Book excerpt: Self-evaluation in schools sits at the top of the national agenda in response to an awareness that performance tables and inspector's reports can only tell a partial story. Schools are now encouraged to raise questions about 'How are we doing?' and 'How do we know?'. Self-Evaluation: What's in it for Schools? demystifies school self-evaluation and encourages schools to be self-critical and self-confident. The book helps schools and teachers develop the necessary confidence to work with evaluation tools. Accessible and packed with case studies, it tackles the issues that are at the forefront of the national agenda in most countries in Europe. Challenging ideas for the future are given through discussion of the concerns and issues of schools in the present day.