Strategic Planning 

A consultant/facilitator in a well-coordinated strategic planning process is part event coordinator, coach, listener/analyst, and taskmaster. Their key role is to listen to the critical stories that emerge through a deliberate process and ensure the organisation is listening to its stakeholders. With a common understanding of those shared aspirations, the message can be developed and articulated.

To make this all happen, the consultant has to clearly understand what has happened previously, what outcomes are sought, and be able to engage with the critical individuals.

Central to any plan is to make sure that the direction is going to be sustainable and leads from where the organisation is to where it wants to be. The facilitator also has to ensure that, while people are being heard, the focus remains on the big picture and is not distracted by individual agendas. Not to be forgotten or ignored in this process is the development of a key plan of actions with definitive measurements by which an organisation can judge its progress and the reality of delivering on its mission or statement of purpose.

The main focus for the strategic planning exercise is for the school to clarify its purpose, identity and core values. In essence the value of a strategic process is to engage the community in a process which aims to determine common beliefs:  Who are we? Who do we serve? What is our future direction?

The key to a successful strategic planning approach is to ensure the approach or methodology is clearly understood and agreed upon, so the plan developed is fit for purpose, particularly in the context of your school and community.  Some schools will wish to focus on the Key Strategic Statements while others will be focussed on measuring their progress. For those schools wishing to focus strongly on benchmarking their work against others, or measuring key identified elements of their program, please read more about  Leading School Benchmarks or Indicators

  • What can Strategic Planning do for a school?

    • Presents a systematic way to plan for the future, involving many sequenced steps.

    • Clarifies purpose (the mission), what is important (the values), and ensures direction: Who, what, and where and how to proceed (the vision).

    • Presents us with important choices to determine how to achieve our aims - alongside the time, personnel, and finances that may be required to facilitate the process.

    • Assists in the decision making process to identify possible choices between positive and negative outcomes.

  • What are the Benefits and Consequences of Strategic Planning?

    • The determination of vital factors that dictate all organisational practices and procedures.

    • The familiarisation of all stakeholders to the social, political, and economic environment and the possible impact of positive or negative change.

    • Change is unpredictable…Strategic Planning allows for ongoing checks and adjustments as/if necessary (redirection and/or review).

    • Consistent and ongoing checkpoints to determine: progress; current status; ‘on track’ continuation… (The map may be relevant, but there has been a drift, or unforeseen ‘forced’ change of path. Checkpoints allow constant reaffirmation or revision to maintain agreed direction.)

Key Strategic Statements

Traditionally schools have tended to organise their strategic statements around a mission, vision, core values and parameters/ limitations. The strategic work or action being the documentation of goals, objectives, measures and strategies to meet areas that need improving. This has generally served schools well, although missions and vision statements have become very simplistic and very similar. A common criticism has been that many do not really provide the data on whether the school is actually meeting its mission or purpose year in and year out. The Education Consortium, in responding to these concerns, now promotes an alternative approach to schools looking for a different way to present its strategic direction, and ultimately, measuring year to year if they are delivering on their mission or purpose.

This approach focuses on clarifying what the real purpose of the school is and then identifying what the school is willing to commit to, now and for the foreseeable future, and actually measuring those commitments.  Based on how the school “measures up” a set of annual strategic priorities is developed with action plans to address deficit areas or aspects where the school aspires to be even better!

Leading School Benchmarks or Indicators

In 2015 the AISJ School Board started conversations about how the school was fairing against other good international schools. How would they be able to find

this out and monitor this on an annual basis moving forward? In addition, this exploration opened the door to questions such as “what are the factors about the school the community would prioritise?” And “how do ensure these priorities are measured year to year?” In essence, how does the school governing body fill its role of true oversight of the factors that really matter?

Dr. Andy Page-Smith, as the School Director at the time, was charged with developing this idea. Through outreach with the school community key areas were identified and ideas for measuring these areas were developed in light of what other highly recognized international schools were doing in this domain.

From September 2016 AISJ started reporting annually on the status of what it termed its “Leading School Indicators” (LSI’s). 

Since that time several other international schools have engaged Andy to assist in the development of a series of indicators or benchmarks, and accompanying measures, to annually assess how the school is performing in delivering on its mission and priorities.

What is the Difference between the Strategic Plan and LSIs/LSB’s?

The Strategic Plan and the Leading School Indicators/Benchmarks are distinct and important pieces of a school’s strategic direction. The LSB’s/LSI’s complementthe Strategic Plan by ensuring that the key elements of a leading international school are solidly in place as a strong foundation for the Strategic Plan to be aspirational and generally focused on learning. The Leading School Indicators/Benchmarks are generally not aspirational per se, as these are standards one would hope to be meeting as a school and are committed to maintaining these standards. However, they can be aspirational if the school believes that there needs to be greater reach on key elements.

“Andy’s leadership, expert advice and passion were invaluable to helping our Board and Executive Leadership team develop a new and innovative Purpose and set of Commitments that was uniquely tailored to our international school community.  Through this effort together, Andy has formed a relationship with us that has now included the development and implementation of a new Strategic Plan and Governance procedures and processes which has helped us grow enrolments by 30% over the past several years.”

Christopher Taylor, Board Chairperson, International School of Western Australia