Who is this template for?
This template is designed for the key leaders responsible for shaping and delivering educational excellence in Irish primary schools. This includes the Principal and the In-School Management Team (ISM), who drive the vision, the Digital Learning Coordinator and Team, who manage the day-to-day implementation, and the Board of Management (BOM), which provides crucial governance and oversight.
Why use this template?
- Align with National Standards: Structure your school's self-evaluation precisely against the domains of the official Digital Learning Framework (DLF), giving you confidence that your strategy is comprehensive, robust, and aligned with national expectations.
- Visualise Your Progress Instantly: Move beyond static documents. The intuitive abacus interface provides a clear, visual representation of your school's current position, making it easy to identify strengths and priority areas for development across all aspects of digital learning.
- Create a Dynamic, Actionable Plan: Seamlessly connect your evaluation to improvement. Use the built-in force-field analysis to identify helping and hindering factors, ensuring your action plan is targeted, realistic, and focused on overcoming the right barriers.
- Build a Centralised Evidence Base: Support your judgements by attaching notes, curriculum plans, examples of student work, or links to digital resources directly to the framework. This creates a powerful, evidence-rich portfolio to share with the Inspectorate, Patron Body, or Board of Management.
- Enhance Collaboration: Involve your Digital Learning Team and other staff in the evaluation process. iAbacus allows you to gather multiple perspectives and build a shared understanding of priorities, fostering collective ownership of the school's digital vision.
- Save Leadership Time: Streamline the entire School Self-Evaluation (SSE) and School Improvement Plan (SIP) process for digital learning. The template provides the structure, and the platform automates the reporting, freeing up valuable leadership time.
How does it work?
This template follows the standard, intuitive iAbacus process of judgement, verification, evidence, analysis, and planning. It provides a clear structure for evaluating your school's performance across the two core domains of the Digital Learning Framework:
- Teaching and Learning
- Learner outcomes
- Learner experiences
- Teachers' individual practice
- Teachers' collective / collaborative practice
- Leadership and Management
- Leading learning and teaching
- Managing the organisation
- Leading school development
- Developing leadership capacity
Gaining Strategic Insight
This template is ideal for leaders who oversee multiple schools. A representative from a Patron Body (like a Diocesan Advisor or an official from Educate Together) or a Director of Schools within an ETB can use the iAbacus 'Stack' feature to compare evaluation results from their entire cluster of primary schools. This provides an unparalleled overview of digital learning capacity across the network, highlighting common challenges, identifying schools that are excelling, and enabling the strategic deployment of shared resources, training, and collaborative support.
Clear, Professional Reporting
With a single click, you can transform your live evaluation into a polished, professional PDF report. This document clearly articulates your school's journey, judgements, and evidence against the Digital Learning Framework. It is perfect for presenting to the Board of Management to secure support for new initiatives, sharing with the PDST to inform training needs, or for including as a key appendix in your School Self-Evaluation documentation.
References / Source Material
How to Get Started
New to iAbacus? Discover how this template can support your improvement strategy. Book a personalised demo or start a free trial to explore the full platform. Visit www.iAbacus.com to learn more.
Already a subscriber? You can find this template in the template library within your iAbacus account. Simply log in, create a new abacus, and select it from the list to get started.
