Building Christian Leadership in Schools by Dr Philip SA Cummins

Author:Dr Philip SA Cummins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CIRCLE
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Your plans are your road map for creating, sustaining and improving your school’s culture of leadership and learning. School plans consist of a strategic plan, operational plan, master plan, financial plan and school review.

A strategic plan is the document that provides the school with its vision for its future and the means by which its desired culture can be created and outcomes achieved. It contains the most important decisions about the direction a school will take over the next period of time – usually three to five years. It is meant to be structured but at the same time requires flexibility so that contingencies can be dealt with appropriately. It is not a document to be sat on a shelf – it needs to be adaptive and progressive.

The most critical features of a strategic plan are those dealing with a school’s values and mission. These provide the educational rationale for the school, its vision, and the decisions it makes to achieve these. This is, most properly, the work of governance and therefore a key responsibility for the Board, although this will often be led by the work of the Executive.

It is supported by an operational plan, which contains the detailed action plans for making the school’s strategic intent happen. It should also be accompanied by a master plan being a detailed plan for managing and improving the school’s physical resources, as well as a financial plan being a detailed plan for protecting, growing and allocating the financial resources necessary to make all of this happen. This is, most properly, the work of the Executive Management Team and not the role of the Board, although the Board is responsible for ensuring that there is an operational plan in place.

The final step is a review of improvement in your school. Based on thorough qualitative and quantitative research across the key criteria, it provides tangible measures of improvement and recommendations for future actions.

The five elements of the school plan

The five elements of the school plan should be constructed using a common vocabulary and organisational structure. This provides for effective communication and streamlining of the school’s organisational efforts. It also ensures cultural and performance alignment throughout the community.

We recommend the use of the following criteria throughout each of these documents:

Student achievement

How far the school improves student achievement across all areas of the school community – learning, leadership, service, sport and co-curricular.

Relationships in our community

How well the school nurtures the important relationships in the school – students, staff, parents, Board, alumni, partners and sponsors, and broader community members.

Communication

How effectively the school communicates to itself and to others about who it is, what it is doing and how well it is doing this.

School initiatives

How successfully the school implements what it sees as the most important educational programs that will benefit its students and its community.

Your school’s reputation

How much the school cares for and promotes its identity within and outside its community.

Together, these plans provide the planning and action processes for improving your school.

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