Benchmarking allows school leaders to gain insights on school performance by comparing the results from standardised tests of their own schools with other schools locally, nationally and even internationally.
This allows for implementing improvements to ensure higher and more proficient educational outcomes for all students who attend their particular school.
Here are three ways that benchmarking can help to improve educational outcomes for individual schools.
Benchmarking Can Help Individual Schools to Identify Areas for Improvement
By analysing the results from standardised benchmarking tests, educators can easily identify areas where students are falling behind. These educators can also identify areas where the entire school may not be meeting the established standards set by benchmarking tests.
For example, if the educators from one school identify that their students are not performing as well in the subject of science compared to other schools in their district, they can collaborate with those schools that have achieved better results.
Essentially, this allows educators to look for areas of improvement in both their curriculum and/or their teaching methods. By taking a closer look at how the subject of science is being taught at a high-performing school, improvement can be easily identified to bring the underperforming school in line with schools that are performing well.
Benchmarking Can Encourage Healthy Competition
Another major advantage of benchmarking is that it can encourage healthy competition among schools both locally and nationally.
For example, if the school leaders identify areas where other schools are performing better, it can encourage them to improve the educational programs that they offer so that their students are able to achieve better results.
This healthy competition works well with schools that are situated in the same district or region because it’s easy for school leaders to collaborate with each other and discuss their educational programs freely.
Ultimately, this healthy competition can lead to better education outcomes for all students within the same district or region.
Benchmarking Can Help School Leaders to Identify Best Practices
Benchmarking is the perfect tool to use when school leaders want to identify the best practices used by other schools. For example, if the leaders identify schools in their region that have high graduation rates and low dropout rates, they can get in touch with the leaders in those schools to discuss the best practices that they use.
This will allow these school leaders to examine the school policies and programs that are being used to get those positive outcomes. As a result, these educators may identify areas in their own policies and programs that can be improved so that their schools can also achieve the same positive outcomes.
Additionally, identifying best practices can also help to eliminate ineffective or outdated teaching methods. Essentially, this will help to improve the quality of education for all students.
In Summary
Benchmarking plays a major role in improving educational outcomes for schools right around the world. By using standardised testing, individual schools can find areas of improvement to their curriculum, encourage healthy competition in their students and discover best practices that can be implemented in their own schools.