Rethinking success: embedding values in the practice of school self-evaluation

School self-evaluation (SSE) has been a key component of school quality assurance and improvement for many decades in a growing number of countries. It is therefore timely to reflect on how SSE as a policy has materialised in various jurisdictions. While proponents of SSE highlight the increased autonomy and decision making power it provides to schools it is strongly linked to accountability processes. What schools are actually expected to evaluate often reflects national policy priorities rather than local concerns. This is the case in Ireland where SSE has supported the introduction of new national curricula and policies, such as those relating to literacy and numeracy, wellbeing, digital strategy and education for sustainable development. While this government approach attempts to support a focus on national priorities and consistency, it leaves little room for schools to focus on locally identified areas of concern. This article examines the use of SSE to focus on school values or ethos. It outlines the development of an Ethos Quality Framework for Educate Together, a network of primary and post-primary schools in Ireland, that chose to prioritise school values as a measure of school quality as opposed to a more narrow focus on academic outcomes alone. This move reflects the growing emphasis internationally on the importance of values and attitudes as core components of future competencies, interdependent with knowledge and skills. The literature discusses the challenges of defining, measuring and evaluating school ethos and positions SSE as a mechanism for ensuring and enhancing its quality. It describes the development of the Ethos Quality Framework and how it was piloted in 20 schools. The research explores the experience of participating teachers from the pilot schools as well as the perceived impact of the Ethos Quality Framework on the national network of Educate Together schools, as articulated by both the participating teachers and staff from the Educate Together National Office. In this study, impact is understood as the perceived impact rather than as a measured pre–post effect. This research highlights the broader use of SSE to explore the lived experience of school values. It challenges the commonly held assumption that values resist definition or measurement. It positions ethos, not as a peripheral aspiration but as a structural and evaluable dimension of school quality.