From The Cayman Islands Office of Educational Standard

The Office of Educational Standards’ framework document: ‘Successful Schools and Achieving Students’ is complete and ready to be implemented for the 2018-19 school year. This framework prescribes the standards of excellence applicable to both private and public schools within the Cayman Islands.

The new framework was developed by Office of Education Standards Director Peter Carpenter and his team, drawing on prior efforts of past educators and inspectors and recent consultations with a wide array of stakeholders including the Ministry of Education, Education Council, principals, school administrators, teachers, parents and the public.  Not only does the document standardise processes, but it also serves as a self-evaluation tool for assessing the attainment of excellence.

‘Successful Schools and Achieving Students’ organises features of excellent education into six areas including Student Achievement, Student Personal and Social Development, Effective Teaching, Curriculum, Health, Safety and Support of Students, and School Leadership.

The evaluations are based on a four-point scale, which assess schools’ progress against the aspirational standards as follows:

• Excellent – Exceptionally high quality of performance or practice
• Good – The expected quality of performance or practice
• Satisfactory – The minimum quality of performance and practice. All key aspects of performance and practice in every school should meet or exceed this level
• Weak – The quality is not yet at the level required for schools in the Cayman Islands. Schools will be expected to take urgent measures to improve the quality of any aspect of their performance or practice that is judged at this level

The framework is designed to be easily applied and understood.

Here are examples of excellence:

• “Over the last three years, the level of academic attainment of most students in external assessments has been above international standards or has been consistently and significantly improving over time.”
• “Students are self-disciplined and resolve difficulties in mature ways. Relationships between staff and students are characterised by mutual respect.”
• “Almost all students fully understand and appreciate the distinctive features of Caymanian life, the islands’ traditions, culture and the importance of Christian religion to the community”.

“Until now, there has been no explicit guide that has directed schools to the features of excellence”, said Mr. Carpenter. “Now everyone is on the same page, and the framework is readily available for all to see. I was pleased to see that West End Primary School’s Principal, April Tibbetts, used the ‘Successful Schools and Achieving Students’ framework this year and, in fact, the school was able to demonstrate the impact that good self-evaluation can have on school improvement.”

Mrs. Tibbetts explained that the staff of the school used the self-evaluation framework for reflection in the final term of this academic year.  She found the document provided clear indicators for each level of practice. “We were able to rate our school’s current practice as well as identify areas for improvement that could raise our school performance level,” she said. “Having used this tool in our evaluation, we had a good understanding of what inspectors were looking for and the rating scale they use.  We have several actions for the 2018-19 school year that come directly from our self-evaluation and the framework document. We truly appreciate the resource and strive for excellence in the future.”

Chair of the Education Council, Dan Scott said: “On behalf of the Education Council, I would like to thank the Office of Education Standards for the development of the Self-Evaluation and School Inspection Framework, 2018.  The Council supports this framework and sees it as a beneficial tool for progressing education in the Cayman Islands.”

To read the ‘Successful Schools and Achieving Students’ framework, either visit http://www.pocs.gov.ky or click on the following hyperlinkSuccessful Schools and Achieving Students