Tuesday June 2nd 2009, School boards, management and coaches of Preparatory & Advanced Secondary Vocational Education gathered at Carll’s Unique Inn for the second (and last) sounding board meeting. This meeting was especially designed to receive input from stakeholders on the final concept of the Quality Card P&ASVE, a self evaluation instrument for PSVE schools and ASVE institutes to improve the quality of Education.
The sounding board members also received an update on the development trajectory. After literature research and extensive data collection like class observations, interviews and a focus group, the first sounding board meeting gave their input on the first concept of the instrument. This first concept was piloted in the school with a twofold purpose: to try out the content and organisational set-up of the instrument and to enable the trained school coaches to practice working with the Quality Card.
The 5 out of 6 St. Maarten P&ASVE schools/institutes who where piloting the Quality Card, where mostly enthusiastic and showed an unexpected pro-active attitude; while discussing the outcomes of their self evaluation the school team planned for action on those areas they felt need improvement. To name a few: school safety, team building, management guidelines for better recognizing teacher’ strengths, regular team meetings and student care. A number of schools mentioned the importance of an evaluation by students while another school would like to use this instrument for other types of Education as well.
After the pilot, a suggestion form was filled-in by the team members of all the pilot-schools. Based on these and the outcomes of the pilot, a final concept was made and after the input of the sounding board meeting, the final Quality Card P&ASVE will be presented.
For more information please contact DERPI, Service centre SBO or Vanderzwan Educational research&Development (floorvanderzwan@hotmail.com)
This initiative is financed by Dutch Development funds, trough USONA.