Topics covered within the report include:

• Systematic quality improvements.
• Integrity in grading
• How we measure quality
• Views on quality from education researchers

IES’s quality process

Systematic approach to deliver “hard” and “soft” quality

IES’s main aim is to give children and young people the opportunity to reach their full potential, whatever their background. To succeed in this, it is fundamental for IES to maintain a consistently high level of quality in the school operations and in the education provided. Teachers must have high academic expectations for their students, regardless of their starting point. One important factor here is creating a supportive, safe and dynamic environment that helps to generate a positive view
of the school and the learning experience. In other words, it’s about “hard” and “soft” quality.

Structured follow-up

IES has always prioritised quality, ever since it first opened its doors in 1993. Throughout the entire organisation there is a strong desire to keep improving so as to fulfil our promise to parents and students. While it can be difficult to measure the quality of different schools, one measurement that can be used is the national test results as these tests
are conducted by all schools. This is why IES has focused on following up the results of these tests for many years. When measured over time, the results of IES’s students are approximately 20 percent higher than the national average in the core subjects of mathematics, Swedish and English. One of the primary goals for IES is that all students qualify for further studies.

Strong and clear leadership

Together with the strong local school leadership, IES provides a safe and orderly school environment, which is essential to effective learning – in other words to achievingquality. IES is driven by its core values, and it recruits principals who live and lead according to these. The role of the principals is to ensure that IES’s core values are converted into actions and behaviours, every day.

This work is based on the school’s Basic Defining Policy, which describes the school’s targets, expectations and ethical guidelines. The principal is responsible for ensuring that operations live up to these policies. All students and parents sign up to the school’s rules, and all teachers are expected to act as role models for how these should be put into practice.

Structured and continuous quality process

Quality improvement work follows a carefully-structured annual process. Every school sets goals and orients its operations for the upcoming academic year. In other words, while goals are set locally they are agreed against the overarching goals for IES as an organisation These goals include results and environmental factors, i.e. the dimensions of quality defined by IES. In April every year, students, parents and employees are surveyed to assess how well the organisation lives up to these goals. The
questions are formulated per target group under the categories of academic environment, social environment (i.e. safety, support and a calm study environment) and the school environment. Parents and employees are also asked about how well the school’s leadership works.

The answers are evaluated during the summer by the schools’ quality managers, i.e. IES’s head of education, head of academics, head of pastoral and the principal of each school. Any deviations versus the goals are identified, and an action plan is developed jointly with the relevant school at the beginning of the academic year.

IES’s quality improvement system can monitor several different areas, including per student, school, academic year and subject, and it allows comparisons over time. Data is compiled in a report that every school works with during the entire academic year.

It is positive that despite the pandemic we continue to see very strong results in our quality surveys, and that the quality indicators remain high overall. We are now focusing on implementing measures in the areas where we have seen

a decline. As a result of the pandemic, several schools had to set aside certain key routines and these are now being reintroduced, which is a focus area to ensure security and a calm study environment.