Overview

The 4-5 day Take Charge of your School! workshop (which may be offered in separate 1-2 day parts over a longer period of time) is for school teachers, administrators, support staff, and potentially also for other key stakeholders such as parent and student representatives. In short, it is for people who want to see “their” school optimally meeting the needs of students and the greater community.

What was the vision or mandate that led to the establishment of your school? Is that vision and/or mandate alive and well? To what extent does it guide you in your day-to-day activities?

What goals have been set for the school, and what strategies and plans are you implementing to achieve them?

To what extent are your strategies and plans based upon a solid foundation of information, including current education-related research? Do they take all relevant information into consideration?

Have you taken the time to dispassionately consider what you do really well? And what you don’t do well at all in comparison with other schools, both local and international? Are you using that information? Are you capitalising on your strengths and implementing strategies to improve in areas of weakness?

What are your most burning issues? Are you consequently addressing their root causes, or simply fighting fires when they erupt?

You will address these and many related issues in the Take Charge of your School! workshop, and use your results and considerations to formulate a concise and precise way forward.

At the end of the workshop you will have developed

• a holistic strategic framework that includes your school’s vision, mission and values,
• overarching strategies,
• a well-defined set of key strategic goals, and
• two preliminary improvement activity charters and action plans,
  • one set for the implementation of your strategic framework, and
  • one set to address your most burning issue.

You will have done this against the background of stakeholder, PEST and SWOT analyses, and have learned how to formulate SMART goals and implement plans.

Mentoring

Beginning the Journey to Excellence must almost always correspond with a change of mindset in an organisation’s people. This is not easy, and experience shows that the professional mentoring of action plan teams greatly supports the implementation of improvement activities.

How to prepare

• Consider your own personal vision, mission and values, and those of your school
• Bring along documentation on organisational plans, strategies, goals, measures and results the school is achieving
• Consider why and where, and how much time you spend fighting fires
• Research and bring information about current education-related research and trends
• Research and bring information about predicted economic and political developments, and how that will affect what students need to learn to meet the needs of society
• Know what your competition is up to!
• Inform yourself about technological developments that could impact the way you teach
• Bring along a pencil, sharpener and rubber
• Dress comfortably (be ready for physical activities!)