Annual reporting - advice and support for schools, working with parents and other partners

Published 31/01/2018. Last updated 11/04/2023

Self-evaluation School Improvement Parents and families

This brief paper offers core advice to schools for annual (standards and quality) reporting. The paper underlines the requirement in statute for schools to work with parents and other partners, to prepare a single report suited to a wide range of purposes, as an aid to reducing workload arising from bureaucracy and repetition.

The advice paper specifies the range of key topics which the school should evaluate and report, including National Improvement Framework (NIF) priorities, Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC) and Pupil Equity Fund (PEF). Using How Good is Our School 4 (HGIOS4) and highlighting the school’s efforts to improve the attainment and achievements of children and young people affected by economic or social disadvantage.

How to use this resource

The paper builds on advice on improvement planning issued in December 2017. Deliberately brief, the paper sets out the range of high priority topics on which the school should gather evidence, working with parents and other partners. The paper encourages schools to prepare this report as a 'one-stop shop', suited to a wide range of purposes including annual reporting to parents.

The paper provides a concise framework for schools’ reporting, offering potential efficiencies in workload arising from bureaucracy by creating a single, multi-purpose report suited to a wide range of audiences, and building on schools’ growing expertise in using HGIOS4.

Self-evaluation approach

The paper supports professional, credible evaluation based on the shared agenda provided by HGIOS4, published by Education Scotland. Schools should work closely with parents and partners to build a concise, accurate and convincing summary of the school’s performance, its achievements and its next steps in continuous improvement. Importantly, the school should design and construct the report with a wide range of purposes in mind, but central to which is reporting to parents.

The paper reminds schools of their obligation to work closely with parents in evaluating the school’s performance and engaging in improvement planning. Schools, parents and partners may find associated, relevant resources available from agencies such as the National Parent Forum for Scotland (NPFS) and the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC).