Planning
20 What does the Ministry mean by strategic planning?
Good planning is about identifying areas of need, setting objectives for dealing with them, deciding on how, who, and what will be put in place to achieve the objectives by when.
In any situation strategic planning means planning for sustained long-term improvement; it means planning based on consideration of the best possible data; and it means planning activities so that that they reinforce the strategic direction.
Schools' core business is planning and implementing programmes to improve student outcomes.
The legislation aims to focus schools' planning on the students and the areas of the curriculum where improvement needs to be made; it aims to encourage schools to make use of student achievement information to identify priority areas for improvement and to track progress; it aims to ensure that each school's staffing, equipment, and budget decisions are mutually aligned and supportive of the strategic improvement goals the school has set.
21 What is meant by the "national education priorities"?
Through evaluating achievement data from achievement surveys such as NEMP and international studies and considering social, economic, and demographic trends the government has been able to identify areas where the need for improvement is urgent.
The government has published its priorities for school education in the national education goals and in NAG 1. (The wording in the Education Act refers to government policy objectives for the school system:)
By doing so the Government has indicated that it expects all state schools to address these issues. They are areas of special concern that all schools must consider in terms of their management and curriculum delivery.
22 How often must a school consult and with whom?
Successful schools communicate regularly with their communities: informing them about trends, events and initiatives, and seeking their input and feedback.
NAGs 1 and 2 contain specific requirements to consult with Mäori stakeholders about expectations for Mäori student outcomes, plans for meeting needs, and then reporting progress back to the community. The Education Act also requires schools to consult parents at least every two years on the content and delivery of their health curriculum.
The legislation expects a school to revisit the strategic planning section of its charter every 3 to 5 years. It would be reasonable for a school to conduct an in-depth community consultation each time it undertakes a major review of its strategic goals and directions.
Nevertheless, one of the principles of best practice is that continuous review leads to continuous improvement. A strategic plan may be updated more frequently than 3 to 5 years if review information indicates change is required. Similarly, a school may wish to establish a mechanism for on-going, or more frequent consultation.
23 What directions do the National Administration Guidelines (NAGs) give schools on consultation with their Mäori communities?
Consultation with Mäori communities is particularly important. Guidelines 1(v) and 2 (iii) are the regulatory 'muscle' requiring schools to sharpen their focus on consulting with and reporting to their Mäori communities. The regulations are general, not specific, because each school's policies, programmes, and targets and style of relationship will need to take account of the nature and make-up of the school and its Mäori community. The Ministry of Education has published Better Relationships for Better Learning, a set of guidelines for Boards of Trustees on engaging with Mäori parents, whanau and communities.
24 Who can schools ask for help if they do not know how to identify their Mäori community?
As well as advisers, resource teachers of Mäori and the kaitakawaenga being appointed under the Mäori Education Strategy there are runanga or iwi advisers in each region who could be consulted. The whänau of Mäori children in the school should always be involved in identifying the school's Mäori community
25 What goals are acceptable?
Since continually improving learning outcomes is a goal of the education system as a whole, each school should set goals for its students' achievements. Self-managing schools determine their own priorities for improvement in making their contribution to improving national education outcomes. Each school's goals and targets will depend on its self-review of the achievement of its students, both in relation to national curriculum objectives and standards, and in relation to the performance of similar groups of students elsewhere in the system.
26 What does the legislation say about targets
Section 61 (4) of the Education Act says
A school charter must include the Board's aims, objectives, directions, priorities, and targets in the following categories:
(a) student achievement:
(b) the Board's activities aimed at meeting both general government policy objectives for all schools, being policy objectives set out or referred to in national education guidelines, and specific policy objectives applying to that school:
(c) the management of the school's and Board's capability, resources, assets, and liabilities, including its human resources, finances, property, and other ownership matters:
(d) other matters of interest to the public that the Minister may determine.
