An Update on Perspective and Some Tips

NEW FEATURES

The Planning Tool
Over the Easter holidays a planning tool was added to Perspective. It uses your responses to the Bite Sized Questions (BSQs) to help you generate a School Improvement Development Plan. You can use this new tool at one of two levels:
1. To identify what should be in your plan
2. Using the above to allocate resources, staffing & timescales and then monitor progress

There is also a reporting tool to provide hard copy of the plan and its progress.

New formatting tools
The Comments section of each BSQ has been improved through the inclusion of formatting tools, a spell checker and a word count.

TIPS

BSQs and Governors
A number of schools have found that organising their Governors sub-committees to reflect the BSQ structure has been very fruitful. You can get a copy of the BSQs by clicking on Admin and then going to the Reports section of Perspective.

Submit to Ofsted
A reminder of the news issued last term that Ofsted no longer require you to keep them updated as you change your SEF. Using Perspective means that you can generate your SEF automatically when required (assuming that you have completed it within Perspective). In future it is expected by Ofsted that you will only provide a copy of your SEF when you receive a call from the inspector to inform you of an Ofsted inspection. The inspector will provide you with an e-mail address for the submission.

When do I start?
Many schools are now regular users of Perspective and all feedback remains extremely positive. Improvements to the quality of the SEF and all of the supporting tools Perspective provides makes the change worthwhile. We therefore encourage all schools to move their SEF to Perspective as soon as possible. There is no best time to do this, but it should be done in a planned way. One successful way of keeping the transfer as painless as possible is:

• Copy and paste your existing SEF into the relevant sections of the Evaluate section of Perspective. When this is done your SEF can be generated for Ofsted when required. (Ensure Section A is maintained as this is about current contextual information which may change regularly).


• Using your own SEF review cycle use the relevant BSQs to provide the basis for your review, recording your responses into Perspective. When a full section of BSQs is completed use them to revise your SEF question.


• At the completion of your review cycle the transfer will have been completed and the full value of Perspective can be realised.

Copying and pasting
A question that continues to arise is about the benefits of copying and pasting the existing SEF into Perspective. Whilst this can be done, those Headteachers that have fully engaged with Perspective have recognised that this provides no significant advantage as the key component of Perspective is the BSQs, Copying the current SEF does not answer the BSQs and without these answers the SEF improvements are unavailable and the new planning tool will not work. Copying and pasting is only of value where it is done to provide a holding position until the BSQs are completed, then the relevant SEF question should be redrafted from the BSQs (see the above paragraph).

Start on section B
If you are new to Perspective you are advised to start with Section B. Section A relates to contextual information about the school and so has less impact on the evaluative process.

Training
To date no training has been provided for Perspective, whilst this has suited many schools, it may not suit you. If you feel training would be of help, please let me know. If you can provide a focus for such training, that would be better still.

Surveys
What others think of your school is an important element of your SEF. In the Admin section of Perspective under 'Go to School Surveys' is a pre-written survey that you can make available on your school's website. The outcomes of the survey are automatically reported within the relevant BSQs in Perspective, saving you time and money. This area is shortly due for development to provide more surveys and the facility to add your own.

Advantages yet to be realised from Perspective
You will be aware that the LA is required to collect data from you on an annual basis e.g. targets. These must also be included in your SEF. Once Perspective is used by all Norfolk schools the LA will be able to collect this data directly from Perspective and so not have to ask you for it again.

Perspective is growing
The number of LAs and school using Perspective or planning to use Perspective is growing significantly. A number of neighbouring LAs are very interested in the product having seen it operation in Norfolk.