Assessment for the Yellow Flag Award
Vaincre sans peril, on triomphe sans gloire – To win without risk is a triumph without glory
(French Proverb)
How to get your Yellow Flag…
- Preparing for the assessment visit
- Showcasing our work
- What the assessment team are looking for
When you have completed the 8 Steps, a Yellow Flag assessment team will come to review your school. Generally, the Yellow Flag workers will have a good idea as to whether you are ready for an assessment, and will guide you about this.
Who are the review team?
The review team consists of two people appointed by the Yellow Flag Programme, usually the development worker and a member of the Yellow Flag Steering Committee. Team members have a background in teaching, school management and equality / human rights education.
What is the purpose of the review visit?
The review team will want to see the work you have done for the Yellow Flag Programme. On average, they spend around 2 hours in the school, at a time arranged with the Link Teacher. It is not an exam or an inspection, but rather an informal exploration of the work undertaken as part of the programme, and an opportunity for the Yellow Flag team to get some valuable feedback on your experience. The visit will be a wonderful chance for you and the students to showcase your great work!
What is the structure of the visit?
During the visit, the Yellow Flag review team will consider your work in the context of the four programme outcomes that we expect to see in a school community, as listed in the Introduction. As a reminder, those outcomes are:
- A school community that promotes, values, and celebrates ethnic and cultural diversity
- A school community that takes a visible and proactive stand against racism
- Students from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds feel included and an integral part of the school
community - Teachers identify teaching and learning strategies that harness key aspects of the curriculum to embed
intercultural education
Towards that end, the review team will look around your school environment, and read through your Yellow Flag folder, but they will also want to meet with three different cohorts for a discussion:
- Focus Group 1: Link Teacher and Support Teachers
This is a chance for you to tell us about your experience and talk us through the work that your school undertook for each step of the programme. It will be an informal conversation, guided by a series of questions that relate to the four outcomes listed above. - Focus Group 2: the Diversity Committee
The Yellow Flag team will run through a similar set of discussion points and questions with the students from the Diversity Committee, and parent/guardian representatives on the committee are also welcome to join. The priority in this space is to hear the student voice, and understand how their engagement with the programme has impacted their experience in school. - The Sample Class
If possible, the Yellow Flag team would like to meet with a class group for a brief 10 minutes, to gauge their awareness of the Yellow Flag Programme, determine its impact on the wider school community, and observe their level of confidence in recognising and reporting racism. It is a chance for us to interact with students in the wider school community, to understand how the Diversity Committee communicated its actions and involved the rest of the student population in the programme.
After the Visit
Each member of the review team will fill in an evaluation form, noting the things your school has done well and the things you could work on more. After this, the team will come together to recommend that your school receive a Yellow Flag, or recommend that you need to spend a bit more time on the programme before a flag can be awarded. A letter will be sent to your school with the news.
If you are not awarded a flag the first-time round, don’t feel too deflated. Your work so far has been extremely valuable. The assessment team will give you very specific pointers on what you need to do to complete the programme. The Yellow Flag staff team will also be there to support you to achieve this.
The Awarding of the Flag
When news comes through that you have been awarded a flag – take the opportunity to celebrate! The school will receive their flag at an official ceremony which is held during the following school year. Student representatives from your school will be invited to attend, and meet other schools who have taken part. The Yellow Flag Programme usually gets an important person (in the past it has been the President and Government Ministers) to give the school their flag. Let everyone in the community know about your great achievement!
Our Yellow Flag Year is over, what now?
Keep up the great work! Now you are a Yellow Flag and Intercultural school, you need to maintain that position! As you have greater understanding throughout the school community, it should be easier to manage. All Yellow Flag schools have to renew their flag after 3 years.