E-learning Module 2 – Gathering and submitting your evidence

The Reading Schools programme requires schools to provide a variety of different evidence types to show how they have met the criteria across each corresponding key area. The evidence we ask for can vary, but it helps build a clear picture of your school’s reading culture and how you have embedded reading for pleasure across the whole school.

In some cases you will find mandatory evidence requirements (this is highlighted at the top of each key area in your evidence plan and denoted by an asterix next to the corresponding evidence field), you will need to supply all of the necessary evidence for these sections in order to complete your evidence plan.

The evidence we will ask for includes:

• Comments – The comment section in your evidence plan is an open text field that allows you to provide us with an overview of what you did to meet the key area criteria. It is important to give us context of your setting too, such as if your school is small and located rurally, or large and located in a town or city. You don’t have to provide lengthy descriptions or a report, but we do need to see enough detail to understand how you approached the key area, how you planned to meet the criteria and what you did in practice.

• Quotes – The quote section allows you to capture impact. If you have gathered feedback and insights on an activity or particular piece of work, this can be added here, together with a space to include who shared the feedback. Adding quotes can really help us to understand the success of your activities and the impact this has had on your school, learners and their families. If you would prefer to keep the sources of your quotes anonymous, they can be detailed as ‘P7 pupil’, ‘Teacher 1’, ‘P4 parent’ or suchlike.

• Photos – This section enables you to upload photographs of your activities and projects. You can upload one image at a time, which can be time consuming, but you can upload one ‘holding image’, then collate your other photographs onto a MS Word document, or PowerPoint presentation and upload them as a document. Please remember to label your photos, relating them to the activities you have described in the comments section.

• Videos – This section allows you to upload video content. Some schools choose this option to capture quotes; if you decide to do this, please make sure you populate the quote section with holding text, referring to the video section below.

Use this as a reference guide when planning your evidence gathering.

Our downloadable Reading Schools framework details the expected evidence across all key areas. Familiarise yourself with these expectations by downloading the framework and use it alongside your action plan to determine how you will gather the required evidence for your submission. Click on the link below and scroll to the bottom of the page, where you will be able to download MS Word and PDF versions of the framework.

Reading Schools Framework

You can use your evidence logbook jotter to start planning, which you will have received upon completing your action plan. If you have not received your jotter, contact us and we will send one out to you: readingschools@scottishbooktrust.com

Reading Schools is a whole-school programme, with the expectation that all staff and learners will be involved, whether that be planning and delivering activities or participating in the fun.

Gathering evidence and uploading it to an evidence plan should never befall on one person, but it can easily becoming the sole responsibility of a lead contact. The Reading Schools website has been built to include any number of contributors to help gather and upload evidence to an evidence plan, sharing the responsibility and encouraging staff from across the school to engage in the process.

Take some time to familiarise yourself with the process of adding new users to your school’s application and begin inviting your colleagues to assist with the evidence gathering and uploading phase. Click on the following link and scroll down to 'Dashboard FAQs', where you will find instructions on how to add users to your schools application:

Inviting other users to your Reading Schools application - Dashboard FAQs

Extension: Our FAQs section offers a number of hints, tips and insights to help you on your journey to accreditation. You can always contact us for support, but many questions can be answered by visiting our FAQs section.

Across all of our framework key areas we have created ‘Webinar Shorts’; short 3–10 minute long recordings describing the criteria for each key area, together with great practice examples of evidence we have seen from schools. This will give you a flavour of the types of evidence schools are gathering for their submissions and give you some inspiration in terms of what you might wish to consider when planning your own evidence.

Familiarise yourself with the resources section of the Reading Schools website, explore the key area resources (where you will find the short webinar recordings) by using the filters to narrow down the key area you wish to know more about:

Reading Schools Resources

Use your evidence logbook jotter to begin noting ideas and planning your submission.

We have produced a short article, consolidating some top tips and things to consider when readying your evidence plan for submission. Much of the information here is covered elsewhere, but it’s a good focus puller and handy to refer back to when you’re gathering and uploading your evidence:

Submitting your Reading Schools evidence article

Extension: We have a number of great articles and case studies on the Reading Schools website, some written by schools themselves, which offer valuable insights into a Reading Schools journey, how schools have approached the framework and what they did to bring it to life in their settings.

