality and the School Ecosystem: Challenges to the Inspectorate
António Dias de Figueiredo
(emeritus professor of Information Systems University of Coimbra)
Considering the highly conservative character of the school echo-system, how can inspectorates contribute to school innovation?
tolerate school innovation
encourage school innovation
create frameworks for school innovation
This implies:
reconsidering the aims and paradigms of the school in today’s world
reflecting on the nature of quality in today’s school echo-systems
and engaging in disruptive (and incremental, when possible) innovation
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

17. Ignorance, curiosity and social change Pedro Bacelar de Vasconcelos
(law professor at the University of Minho, responsible for the Research Centre on Human Rights)
Schools have to innovate themselves in order to better integrate new social contexts and to respond to new needs.
On the other hand, schools and education are a relevant means to promote social inclusion and to improve disadvantaged communities.
Learning does not happen in a single way.
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

18. Can Inspectorates bring value to innovative schools?
Group discussions
It is not possible for a school to innovate without challenging norms and break rules. Innovation is hard to accept.
Inspections are very often associated with the verificaation of conformity, and their frameworks are blind to innovation.
Can Inspectorates bring value to innovative schools?
What challenges may school innovation bring about to inspections and inspectors?
Participants are also invited to share innovative experiences that they observed while visiting schools and how they dealt with that.
Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

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Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

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Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop

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Latest Innovation Features in the Work of Inspectorates - Contributes from Porto workshop