We have now received both the IB and CIS reports. You will recall they visited our school back in November of last year and did a comprehensive review of our school. We are delighted with the reports as both reports highlight many strengths of the school but also provide areas for us to further develop. The most pleasing thing for me is that there are no surprises and the fact that our own self study was so comprehensive has meant that we had already identified ourselves the areas to further develop.
Both reports have already been shared with the staff and are being shared with the school council next Wednesday. Once the school council has had an opportunity to discuss the findings we will provide the school community with a summary of the commendations and recommendations.
The IB report is ‘more clinical’ than the CIS report and simply states the standards that we have excelled in (commendations) or on the standards they felt needed more work (recommendations). We received many more commendations than we expected as we were warned that commendations are very hard to come by as it basically means you exceeding that standard to a point where IB feel they need to acknowledge it. Some schools receive no commendations whilst we are aware that some schools have received as many as 5 or 6. We got a few more than that!!
The CIS report is similar in that it recognises the strengths of the school as well as the areas to develop but CIS seem to be able to be able to ‘personalise’ the feedback. It is very positive and the areas to develop will simply strengthen what we are already doing.
A proud moment for the school and I am just relieved that both the IB and CIS were astute enough to recognise that Peak School has a committed and dedicated learning community, high quality staff and a very supportive community. I look forward to sharing more with you in about a fortnight.