The Gymnasium’s mission is to create preconditions for each learner’s personal growth, development of self-driven learning skills and achievement of high level of competitiveness. Dobele State Gymnasium is a regional methodical center, which has high learning achievements and for ten years has been in the second place of ‘Draudzīgā aicinājuma’ rating.

According to the mission of the gymnasium - to achieve high level of learner’s competitiveness, it is necessary to find the appropriate solutions that would help to ensure such level. Excellence is one of the main arguments and driving forces behind high results.

We try to ensure that learners reach high learning achievements not only to keep the status of a state gymnasium, but also to fulfil the educational-methodical function in our region and to promote the name of Dobele in society. Our long-term goal is to create an environment where high results and high level of competitiveness could be achieved. Excellence approach is a comprehensive quality assurance opportunity; therefore we chose it to reach our goals.

Since 2010 within the framework of the project we used the GOA-WorkBench® software provided by Eurofortis IT and came to the conclusion that it is a suitable solution for the implementation of gymnasium’s development needs. Information on the quality management tools indicated that this approach is recognised and used globally also in the area of education.

Implementation of Excellence

Before we started using the Excellence approach we successfully passed the national accreditation with high results and were accredited for the maximum period - 6 years. Implementation of the EFQM Excellence Model was a new challenge and opportunity to continue to contribute to qualitative education. The self-assessment was organised by a management work group, consisting of 12 people. Additionally, all teachers, technical employees, members of the parent council and student council (in total 65 people) were involved in the self-assessment activities.

Self-assessment was made using the GOA-WorkBench® software and questionnaires, results of which were included in the self-assessment. Assessors worked in the work groups, while the management work group summarized results and entered the consolidated answers in the software.

Self-assessment process was carried out in a very intensive period of time: there were educational olympiads and the development of scientific research papers. Overall it took 7 weeks to complete the whole self-assessment process starting from the training and ending with generating the self-assessment report with the software.

Achievements and continuous improvement

The GOA-Solutions® software is especially suitable for the creation of the development plan and annual work plan. During the self-assessment process we received suggestions that could be immediately implemented - for the improvement of classrooms, organisation of meetings and others. We improved planning activities and internal communication. We will continue our work, as well as set deadlines and responsible persons for the implementation of suggestions.
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Director of the Dobele State Gymnasium Inese Didže