Empowering Improvement Project 2 for senior leaders
Drawing on the success of its first Empowering Improvement project – Stepping Forward Together (January to May 2022) which focused on empowering middle leaders to drive sustainable self-evaluation and improvement, the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) launched its second project in February 2024. In response to a request from senior leaders across schools and organisations, this project, Empowering Improvement 2 (EIP2), was a sequence of focused online workshops for school/organisation senior leadership teams. The rationale for the project included raising awareness of the new empowering improvement framework of inspection, enhancing capacity for internal self-evaluation, building trust and raising confidence in the new inspection process and embedding the new language associated with inspection.
The project was piloted with school/organisation leaders across early years, primary and post-primary in February/March 2024 and delivered to over 400 schools/organisations between May 2024 and April 2025. Senior leaders participated in a sequence of four online workshops over four consecutive weeks, each lasting around 75 minutes. The project was also delivered to the employing authorities and a range of support and representative bodies.
The project was based on the five core questions of the framework and on whole-organisation self-evaluation; it was adapted for the final cohorts to include a new session to incorporate the learning insight profile.
In response to requests from senior leaders who missed EIP 2, the PowerPoint presentations used in each session are now available (see links below), accompanied by a participant booklet and a brief overview outlining each session’s objectives. While inspector presentations and the discussions with senior leaders in breakout rooms were key to the initial workshops, we hope these resources still serve as a valuable tool to support senior leaders in their professional development and school/organisation improvement work.
If you have any questions regarding the use of the materials, please contact the inspection services team at eti@education-ni.gov.uk or on 028 9127 9726.