Explore other schools’ journeys for inspiration and ideas:

Community articles

Our Reading School map is a fantastic tool for connecting with neighbouring schools in your local area, whether that be primary or secondary schools. It may well be that other schools in your cluster have achieved Reading Schools accreditation, or are at the same stage of their journey are you.

We encourage schools reach out to their neighbours and become aware of the growing community of Reading Schools across Scotland.

Have a look at the Reading Schools map, use the filters to find out which schools nearby are accredited or on their way to accreditation. If you want to, you can reach out to those schools and share ideas, or perhaps explore partnership and joint project opportunities:

Reading Schools map

Extension: At Gold level, schools are expected to become ambassadors, championing reading for pleasure, reaching out to fellow schools and supporting other settings with their Reading Schools activities.

It doesn’t just have to be confined to sectors either! We’ve seen great examples of secondary schools connecting with their feeder primary schools on transition and paired reading projects. Similarly we’ve seen local authority-wide professional learning opportunities, with teachers, librarians and other learning professionals connecting to support the building of reading cultures and sharing practice.

Have a look at our Becoming a Reading Schools cluster article to find our more about connecting with your neighbouring schools:

Reading Schools Clusters

It's now time to familiarise yourself with your school's evidence plan, which can be accessed from your dashboard, in your school's application.

All of the actions detailed across your evidence plan relate to the action plan you submitted, towards the beginning of your journey. All of the actions you committed to can be found under the corresponding key area headings.

Take some time to make sure your are still able to complete those actions, or intend to carry them out before you submit your evidence plan for review. In some cases, we know that schools have had to change their plans due to unforseen circumstances; this is absolutely fine, the comment section in your evidence is the perfect place to tell us about any changes and what your school has decided to do in place of the original action – as long as you are still able to evidence how you have met the key area criteria, it's fine to make those necessary changes, in line with the needs of your setting.

Log in to your dashboard and take some time to review your evidence plan and how you intend to complete your submission.

Remember, there are no deadlines or timescales, so take your time amassing your evidence and readying your plan for submission.

(Please note, if have been accredited and are now pursuing the next level of accreditation, there is a 12 month deadline for you to complete your submission and only provide your next level evidence and confirmation that you have sustained your previous level activity. You can take longer than 12 months, however we would then need to see full evidence that you have sustained your previous level activity, together with your next level evidence.)

As a 'checklist' of activities to complete (and evidence to gather) you can download a PDF version of your action plan from your school application (found on your user dashboard).

Use the following guide to access and download your action plan PDF, which can either be printed or shared via email with your colleagues across the school:

Action Plan FAQs - Dashboard FAQs

This is a handy way of ensuring everyone knows what's expected and still to be undertaken before your evidence plan can be submitted for review.

It's now time to begin uploading evidence to you evidence plan. What you have learned so far should have prepared you for this step and the Reading Schools website has been designed to make this process as simple as possible.

You will notice that your evidence plan will save automatically once each piece of evidence is successfully uploaded; this ensures that no evidence is lost and allows you to upload evidence 'as you go'.

We strongly encourage you to upload evidence as you undertake your activities, as opposed to saving your evidence to upload in one sitting. The evidence gathering and upload phase can result in a fair amount of administrative work, therefore adopting a 'little and often' approach will save a lot of time in the long run, as you ready your plan for submission. Remember, you can access your dashboard from mobile devices too, so if you have evidence collected on mobile phones or tablets, this can be uploaded directly to your evidence plan from the device; simply log in to your dashboard, as normal, and upload your evidence to the corresponding key area (just remember to name your photos/videos/files and make sure they relate to not only the key area, but your comments too).

You can now download your evidence plan too. From your dashboard you will be able to download an MS Excel spreadsheet of the evidence you have uploaded to your plan, organised into columns with hyperlinks to take you directly to any particular piece of evidence in your plan.

The Reading Schools accreditation process is not pass/fail, but a conversation. Should we require to see a little more information to complete your submission, we will return your evidence plan to you and you can take time to add the details requested. We will work with you to achieve your accreditation and support you through the process; if you have any questions or concerns at any time during your Reading Schools journey, please don't hesitate to contact us:

readingschools@scottishbooktrust.com