Writing a school improvement plan: three golden rules

In my experience, school improvement plans, or school development plans (or whatever fancy name you want to give it – we call ours ‘The Higher Document’ as it’s designed to take us continually on a journey to a better place) work best when you bear these three elements in mind:

 

1.       You alone are not the expert

I have been working or volunteering in schools for more than 30 years and there are many things about school life that keep me hooked. Chief amongst these is the fact that I have plenty more yet to learn. This includes seeking to understand what my colleagues across the school from the admin team right through to those working alongside me on the senior team can teach me. I make sure to take all those views, all that expertise and all the good will I know that sits in the hearts and minds of my colleagues into account when I start drafting our school’s improvement plan.

I’m not just talking about data here (see point 2 below), I’m talking more about the attitudinal and values-driven aspects of school life that I know my colleagues want to see embodied in our improvement plan. In short, as a school leader it’s critically important to remain humble enough so you can hear what actually matters to those who are teaching on the front line, day in and day out. It’s your job to then turn that into something that can shift the school forward.

Your colleagues will be grateful to know their views and importantly their emotional response to school life has informed – even if it’s only in part – the school’s overall direction of travel. It doesn’t really matter I don’t think how you choose to seek those views and understand what matters to your colleagues (formal consultation? informal chats? one-to-one meetings with middle leaders? all of the afore-mentioned?), the most important thing is, you make sure there’s time and space for it to happen before you start drafting the school’s improvement plan.

 

2.       Back it all up with a bit of data – in the broadest sense

I’m not slavishly wedded to the numerical data that represents the pupils’ efforts, progress and outcomes in my school. I’m not naturally a ‘numbers focussed’ person (but I’m working on it) however I do look very carefully at the kids’ data picture from both the formative and summative assessments we carry out. Considering the progress and achievement data against what we know of each pupil helps to bring the numbers much more vividly to life for my colleagues and me.

Most importantly of all it means we are always aiming to consider the ‘whole’ child.

It’s not complicated and it’s not one dimensional but it is child centred. If you want to give this sort of approach a fancy name you could say ‘at our school there is close and careful analysis of the pupils’ quantitative achievements and contextually informed qualitative domains’ but that’s a bit too overblown for me. I much prefer it when we just ask ourselves how well the kids are doing and why (or why not?), and what can we do about that?

3.       What it looks like doesn’t matter

School improvement plans don’t have to ‘look’ fancy. In fact, in my experience the more they do, the less likely they are to actually have any impact. Don’t forget, at its heart a school improvement plan is nothing more than a list of jobs that you want to get done (over the next year, or two, or three – the time line should be up to you and the Governors).

In terms of actually putting what you want to improve or develop down in hard copy, make sure common sense prevails. Sure, have a structure, devise your own framework (or better still, shamelessly cut’n’paste someone else’s) and set it all out nicely, but all you really need to make sure you’ve got recorded is what you want to happen, why, and who’s going to do it and by when.

Oh, and do include a box or a column for a nice big fat tick once each job is done – I find that immensely satisfying and it’s a quick and easy win for colleagues and Governors when the time comes for you to go back and share with them how much work has been done, and the difference the plan is making to the children’s lives at school.

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