PROJECT: MONITORING, EVALUATION AND REVIEW PROJECT (MERP)

Lead School: Sharpness Primary School
Schools in Cluster: Sharpness Primary School, St. Joseph’s
Catholic Primary School, St. Dominic’s
Catholic Primary School, Uley
Primary School

DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT
· To improve the skills of monitoring, evaluation and review across key staff in involved schools.
· To set aside non-contact time to give staff an opportunity to practise and develop monitoring, evaluation and review techniques and methodology.
· To enhance motivation throughout involved schools and foster co-operation and mutual development of standards.
· To ‘coach’ subject leaders in the skills of MER and to give them the opportunity to be able to analyse strengths and weaknesses in their specific areas of leadership and co-ordination.

Collaboration has consisted of:
· The Head Teachers of the four schools meeting together regularly.
· Subject leaders meeting regularly.
· The sharing of resources and providers across all subject areas.

Resulting in:
· Review of the project and the setting of new goals for forthcoming terms.
· The sharing of expertise, policies and practice within individual schools.
· The joint exercise of lesson observation by subject leaders within their own school and in project schools.
· Analysis of methods used by which standards are measured.
· Enhanced staff moderation meetings where pupils’ work is assessed against benchmark criteria in line with DfES and OFSTED expectations.

REPLICABILITY
· Reports and developmental notes have been recorded and are available from schools.
· Staff are able to share expertise with other schools and interested parties.
· Small schools that are committed to raising the quality of staff leadership and standards.
· Schools can identify areas of focus and utilise methods developed through the project across school to help measure standards and secure improvement.
· The project was sustainable for two years from small schools funding.
· Without this funding, the project will end.

CONTRIBUTION TO STANDARDS
· Subject leaders have shared best practice across all four schools.
· Subject leaders have been able to evaluate staff planning and identify where plans meet policy and school expectation.
· Subject leaders have been able to work alongside staff identifying strengths and weaknesses in the delivery of their subject area.
· Subject leaders have been able to interview children to ascertain how well they feel they are doing in a particular subject area.
· Subject leaders have been able to identify resources, which are used well by children, and resources that are inadequate or not relevant to the quality delivery of their subject area.
· Expertise of four Head Teachers and their staff has combined to provide a high quality training and support for all staff.
· Subject leaders have had time allocated in which they can make a difference to the ongoing developments and improvement in their particular area.
· Knowledge and understating of best practice has improved and this has influenced staff in their individual curriculum delivery.
· Pupil attainment in English, Maths and Science has risen and overall all four schools’ attainment is strong; some additional work after Summer 2003 is required to measure attainment across the four schools, identifying strengths and weaknesses across all project schools.

CONCLUSION
· There has been a very strong commitment from all staff.
· The project has fulfilled our high expectations.
· The project has fundamentally made a difference to all four schools.
· The project has generated interest from other schools and as a new federation of schools, close liaison and work will continue between Head Teachers and staff, including support staff.
· There has been a real benefit in terms of time allocation for staff to undertake duties as outlined in their job descriptions.