Mutual Visits of Schools

The actual visits of the two partner schools are two-day events in which each school "repays" its visit. In the mutual work during the visits, a four-membered team of the local school meets the team of the visiting school. The ideal situation is when it comes to two schools with similar experiences, which are similar in, for example, the size of the school, the size of the city (municipality) where they are located, but in particular the type of school. These of schools are expected to face comparable problems and dealing with similar situations may be more easily transferable. In no case shall these be competitive schools. Schools choose their own partners independently.

The Mutual Visits of Schools activity began with an initial meeting, which hosted several schools to establish the first relations, to get information about what awaited them in the activity and to encourage them to share experiences.

The central theme for both the partner schools was the theme of self-assessment. The schools admitted each other's colleagues to their "kitchen" and let them look "under the lid" of their "culinary" art.

Prior to the visit and by mutual agreement, the schools selected a minimum of 2 areas (or sub-areas) of self-assessment to be the subject of their interest when visiting and exploring. Mostly, these areas were chosen by the home school, the area of interest could however be suggested by the guests as well. Then it was up to the home school whether to accept such a proposal. The moment the self-evaluation areas were chosen, the home school sent to their guests the documents related to these areas (particularly the relevant sections of the report on school self-assessment) so that the guests could familiarize with them in advance. This was reciprocally repeated at the second visit when the two schools exchanged the role of the visitors and home team.

  • The first day of the visit was an initial introductory and intimate issue for schools, the team members introduced themselves closer going through the school and the home school introduces itself.
  • The second day in the presence of the facilitator (project expert) the schools discussed how they carried out each phase of the self-evaluation process in the school (from planning to implementation, evaluation and setting of improvement plan and implementation of measures) in selected areas. The four-member teams talked about what had been the difficulties and, conversely, what had been no problem.

They could be aided by the following questions:

  • How did you set targets for self-evaluation? How do you choose priorities?
  • How did you develop plans for the given period?
  • What criteria did you set for the given areas?
  • Who was involved in the self-evaluation and to what extent? What were the specific tasks? How did you motivate the teachers involved in the self-evaluation?
  • How did the work on self-evaluation influence the relationships in the school?
  • How do you choose evaluation tools?
  • To which areas do you have enough tools and are you satisfied with them? Where do you feel a lack of tools?
  • How do you know that the goal has been achieved?
  • Where did the self-evaluation help you? In what areas?
  • What measures did you set after the self-evaluation? Have developed a plan for improvement? How?
  • What measures have already been implemented? What did that bring to the school?
  • What was best managed?
  • With what do you contend most in the self-evaluation?
  • What would you need to improve the self-evaluation?
  • What will you do differently next time?
  • Who did you acquaint with the results of self-evaluation?
  • How did the CSI approach the self-evaluation? And how did the school authority?


School Visits Scenario

Overview of the Mutual Visits