How could self-evaluation be done better?
In part one and two of this three-part blog series, I examined how the self-evaluation process in schools in Wales is failing to drive the school improvement our children need. I’ve explored both what is currently happening in schools and why it is happening. In this final part I will be looking at how self-evaluation can be done better.
It should be pointed out that the failure of self-evaluation as a process is not inherently teachers or school leaders’ fault. It is a system of accountability that everyone has assumed is also a good method of driving the change that the system details. Using the recording method of change, to drive the change itself, is not effective. We need to start doing self-evaluation better.
To fix any problem long-term you must know exactly what the root cause of that problem is. It is possible to solve a problem in the short-term by addressing surface level symptoms, but a long-term and sustainable solution necessitates a deep understanding of the root cause of the problem.
What is currently going on in schools is that headteachers are doing is treating key symptoms of learning problems without realising that there is a deeper root cause at the heart of it all.
Imagine a garden where some plants keep wilting.
You could keep watering them every day. That helps in the short term—the leaves perk up and the flowers bloom temporarily. Each time you take the time to water them, the problem disappears for a short time.
But if you look deeper, you might discover the soil is lacking nutrients, the roots aren’t spreading well, or the sunlight is uneven. By improving the soil, adjusting how the plants are arranged, and ensuring they get proper care, the garden thrives naturally over time. You no longer need to focus on constant watering because the plants are now thriving in a better, more productive environment.
This is why schools placed into an inspection category, where phenomenal effort, support and activity take place can often quickly be removed from that category, only to soon re-enter despite all the hard work of the staff and the senior leadership. The learning issues might have looked fixed, but they were only fixed at a surface level.
To get at the root cause, the entire self-evaluation process needs to be flipped.
A Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach (Andrews et al, 2013), which I introduced in part two, starts with the main actors, the teachers. It asks them to identify a problem in their classroom that they see needs to be solved. This might be the difficulty they have in getting all their pupils to listen properly to instructions and start tasks promptly. It might be the group of boys they have on a Wednesday afternoon for English, who are prone to low attention and easily distracted. The point is that the teacher both knows their class best and now has ownership over the problem and any solution to that problem.
It is also critical that the teacher is able to accurately identify what the root cause of the problem is and how best to solve it. This requires teachers to have knowledge of three complex ideas:
- Learning is invisible. It is hidden inside the pupils’ brain, all the teacher sees is the performance, or the proxy for learning. The answer to a question or the completion of a task, not the thinking or learning itself.
- Learning is a process that involves four key cognitive processes that can be shaped and managed by teaching. Focus and attention, thinking, connecting, retrieving and rethinking.
- Teachers are biased. Every teacher is human and is therefore subject to cognitive bias, this will influence how they think about and identify what causes pupils failures in learning.
All three of these factors will interact with each other, which is why even experienced teachers may struggle to correctly identify the root cause of the issue they perceive in their classroom. This is why an iterative and adaptive approach to addressing the issue is so important. It also requires that we use an approach to identifying the root cause that allows for initial surface understanding to be challenged and qualified.
A practical, research-informed approach uses a 2-step model of root cause identification:
- 5 Whys analysis – asking why 5 times, using the answer each time as the premise for the next question (Card, 2016)
- Barrier analysis – asking the question, what is stopping pupils from the expected or required learning. The key to self-evaluation that focuses on the impact on learning, is to start in the classroom. Start with the day-to-day problems that teachers themselves are experiencing. You will instantly have the buy-in from the staff you most need to change. And self-evaluation will truly become a whole school process. (Nicolini et al, 2011)
In this way school improvement and self-evaluation becomes the ongoing, continuous and whole school evaluation and improvement cycle that both Estyn and Welsh Government emphasise, ensuring that improvement efforts are genuinely focused on their impact on pupil learning.
If you would like to know more about how to flip the direction of your self-evaluation processes, click the link to sign up for more information about the Impact Wales Self-Evaluation Workshop in Summer 2026: https://forms.gle/utrWbtijLC2H4dQw8
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References
Andrews, M., Pritchett, L. and Woolcock, M., 2013. Escaping capability traps through problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA). World Development, 51, pp.234–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.05.011 (Accessed: 8 April 2025).
Card, A.J., 2016. The problem with ‘5 whys’. BMJ Quality & Safety, 26(8), pp.671–677. doi:10.1136/bmjqs‑2016‑005849.
Nicolini, D., Waring, J., Mengis, J. & Swan, J., 2011. Policy and practice in the use of root cause analysis to investigate clinical adverse events: Mind the gap. Social Science & Medicine, 73(7), pp.1019–1026. Available at: https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/38585/1/WRAP_Nicolini_SSM_4_final_uploaded.pdf [Accessed 25 March 2026].