EQI to lead Erasmus+ Project on Distributed Evaluation in Schools

The Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection (EQI) has been awarded €317,000 to lead an Erasmus+ project exploring the possibility of developing distributed evaluation processes in schools. Entitled "Distributed Evaluation and Planning in Schools (DEAPS)" the project will involve colleagues from Belgium, Portugal and Turkey. The project will run for three years from September 2017 and will be lead by Dr. Martin Brown.

The project has been developed in response to a situation that has seen school systems throughout Europe and beyond increasingly seeking to examine how they might include different voices in conversations about how schools work. In particular there has been a concerted push to involve the voices of parents, students and school boards in a range of school conversations. Arguably the main impetus behind these efforts has been the drive by school inspection systems to formally involve other stakeholders in conversations about quality. While there have been many innovative programmes and procedures developed to include the voices of parents, students and other groups in discussions about what happens in schools there is still, arguably, a gap in the capacity of schools to manage this process. This project seeks to address this gap by creating a programme for schools that will allow them engage with students, parents and school boards in a structured and safe way. It is envisaged that the programme developed will link into evaluation and inspection structures in each of the partner countries but it can also be used in other context.

The project builds on the Polycentric Evaluation of Networks of Schools (PINS) that EQI has been involved in for the past three years and marks the fourth successful Erasmus+ bid for EQI since 2015.