The belief in my school centres around developing learning habits. We’ve implemented a strand in our curriculum designed to instil in our pupils a growth mindset philosophy. This means we believe that everybody can learn and succeed with the right attitude. Courage, tenacity and self belief are crucial, we believe, to learning and can be developed by how we recognise and reward success.
A few years ago I decided to reflect more seriously on the school improvement planning process. I decided to start with a simple question: how do we know what we want to improve? The answer, it seemed to me, was that a very small well of sources informed us: our continuous school self-review and evaluation model (SSRE); data pertaining to standards, attainment and achievement; and what we were told by our partners and stakeholders – teachers, pupils, parents, the community and/or the government.
So much of what I can see happening across my schools are “little improvements” that occur without needing to have been mapped out on a strategic plan. Although school improvement plans are still required to outline how the schools will tackle the key priorities for development or improvement, I don’t want these to be the “be all and end all.”
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