The Department of Education and Skills requires each school to engage in the practice of self-reflection. This process is called School Self Evaluation (SSE). School self-evaluation was formally introduced into the Irish school system in 2012 as a collaborative, reflective process of internal school review, focused on school improvement.

 This process involves gathering information from a range of sources, and then making judgements and action plans based on the evidence gathered.Each school can then use this evidence to identify meaningful and specific targets and actions for improvement that focus on teaching and learning practices. It enables them to create and implement a School Improvement Plan (SIP), to measure their progress, and to identify their achievements

A quality framework titled Looking at Our School 2016 A Quality Framework for Post-Primary Schools provides a set of standards for two dimensions of the work of schools: teaching and learning and leadership and management. The teaching and learning dimension of the Quality Framework supports schools as they engage in the school self-evaluation process.

Schools are required to devise a School Improvement Plan (SIP) that contains a summary of the areas for improvement identified as part of the SSE process. The SSE report and SIP sets out clearly what needs to be done to further improve the work of the school. The Board of Management is responsible for ensuring that a brief summary of SSE and the SIP are provided to the whole school community. The SIP should identify

• targets for improvement (with a focus on learner outcomes),
• actions required to achieve the targets (with reference to those who are responsible for taking actions),
• a statement of how the school will check if the targets have been achieved and
• a time frame for achievement of the targets.