The PLC Health Check
The PLC Health Check is one of the key school improvement tools for the Ballarat Diocese.
All schools across the diocese now have access to their own personalised, updated online PLC Health Check tool, and the opportunity to formally measure and track their progress in relation to:
Collaboration … Curriculum … Assessment … Instruction & Intervention … Teacher Development … Leadership
Keep scrolling to find out why, how and when to use the online PLC Health Check in your school.
What is the PLC Health Check?
Please watch this video for an introduction to The PLC Health Check. This video answers the following questions:
What is the PLC Health Check for?
How does the PLC Health Check connect to the Six Critical Questions of PLC?
How does the PLC Health Check connect to RTI?
What is the role of School Leadership in relation to the Health Check?
Why use the PLC Health Check?
By 2020, St Joseph’s Primary School in Red Cliffs were into their third year of using the online PLC Health Check.
This short case-study video outlines the wide range of benefits of using the PLC Health Check as an integral part of the school improvement planning process.
How to use the PLC Health Check
In 2018, an online version of the PLC Health Check was developed. Every school in the Diocese of Ballarat now has access to their own, personalised PLC Health Check tool.
This video explains how schools can access and complete their PLC Health Check.
Click on the link below to access The PLC Health Check site.
How does the PLC Health Check support Catholic Education, Ballarat?
All of the data from each school’s PLC Health Check comes through to a centralised point, which can be accessed by CEB staff. This allows the PLC and RTI Ground Crew and CEB Leadership to make informed decisions about partnering with schools.
CEB staff have access to all schools’ PLC Health Check files and passwords as well as individual school and diocesan data sets. These can be accessed through this password protected portal:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
Rumi
Wisdom from the Field
What have schools learnt and shared about the PLC Health Check over the past couple of years?
Taking the PLC Health Check properly takes a long time. It can be helpful to tackle a section or two at a time (e.g. Assessment and Instruction).
It is well worth having a PLC Ground Crew Education Officer on hand when taking the PLC Health Check to help clarify terms, explain the process, identify ‘evidence’ and ultimately, analyse the data.
The online version is far more powerful than the hard-copy format. Having the data automatically aggregated and compared is a significant time saver and also adds your school to the diocesan data picture. The ability to analyse longitudinal data is invaluable.
It may be beneficial to include the PLC Health Check in the school’s data collection schedule, so that it is administered on a regular and predictable basis.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if we’re not “a PLC School”?
All the schools across our diocese value collaboration, curriculum, assessment, instruction, teacher development, leadership and inclusive practices. So, all schools can benefit from using the Health Check. Your Education Officer will be happy to partner with you to help interpret any unfamiliar language in the survey.
When is the best time to administer the PLC Health Check?
This is a school decision. However, it might be helpful to commit to a regular schedule to boost the validity of your longitudinal/comparative data.
What supports are available to help us use the Health Check?
CEB Education Officers can assist you with accessing your school’s Health Check and can join your team as you work through the survey together. These Education Officers are also equipped to help you ‘unpack’ the resulting data and translate this into an action plan for improvement.
Do we have to provide evidence for every rating we give in the survey?
No. This would be extremely time consuming and there would be a great deal of crossover. However, the more evidence you can point to during this process, the more valid your data. This will also be invaluable when it comes time for school review.
Can we invite colleagues from other schools to help us with our PLC Health Check?
Of course! It is a great idea to include ‘critical friends’ in the process.