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Kampala International School, Uganda

Implementing a developmental approach to appraisal supported by BlueSky

About the school

Kampala International School Uganda (KISU) is an all-through international school catering for around 500 students from Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), through Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, and Key Stage 3 to Cambridge IGCSE and then the IB Diploma Programme. The school was established in 1993 and relocated in 2008 to a purpose-built campus that offers the exceptional facilities of a premium international school. The programme is based on the English national curriculum and we have over 38 nationalities represented across the students and school staff. KISU is part of a group of seven main international schools in the capital, Kampala. 

“I actually made implementing BlueSky one of the conditions of my joining the school, because I knew it could be adapted to the unique elements of the school and the curriculum.”

Lee Wilson

Director, Kampala International School Uganda

Why did Kampala International School choose BlueSky?

Lee Wilson joined the school as Director a year ago, having previously been Assistant Principal (GEMS WSF) and Cluster Professional Development Leader at GEMS Education, where he has previously supported the implementation of BlueSky. 

When he joined KISU, there had been a period of high staff turnover – many international staff had recently left due to the impact of a long COVID lockdown and an Ebola outbreak in the far north of the country. Student numbers had decreased, as many expat families had gone home. 

“When I worked in the UAE, we had many staff from Uganda, and they stood out as calm, professional and hardworking. That was what first intrigued me about Uganda – teachers that came to the UAE were leaving a very underfunded national education system and shining like superstars when they arrived in a premium school.

“At the interview for my current role, the board was quite open about the fact there wasn’t an efficient professional growth or evaluation process in place. They had an outdated appraisal system in place. I actually made implementing BlueSky one of the conditions of my joining the school, because I knew it could be adapted to the unique elements of the school and the curriculum.

“Previously, there was a lack of consistency; Observations were being done but were invariably recorded and filed away. Some of the appraisal process was online, but people were doing it in different ways. None of it was linked to up-to-date teaching standards, and they didn’t have a way to report on what was being done.” 

How does BlueSky support Kampala International School?

“I started implementing BlueSky on day one. I wanted to build a process that was underpinned by observations and developmental feedback, starting with a self-review against our new teaching standards. For this first year, I set four mandatory organisation-wide goals – next year everyone will write their own – so staff have been uploading evidence of their work towards those goals.

“With the help of our BlueSky account manager, I set up the teacher standards (based on the UAE teaching standards) and created bespoke templates for book looks and learning walks, so now teachers get that feedback alongside observations every half term. They have the opportunity to be coached following their observations and all of this is recorded in BlueSky.

“We’re about to have end-of-year reviews, so staff will be able to have that conversation and will have input into their objectives for next year.”

Overcoming resistance to change

“At first, some staff did not like the new process, there was resistance. We gathered anonymous feedback through a survey and received comments along the lines of ‘I’m a good teacher, why do you keep coming into my classroom?’ They were a bit taken aback that the leadership team kept dropping in to observe day-to-day practice rather than a scheduled lesson observation as they were accustomed to.”

“To counter this, we used our weekly professional learning session to provide evidence of how the school performed against our teaching standards, with data collated in BlueSky. We were able to start showing the link between what we’re observing in the classroom and what we need to focus on with professional development. People started to realise that the purpose was to give honest feedback, and that can now be aligned with professional learning that helps them improve their teaching practice.

“It was a significant change of approach, but now at the end of the first year, staff trust the system because they can see the evidence of change and progress. The templates we have set up in BlueSky allow them to see what is expected of them, what our success criteria are, which is all clearly linked to our teaching standards in BlueSky.”

Supporting the School Development Plan

“I wanted to get to know the school before I wrote the school development plan. For the first term, we gathered intelligence in BlueSky through Observations and so on. I was then able to sit down with the board and present evidence of the current standards of teaching in the classroom, and explain what needs to change to support improvement.

“There is a generational gap between the board and the school, and naturally between me and some of the youngest teachers. Thus, being able to present an unbiased insight coming from a range of sources, gathered over a period of time, was crucial in persuading the board that we needed to invest in a more strategic, data-led approach to developing our teachers.”

Triangulating intelligence from different sources

“While working on the school development plan, we looked at the teaching standard around using student assessment data to inform practice in the classroom, and realised teachers did not have a lot of external assessment data on student performance. So, I decided to introduce GL Assessments which we use to carry out formative assessments of our students.

“For example, it helps us identify the needs of certain learners so we can provide them with targeted support.

“Combined with the feedback from observations, teachers can now use that intelligence to inform their own classroom practice and access professional learning to support that change. It also informs parent-teacher conferences; teachers are able to talk about the student’s needs with confidence and in a way that parents will understand.

“We’ve also made a big deal of our approach to professional growth and evaluation to ensure parents understand how this helps the students.”

Targeted learning pathways

“All staff have protected time for professional learning – in fact we make it mandatory that they spend at least an hour each week on professional learning. That ‘golden hour’ is time to work on their professional development objectives, which are based on the feedback from observations. They might be working through online learning modules or our own school CPD materials.

“We started the year with a plan for CPD across the whole year, which we have broadly kept to, but we have also adapted as needs have arisen. Based on intelligence from BlueSky, we’ve been able to change course a little and make sure we’re making the right professional learning for the right people at the right time.

“For this first year, we’ve had a ‘top-down’ approach to ensure staff across the school are aligned with the vision. Next year, we’re aiming to create professional learning communities in BlueSky and give staff more autonomy, with a focus on action research.

“BlueSky has allowed me to build a systematic approach to professional growth and evaluation that is easy to follow, and that’s essential to making these changes stick.”

Lee Wilson

Director, Kampala International School Uganda

What’s Next?

“Now that the school’s senior leadership team is running the CPD programme with less of my input, I am going to sit down with the head of Admin and work out how we can fit the strategy to our operations staff. We’ve got so many different roles and I want to create standards for each of these so they can also be engaged in the performance review process but also benefit from coaching conversations in the same way as teaching staff.

“I’m conscious that implementing this new approach to evaluation this year has added to the workload of my senior leadership team, but it’s necessary to build a different approach that is more developmental. For some it is a complete shift in philosophy; we needed to get that shared understanding of what outstanding learning looks like.

“BlueSky has allowed me to build a systematic approach to professional growth and evaluation that is easy to follow, and that’s essential to making these changes stick.”

Further reading

2024-11-11T11:12:41+00:00
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