27 Does this mean a school has to set different targets in four different areas?
Improving student achievement outcomes is schools' core business and the focus of government policy objectives. Once a school has set its target(s) for improving student outcomes those will determine the priorities that boards should set in staffing, financial and property allocation and development. In other words, the answer is `yes', but targets in these areas are nothing more than the processes the school specifies to meet its student outcome targets.
28 Why set targets?
Setting challenging targets for student achievement gives focus and meaning to a school's planning. Targets are a management tool to aid school review and school development. They provide firm measures against which to evaluate recent progress. Schools that have taken a whole-school approach when setting targets for improved outcomes have found that they become the focus of regular professional discussion amongst staff, and a stimulus for sharing good practice.
29 How many targets are required/necessary/desirable?
This is a decision that each school must make. It depends on issues like the complexity of the issues being addressed, the size of the school and the capacity of the staff to deal with many issues. Many successful development plans have involved very few targets that the whole staff can contribute to. Too many targets could have a diffusing or demoralising effect especially if all teachers are expected to contribute to all of them. On the other hand, if a few whole-school targets are really not appropriate, a large secondary school might consider having one or more targets for each faculty.
30 Do the targets have to be curriculum based?
The intention of the schools planning and reporting policy is to improve student outcomes. The outcomes that New Zealanders want from schooling are described in the New Zealand Curriculum. It covers Essential Skills, and attitudes and values, as well as Essential Learning Areas.
Targets that focus on the development of values and/or attitudes may be relevant because of the impact of these things on student motivation, behaviour etc and their relationship to other aspects of learning. For example it is known that bullying/harassment is an issue in New Zealand schools and that harassment has serious consequences for children's learning. A target to reduce harassment would be a good target.
31 Do the targets have to be expressed as percentages?
No. If a target is to provide the planning and evaluation focus intended it needs to be described in some way that is observably better than the current outcome. A school may use any descriptors that can usefully measure whether progress has been made. In practice, many targets do involve trying to increase the number or proportion of students who reach or surpass a certain standard of performance or reduce the number of occurrences of incidents (such as bullying/harassment). Numbers or proportions have been found to be a useful way of describing targets and `before and after' outcomes.
32 Is it true that the targets have to be based on "externally referenced" data?
High expectations are a key to improvement. Only by frequent reference to outcomes achieved from best practice can we ensure that we are not disadvantaging our students through setting, in ignorance, our expectations too low. To obtain a professional, objective, view on how well our school is doing for our students, we need to use measures that will enable us to compare their performance with similar students elsewhere. That's what "externally referenced data" means.
As a country we know that our top students do relatively well in reading literacy and in maths and science, because we regularly compare our students' performance with that of students elsewhere in the world - see PISA 2000 findings and summaries.
However, we could not be as confident that our students are being well educated if we had no comparison of their performance with that of students elsewhere. See OECD Programme for International Student Assessment.
33 Can a school set targets around the collection of data?
If it does not have adequate data, a school has no basis to decide what its priorities for improvement should be. Establishing systems for collecting good information should be an early management objective. However rather than setting targets around processes, the intention of the legislation is that schools are able to set themselves targets for improved student outcomes especially in areas where self-review reveals relative weaknesses.
34 What about setting targets in small schools?
Privacy considerations suggest that targets that are to be publicised in plans and reports should not be attached to individual students. Very small schools are likely to set targets that would apply to the average outcomes for the whole school or a whole year level. A working party of school principals has provided some suggestions on the CD-ROM Planning for Better Student Outcomes: Thinking Template that was distributed to all schools in 2002.
35 Why wouldn't a school just set low targets they know they can achieve?
Professional boards and managers use targets as a focus for an improvement programme. They should be specific, measurable, appropriate for the purpose, challenging, and achievable within the time allowed (SMACAT). Achievable but challenging targets provide a focus for action, are motivational for staff, and aspirational for students. Low targets serve no professional purpose whatever. (See FAQ number 45. How will charters be analysed collectively to see if achievement levels are improving nationally)