Schools get lessons to prepare for inspection

Delegates from 16 schools across Dubai were given lessons on Wednesday on how to prepare themselves for the school inspections, in a workshop conducted as part of the Knowledge and Human Development Authority's Abundance Programme.
The workshop was second in a series of six workshops planned for the year. The 88 attendees at the workshop were taught about how to organise self-evaluation in their schools, how to get evidence for judgement and special education needs in four sessions.
The workshop titles 'effective self evaluation for DSIB (Dubai School Inspection Bureau) covered all aspects of improvement of self-evaluation. The first conference under the same series, 'teaching and learning' was held in January and the next one will be held in April.
"We have received an overwhelming response today. We got positive feedback from the delegates, our objective is to collaborate with as many schools as possible in across the city and help them in benefitting the most through it. In fact, in the second conference there has been an increase in the number of attendees and hopefully in future, it will keep increasing as the programme progresses," said Catriona Cavanagh, deputy head - Key Stage 2 in Jumeirah English Speaking School.
The event was specially designed for senior and middle leaders in schools in Dubai. Series of six events throughout the year aims at enhancing the level and standard of the schools in the town.
Bhanu Sharma, middle school coordinator from DPS Academy, Silicon Oasis, said: "I have many takeaways from today's event. One thing that I liked the most is the workshop on impressive writing and exploring the term innovation. I can say I have gained a lot and it proves that one can learn in any age.
"I always felt that innovation is related to technology. But today's event was an eye opener as I learned that innovation has a wider meaning and can be experimented with anything."
Under the 'Abundance Programme', proposed in 2016, the outstanding British not-for-profit schools in Dubai were given the challenge of finding ways in which they could take a lead in helping other schools in Dubai to improve. The six conferences are being hosted by the not-for-profit schools with the expert trainers and speakers from the high performing schools.
ankita@khaleejtimes.com
Programme aims to cover six topics in 2017:
1. Best practices in teaching and learning
2. Self-evaluation for DSIB inspection
3. Using data to drive school performance
4. Using appraisal to drive school performance
5. Pastoral care structures to drive school performance
6. SEN (Special Education Needs)

• UAE
• Dubai

Ankita Chaturvedi

ankita@khaleejtimes.com