The Preparatory Evaluation measures your school's readiness to undertake the Self-study process. Evaluators assess the report to provide feedback and give commendations and recommendations. The visit allows CIS to clarify the accreditation process to the school community, and prepare the school for the Self-study stage.
The self-study process is the most important part of the whole evaluation and accreditation cycle, both in terms of time and effort and in the value for your school. While identifying and validating your school’s strengths, this process also identifies areas for improvement and initiates actions to address them. A self-study normally takes between 12 and 18 months to complete.
After submitting the Self-study report, a team of peer evaluators will visit your school to provide an objective evaluation of the conclusions in your report. The evaluation team is composed of CIS-trained educators from other CIS-accredited schools. This team visits your school for a week, observing all types of learning situations and meeting with students, parents, faculty/staff and members of the school’s leadership, governance and ownership groups. The evaluation team analyses all aspects of your school considering your Self-study report, your own guiding statements, and the CIS school evaluation standards.
To enable CIS to support and monitor continuous school improvement, accredited schools provide an annual accreditation report which provides an update on school improvement practices and substantive developments.