Purpose

As part of the School Excellence cycle, schools complete an annual reflection to evaluate the effectiveness of their initiatives, including the allocation of funds, towards achieving improved student outcomes.

Annual reflection is a key component of the four-year Strategic Improvement Plan (SIP). Completing the annual reflection helps schools to consider their progress and achievements, and make high level decisions about the next phase of their strategic planning and implementation, to ensure they stay on track towards their intended outcomes.

Animation for annual reflection

See an overview of the purpose and process of annual reflection on the resources webpage, as well as other animations on School Excellence cycle components.

The evidence-based evaluation undertaken during the annual reflection process will inform the next stage of your school's SIP. The information entered in SPaRO will auto-populate your annual report, reducing duplication of work.

Evaluating your initiatives

When reflecting on the effectiveness of your school’s initiatives towards achieving the progress measures, it is important to consider evidence of activity, evidence of process quality and evidence of impact.

The guiding question to consider for annual reflection is: ‘What progress have we made, and what impact have we seen, as a result of the implementation of our initiatives in our Strategic Improvement Plan?’ Using the reflect and reset toolkit will help you to:

• reflect on your evidence
  
• plan your communication with stakeholders
  
• make evidence-informed decision for future planning and continuous improvement.
  

Evaluating the impact of needs-based funding

Schools assess the allocation of resources to fund their initiatives and evaluate the impact of needs-based funding across their SIP.

When reflecting on the expenditure of needs-based funding, school leaders evaluate the impact of their initiatives through the activities that have been implemented using needs-based funding.

The information schools have entered into SPaRO provides a clear view of what was implemented, the funding source/s used, the ongoing evaluations and the evidence that demonstrates progress and informs future planning.

Completing your annual report

The evaluation of initiatives towards achieving progress measures and the impact of needs-based funding, which is completed in SPaRO as part of the annual reflection process, then populates the strategic directions and needs-based funding sections of your school’s annual report.

Each school’s annual report is published on their school website, in line with the the School Excellence Policy. The annual report is an important tool to facilitate community liaison and engagement.

The annual report section is available in SPaRO in Term 1 Week 5 and must be completed and published on the school website, by the end of Term 1.