Who is this template for?
This template is designed for school leadership and staff in Ireland who are responsible for upholding and developing the Educate Together ethos. This includes the Principal, Deputy Principal, Assistant Principals, members of the Board of Management, Ethos School Self-Evaluation (SSE) Team Leaders, and teachers.
Why use this template?
This template provides a clear, structured process to help your school community reflect on and improve its practice in line with the Educate Together charter.
- Ensure Alignment and Consistency: By using a framework directly based on the official "Ethos SSE in Educate Together Schools" handbook, you ensure your self-evaluation process is consistent, robust, and aligned with national best practice.
- Foster Genuine Collaboration: The template is a powerful tool for engaging your entire school community. Invite staff to contribute their insights, build a shared understanding of your school's ethos, and foster collective ownership of the improvement plan.
- Drive Meaningful Improvement: Move beyond discussion and into action. The template’s logical process guides you from making initial judgements to analysing the helping and hindering factors, ensuring your action plans are targeted, relevant, and evidence-based.
- Save Valuable Time and Reduce Workload: The pre-configured structure, complete with the key domains and criteria from the official framework, streamlines the entire evaluation process, freeing up staff to focus on implementation and impact.
- Simplify Professional Reporting: Generate polished, professional PDF reports at the click of a button. These reports provide clear, visual evidence of your evaluation process, perfect for sharing with the Board of Management, inspectors, and the wider school community.
- Strengthen Accountability: Create a transparent record of your school's commitment to its ethos. The template helps you document judgements, evidence, and actions, providing a clear audit trail of your improvement journey.
How does it work?
This template follows the standard, intuitive iAbacus process: make a judgement, verify it with criteria, provide evidence, analyse factors, and plan for success. The evaluation is structured around the six core domains of the Educate Together ethos framework.
- Equality
- Ethical Education
- Child/Learner-centred
- Democratic Structures
- Participation
- Sustainable Practice
Gaining Strategic Insight
A Principal can use the iAbacus 'Overlay' feature to combine multiple evaluations from different teams or year groups. This creates an instant visual representation of ethos implementation across the entire school, highlighting areas of consistent strength and identifying specific aspects that require strategic focus and resource allocation.
Clear, Professional Reporting
A report generated from this template provides a concise, strategic overview of your school's ethos self-evaluation. It can be shared with the Board of Management to facilitate challenge and support, or presented to a Department of Education Inspector to demonstrate a robust and transparent approach to improvement planning. The visual nature of the reports makes them ideal for facilitating discussions at staff, team, or trust board meetings, ensuring everyone is clear on priorities and responsibilities.
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. Visitwww.iAbacus.comto 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.
