'The prime purpose of self-evaluation is to improve outcomes for pupils. When self-evaluation is an established part of the improvement planning cycle, it is a key management tool for development at all levels. As an annual process, self-evaluation informs strategic and improvement plans, helping schools to focus on their priorities for development.

' A self-evaluation manual for primary schools, Estyn, 2014

Self-evaluation is an integral and ongoing process at Ynyshir Primary School. It takes place informally, day to day, through discussion and interaction and more formally through planned activities such as analysis of data, lesson observations, scrutinising pupils' work, reviewing practises and procedures, monitoring curriculum coverage, monitoring standards and responding to external evaluative processes.

An important part of self-evaluation is also listening to the views of pupils, parents, governors, staff and anyone else who have an involvement and interest in the school. Again, the gathering of such views can take place informally, through chats in the yard, over a coffee in the staff room or when you pay dinner money into the office. On other occasions it takes a more formally approach, through a questionnaire or an invitation to come in to discussion an issue. At all times, your views are important to us.

Pupils' views are particularly important to us, as they are why we are all here. Ynyshir Primary School ensures that pupils know they have an important voice in the school and they are also reminded of their right to have a say on things which directly affect them, as set out in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The School Council provides an excellent way for pupil voice to be represented across the school but pupils know they can always share their views or opinions directly with whomever they wish to speak to.

When carrying out honest self-evaluation, the school asks itself three questions in order to create a Self-Evaluation Report (SER):

• How well are we doing?
• How do we know how well we are doing?
• How can we improve things further?

By asking these questions, we identify what is going well but we also identify what we need to concentrate on to improve further. These areas for improvement then form the school's priorities for the following academic year and are set out in the School's Improvement Plan (SIP).

Some priorities the school have identified for the academic year, 2022 23 include:

• Develop of the New Curriculum and the assessment of learner progress;
• Develop standards in writing by introducing Talk for Writing;
• To further develop whole school understanding of ALN processes;
• To widen a range of resources that will support problem-solving and reasoning skills.

If you have any comments or ideas you wish to share, please ensure you do so by contacting us.