Resources in the How to Prioritize Student Outcomes category are designed to help educational stakeholders define and prioritize the learning and development goals they want to achieve. They are targeted at a broad audience, including staff, partner MERL/T&S staff, teachers, and school leadership, and are relevant for all levels of education.
A central theme is the development of a holistic vision for student success. This includes resources that promote "Whole Child Development," such as the "Turnaround for Children Toolkit," which encourages schools to create supportive environments that foster both academic and non-academic growth. The "OECD Learning Compass 2030" provides a forward-looking framework for the future of education, emphasizing individual and collective well-being.
The resources also cover the prioritization of both academic and non-academic skills. For example, the "Global Proficiency Framework" defines global minimum proficiency levels for reading and mathematics, while other resources focus on SEL and soft skills. The "Local Engagement in Social and Emotional Learning and Soft Skills Measurement Compendium" highlights the importance of locally-led processes for developing and adapting SEL/SS measurement tools.
These resources are intended to guide strategic planning and ensure that educational programs are aligned with a clear and comprehensive set of student outcomes.
This category serves as the strategic foundation for any educational program. Resources here guide you in answering the fundamental question: "What do we want students to know and be able to do?" They help define a clear, holistic, and evidence-based vision for student success, which is the essential first step before any monitoring or measurement can occur.
What This Category Offers:
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High-Level Frameworks: You will find globally recognized, evidence-based frameworks to shape your vision. For instance, the OECD Learning Compass 2030 is a highly relevant resource that provides an aspirational vision for education focused on student agency and well-being. The Global Proficiency Framework is a resource that is both highly relevant and user-friendly and offers extremely clear, multi-language descriptors for minimum proficiency in primary and secondary reading and mathematics. These external frameworks complement our own Teach For All framework called Teaching As Collective Leadership.
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Holistic & Non-Academic Focus: A strong emphasis is placed on whole-child development and non-academic outcomes. The Turnaround for Children Toolkit provides a blueprint for creating supportive environments that build knowledge, skills, and mindsets. Many resources, like the "Local Engagement in Social and Emotional Learning and Soft Skills Measurement Compendium", specifically target non-academic outcomes and are crucial for developing programs that support SEL and soft skills.
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Strategic & Contextual Guidance: The category includes internal strategy documents like the "Student Outcomes Strategy" and practical guides like the "Playful Learning Across the Years (PLAY) toolkit" that help organizations translate broad ideas into concrete priorities for all age groups, from pre-primary to secondary.
How to Leverage This Category's Utility:
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For Leadership & MERL Staff: Use these resources at the beginning of a strategic planning cycle. The frameworks can structure workshops with stakeholders to co-create a vision and define key academic and non-academic outcomes. This ensures buy-in and clarity of purpose from the outset.
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For Teachers: Reviewing these resources helps you understand the "why" behind the curriculum and assessments you are asked to implement. It connects your classroom practice to a larger, shared vision of student success.
Linkages to Other Categories: This category is the starting point of the entire MERL cycle.
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It directly informs How to Monitor Student Outcomes; the priorities set here determine what will be measured. You cannot monitor what you have not defined.
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It provides the ultimate purpose for What to do with your Monitoring Data, as the data will be analyzed to see if these prioritized outcomes are being achieved.
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It is a foundational element of How to Support Teaching and Learning using your Student Outcomes Data, as a clear, shared vision is the first component of an integrated programmatic cycle or a Theory of Change.