The Anglo School, Uruguay - A whole-school view of learning

Oct 23, 2026

A case study on The Anglo School in Uruguay describes how Cambridge’s School Self-Evaluation supports continuous improvement across the whole school. The school uses stakeholder feedback from staff, parents, and students, with surveys aligned to clear standards and administered in Spanish for broad participation. Cambridge provides guidance before and during implementation, and experts help analyse results. Findings validate assumptions, reveal discrepancies, strengthen communication and engagement, and feed a structured action plan focused on teaching and learning quality.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages2

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

CASE STUDY

Evaluation as part of school culture

Continuous support from Cambridge

Adapting surveys to school needs

Insights into school life

Improving communication and engagement

Action plan for improvement

Creating effective schools

CASE STUDY The Anglo School, Uruguay A whole-school view of learning The Anglo School in Uruguay offers both Cambridge Primary and Cambridge IGCSE. Director General Geraldine Pool explains how Cambridge’s School Self-Evaluation can help schools become more effective. Evaluation as part of school culture We are constantly evaluating our practices – it is part of our school culture. At the end of every year, we try to identify areas we need to focus on and improve the following year. We set our improvement objectives and prepare our action plan. The data we use is mainly gathered through observation or through feedback from staff during appraisal meetings. We heard about the Cambridge School Self-Evaluation service from our local Cambridge International representative. We decided to use it to help us gather feedback from multiple stakeholder groups (school staff, parents and students) on a range of different aspects of school life. The Cambridge survey addresses different domains and responses are measured against clear standards which make for a reliable picture of the school’s strengths and areas for improvement. The results gave us the necessary information to identify specific strategies to help us improve. Geraldine Pool, Director General Continuous support from Cambridge We received constant support from Cambridge. The Information Pack contained all essential details. We had the chance to go over the process before implementing the surveys – what was going to happen, when and how. Any questions we had were quickly answered and at the end of the process we had the opportunity to meet with a Cambridge expert to help us analyse the report and plan next steps. Adapting surveys to school needs The surveys provide the school with a detailed description of the perspective of different stakeholders on a range of dimensions covering the school’s mission, educational values, management and leadership, teaching and learning, resources and community engagement. The fact that the questions were in Spanish (our L1) allowed us to share the surveys with all stakeholders. We were also given the option to leave out some questions if they related to aspects we didn’t want to measure. Insights into school life Learning about all the dimensions of school life that lead to a successful learning experience for our students was enlightening, as were the standards. It helped give us a whole-school view of learning, identifying aspects we hadn’t previously paid much attention to as we were unaware of the impact they had. This process allowed us to gain valuable insight into the perspectives of all stakeholders and to compare views. In some cases, the results confirmed our thoughts, but it is always helpful to validate this with data. In other cases, there was a discrepancy between perspectives on our performance in some standards. These provided the most fruitful discussions as it encouraged us to put ourselves in other stakeholders’ shoes. Improving communication and engagement Involving all stakeholders in School Self-Evaluation opened doors to better communication with everyone. We sent parents a summary of the survey results and went over the results in class with students. We held meetings with heads and teachers to analyse results. I was surprised by how engaged staff felt by the whole process and how eager everyone was to see the results. Teachers were particularly interested in looking into the views of parents and students – it was good to see them working together, interpreting results and finding ways of improving weaker areas. It was also interesting to see how involved students were. It was the first time we formally asked for their views on different aspects of school life and we had our doubts as to how seriously they would take it. One of the most significant changes we made was formally acknowledging parents’ and students’ perspectives as relevant and valid, as well as formally acknowle

FAQs

How does The Anglo School describe School Self-Evaluation within school culture?

The school treats evaluation as an ongoing part of its culture, using year-end identification of focus areas and setting improvement objectives followed by an action plan.

What kind of data and stakeholder input does the case study emphasize?

Input is gathered mainly through observation and feedback from staff, and through surveys that collect perspectives from multiple stakeholder groups, including staff, parents, and students.

How did the school use survey results to drive improvement?

Results were discussed with parents and students, analysed with heads and teachers, and used to prioritize actions, including redesigning parts of its quality assurance policy and related documentation.

Oct 23, 2026

Uploaded by Emma Wilson