After Her Majesty’s inspector asks “How good is your school?”, he or she will continue: “How do you know?” In a 1980s television documentary a headteacher welcomed the film crew with a smile and a gesture of his hand. “Do you know how I know this is a good school? Listen to that. Perfect silence!” Monitoring and evaluation has progressed radically since the days when pupils were seen and not heard. But simply ticking off the performance indicators in the “How good is our school?” document - an exercise that can be fairly onerous - is not necessarily the same as being accurately appraised of what is happening as regards teaching, learning and ethos in the classrooms of a large secondary.

In common with all management tasks, the secret is to have systems in place that are well communicated, simple to operate effectively and followed by all staff. Policies need to be self-evidently for the good of the whole school community, so that they will be seized on as an aid to progress rather than ignored. Involving teachers as far as possible in generating, formulating and developing these policies gives them ownership and a stimulus to follow them through and ensure their success.

As ever, people skills are to the fore. The headteacher should be aware of his staff’s strengths and weaknesses. The former should be acknowledged, praised and shared, the latter a cause for supportive action rather than condemnation.

Visits to the classroom from a member of the management team can be mutually beneficial if exercised within a positive ethos, rather than threatening to the teacher. Ideally, they would be part of a whole school programme where staff can view their colleagues in action as a means of sharing best practice.

Though such visits may satisfy the management team that they have a grip on what is happening in classrooms, the evidence needs to be committed to paper in a way that is easily understood and updated.

All schools react to national, local and their own particular priorities. From these come policies which are implemented through the school development plan. The simplest and probably purest system for monitoring and evaluation lies in dovetailing departmental and the school development plans with the three layers of priorities. An annual audit at school and departmental levels will suggest where progress is being made, where further resources might be needed and allow for necessary adjustments. Local authorities will carry out their own monitoring and evaluation by overseeing the results of these audits in their schools.

Increasingly, software (such as the ELVIS Project in West Lothian) can make these annual tasks less time-consuming and provide a template that leads to a level of consistency from school to school.

Statistics and appraisal or review are the more contentious strands of monitoring and evaluation. While we may wish to file statistics under “damned lies”, schools, the Scottish Qualifications Authority and the Scottish Executive are still called upon to produce tables of examination results and the like in statistical form. These are, of course, meaningless unless presented in some kind of context, and there is evidence to suggest that parents look further than mere exam statistics when judging a school.

Any secondary that limits its targets to those achieved in the examination hall is liable to underachieve in the service it provides to its community. So, while results must be monitored and every effort made to ensure that pupils achieve their potential, most school managers will see this part of the evaluation exercise as operating in tandem with quality assurance of the school and departmental ethos and the overall teaching and learning process.

Appraisal for individual members of staff caused a considerable stushie when originally mooted in a form that seemed top heavy in paperwork. Any evaluation of a school’s progress has to have a positive outcome for indvidual members of staff, so that they can reflect on their strengths and target any weaknesses for personal development. A system that threatens them is unlikely to produce positive results.

Many authorities are now progressing with a review system which is non-threatening, is targeted towards individual teachers’ needs and gives each teacher reflective control over their own development.

The McCrone agreement takes up this theme of professional responsibility, and an effective management team will respect the staff as professionals who are able to move forward within the parameters of their own careers and the school’s priorities, if supported and given the opportunity.

Planning, auditing, clear communication of aims and objectives and a professional approach are the keys to successful monitoring and evaluation in schools. It is up to managers to make it a chance to celebrate successes and request additional support and resources where necessary, rather than a cause of apprehension.

Sean McPartlin is assistant headteacher of St Margaret’s Academy, West Lothian