Who Else wants a Useful School Strategic Plan?

Introduction

A school's strategic plan is a document that outlines the school's vision, mission, goals, and, most importantly, the strategies to achieve those goals over a set period of time. If the vision, mission, and goals are the “what,” then the strategy is the “how.” Many schools confuse these two - they say things like “we have a strategy to grow to 1,000 students.” That’s not a strategy; that’s a goal! The strategy is how you are going to reach 1,000 students. What actions, offers, or improvements will you make to reach the goal of 1,000 students?

The strategic plan serves as a roadmap for school leaders, teachers, staff, and other stakeholders to work towards a common set of objectives - therefore, it's useful. No one is really going to debate whether you need one or not; it's a given, especially as it's required by various government authorities and often your bank as well.

What is a Strategic Plan for a School?

Technically, a strategic plan is a collaborative effort that involves various stakeholders, including school leaders, teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members. Sounds wonderful, right? Well, wait until it's your job to get one written! From a pragmatic point of view, the more stakeholders you have, the slower and more difficult it will be to complete the task. So you might need to exercise some discretion in who you engage. Do you really want the P&C representative involved? The alternative to this is when you have a new Principal or a divided school community; you can use the formation of a strategic plan to generate alignment and focus.

The plan serves as a roadmap to guide the school's decision-making and resource allocation over a set period of time, usually three to five years. Some schools “set and forget” their strategic plans and rewrite them after 5 years. A better process is to write a 5-year plan and then update it every year - it's more like a running 5-year plan. That way, you always have a longer-term view that is up to date in the short term.

A school strategic plan typically consists of the following components:

• Vision statement: A brief statement that describes the school's ideal future state.
• Mission statement: A concise statement that explains the school's purpose and values.
• Goals: Specific, measurable, and time-bound objectives that the school aims to achieve.
• Strategies: Detailed plans and actions that the school will undertake to achieve its goals.
• Site Master Plan: The future land, buildings, and facilities of your school justify a section on their own due to the impact and capital implications.
• 20-year Financial Projection
• Implementation Plan: A timeline and action plan for executing the strategies.
• Monitoring and Evaluation Plan: A framework for tracking progress and evaluating the effectiveness of the plan.

Including an Implementation Plan and Monitoring Plans are boring but nonetheless vital aspects. These promote accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement by setting measurable goals and regularly monitoring progress. Without these, your plan will gather dust on a shelf somewhere. Ideally, you will have a Board or Principal who drives the development and application of the Strategic Plan.

How to Write a Strategic Plan for a School

Developing a strategic plan for a school is a complex and iterative process that involves several steps. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to write a strategic plan for your school:

1. Establish a planning team: Identify key stakeholders who will participate in the planning process, such as school leaders, teachers, staff, students, parents, and community members.
2. Establish a timeline: Work out how much time you have to complete the plan and who will approve it.
3. Develop the vision and mission statements: Craft a compelling vision statement that describes the school's ideal future state and a concise mission statement that explains how the school will move toward its vision.
4. Conduct a needs assessment: Gather data and information about the school's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis). Mostly, people understand the basics of a SWOT, but they execute it poorly. Your strengths are measured only in comparison to your competitors, and the same applies to weaknesses. I.e., you can’t say that you have a strength in “staff culture” unless you are confident you are manifestly stronger in this area than your competitors. In fact, unless this strength in staff culture manifests itself as a consumer benefit, then it would be hard to justify listing it as a genuine strength because it doesn't add any value to your school. So, does your community think you have the best teaching staff in the area? To complete a SWOT with this level of rigour is much harder but provides the platform for you to write a great strategy.Once you have the SWOT, you need to do 2 things: - Leverage your strengths into opportunities. These are statements of intent - 'we will leverage our relative strength in vacant land (i.e., our competitors are land-locked) to meet the opportunity of unmet demand for Long Day Care in this area.'- Mitigate your weaknesses and ensure you manage the threats. For example, the entire education sector is threatened by a staff shortage. Unless your school is in a beachside suburb that is extremely popular with teachers, then your strategic plan would rightfully identify staffing as a threat. You have to be serious enough to admit this issue and then write some plans to mitigate this threat.This process helps you articulate and prioritise strategies and actions that will enable the school to achieve its goals and objectives, and assign responsibilities, timelines, and resources for each action.
5. Complete your Site Master Plan: A review of your current facilities. E.g., we have 5 permanent buildings and 10 demountables for 500 students.Your ideal future state. E.g., we want to be a school of 1500 with permanent facilities, no demountables, specialist rooms for all Senior Subjects, and a large amphitheater.A staged approach of how you are going to step your way to the goal plus any obstacles you would need to overcome along the way. Obstacles are likely to be issues like rezoning land or increasing your student cap with council, etc. Often, an architect or Town Planner will have provided some formal advice and/or drawings as a core part of the Site Master Plan to make it more robust. A Site Master Plan is not a strategic plan; it is, however, a significant element that needs to be completed thoroughly. In all states of Australia, local councils are often the biggest barrier to school expansion, and so specialist advice in this area is usually money well spent. Just don't overspend on beautiful school designs with no input from the Town Planner. Remember, the Town Planning requirements will dictate your design - not the other way around.
6. Develop a 20-year financial plan: ensure you list your key assumptions so they can be updated if they change. Right now, there would be many schools that have long-term plans that assume 2 or 3% inflation.
7. Develop a monitoring and evaluation plan: Establish a framework for monitoring progress and evaluating the effectiveness of the plan, such as developing indicators, targets, and timelines, and assigning responsibilities for monitoring and reporting.
8. Communicate and implement the plan: Engage all stakeholders in the planning process, communicate the plan's content and purpose, and involve them in the implementation and monitoring process.
9. Review and revise the plan: Continuously monitor and evaluate the plan's progress, and periodically review and revise the plan as needed to ensure its relevance and effectiveness.

By following these steps, schools can develop a comprehensive and effective strategic plan that aligns with their vision, mission, and goals, and addresses the needs and challenges of their community.

Conclusion

As a Christian school, having a comprehensive and useful strategic plan is critical to your success. It is a roadmap that guides your school's direction and ensures you achieve your goals and objectives. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can develop a strategic plan that will help you reach your goals.

Steven Read has over 30 years' experience in corporate sales and marketing roles. Early in his career, he was the Direct Marketing Manager for Scholastic. After that, he worked for Sanitarium Health Foods as the Head of Marketing for Australia/NZ and eventually became the National Sales Manager (AFH). Following his passion for football in 2015, he became the Commercial Director for the Newcastle Jets Football Club. In 2018 he joined Christian Education Ministries as the Business Development Manager. Steven holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from UWS and plays an active role in his local church.