Developing your strategic plan

To achieve the best outcomes for your ākonga (students) and school or kura, your board, in consultation with your school community, has the freedom to set its own goals and priorities.

However, these must be consistent with the objectives and priorities of the New Zealand education system.

The start date for the next strategic plan is 1 January 2027.

Keep reading to learn more.

What are boards to focus on when developing their strategic plans?

Generally, your board should focus on developing a three-year strategic plan in consultation with your community.

This plan should include a limited number of goals that demonstrate how your board will achieve its objectives, as outlined in Section 127 of the Education and Training Act 2020open_in_new.

Prioritise areas with the most significant influence on improving and creating equitable outcomes for all ākonga.

It will also need to outline how your board will effectively monitor progress towards these priority goals (including how the principal will report this to your board).

The principal will then create an annual implementation plan to outline yearly targets and actions for achieving your board’s strategic goals.

You can read more about this in Regulation 7, Education (School Planning and Reporting) Regulations 2023open_in_new and in our article on School planning and reporting regulations.

How can your board effectively engage and consult with its community?

There is no single “right” answer to this question.

Start by identifying who makes up your school community.

Your board, staff, and other school members can then decide on the best method of engaging with each group you have identified.

Support your engagement process by reading our article on community consultation and by using the Ministry of Education’s School planning and reporting frameworkopen_in_new.

Asking the right questions will help focus everyone on a long-term vision of success for all your ākonga.

How does your board turn the information collected into strategic goals?

One of the most challenging parts of the strategic planning process is combining and simplifying the collected information into a single school vision.

Once you have a clear vision for the school, examine your school’s performance data. This will help identify where this vision is not being achieved, and for which ākonga, cultural group, or curriculum area.

This information can then be broken down into 2 to 4 overarching strategic goals.

(Too many goals will become distracting and compete with each other for resources.)

Once you have a clear vision and understanding of what’s working, what’s not, and why, you should identify key areas where a change in practice could significantly improve educational outcomes.

Consider:

Are your goals student-focused?
How do you reduce or remove barriers to attendance, engagement, progress, and academic achievement?
Do you have quality, equitable teaching and leadership across the school?

Once you have your key areas for improvement, identify, with the help of your community:

What would “good” look like?
What needs to change to get you there?
How do you enact change in a manageable way with the resourcing available to the school?
What changes are being implemented across the education sector that will impact teaching and learning in your school or kura?
How do you best utilise the skills and passions of your teaching staff?
What can you realistically achieve in the next three years?

Check back in with your community to ensure you are targeting the most critical areas of change first, while staying loyal to the community's shared vision and aspirations.

How does your board monitor progress towards strategic goals?

When setting strategic and annual implementation plans, identify the key indicators of success.

To do this, your board should work in conjunction with school staff.

These key indicators become part of your strategic plan and are crucial to ensure effective monitoring at all levels and learning areas.

Consider:

What will you expect to see if you are meeting this goal?
What will you need to measure to show change or progress towards this goal?
How and when will you measure these changes?
How and when will the principal report these to your board?
How and when will your board report progress back to your community?

You can read more about this in our article on Monitoring school performance.

What should your school planning and reporting documents look like?

There is no set format for any of these documents.

The Ministry has produced a strategic and annual implementation plan template to support you in working through this process with your school community.

These templates can be found on the Ministry’s School planning and reporting frameworkopen_in_new website.

A board is not required to use these templates.

Your board should decide the best way to capture and present this information so it is easy for your community to understand.

The rule of thumb is to make them simple and precise enough to be a living document yet engaging and easily understood.

Tip: You can look at what other schools publish on their websites to get some ideas.

How does the annual implementation plan connect to the strategic plan?

Your school’s strategic plan will set out what the school community wants to achieve in 2 to 4 broad aspirational goals.

(These may span one or more strategic plans to achieve fully.)

The annual implementation plan is the document that sets out how the staff will achieve the school community’s strategic plan expectations.

That is, for each goal, the principal and staff need to identify:

What actions will be taken each year to achieve each target?
Who will be responsible for making sure it gets done?
What resources will be required, and when?
Are they included in the budget?
How long will this take?
What will need to be measured to show progress and achievement of this target?
How and when will it be measured and reported to our board and the community?

What are the timelines for publishing these plans?

By 1 March (in the same year your strategic plan becomes effective), you must publish your strategic plan on a website and actively share it with your community and the Ministry.

It’s important to share your plans with your community in an easily accessible and understandable format.

By 31 March each year, your annual implementation plan must be published online and shared with your community.

Your annual implementation plan will be updated every year to outline what will be done during the year to meet (or get you closer to) your strategic goals.

Your board must also publish the statement of variance in your annual report on your school website by 31 May each year (reporting against progress made in the year just been) and submit this to the Ministry.

Are there any privacy issues your board will need to consider?

Absolutely. It’s vitally important to act as guardians of the information shared with you.

Consider whether you will use identifiers when collecting data, and ensure that participants are aware of what will happen to their information if you do.

Consider how the feedback is stored, who has access to it, and how it will be disposed of once the planning process is complete.

The published plans and reports must not contain any information that is identifiable to individuals.

Curious to learn more? Our Resource Centre has a whole section on Information, Privacy & Copyright.

How do board members monitor progress towards meeting annual and strategic goals?

Your board needs to determine when the principal (or nominated staff member) will present evidence of progress on each goal, and include this in your board work plan and agenda items.

Your role as a board member is to evaluate the evidence critically.

For example:

How robust is the data?
- Is it from a variety of sources?
- Is it being consistently measured across the school? How do you know?
- Have staff used a nationally recognised tool for collecting the data?
Does the data indicate that you are making progress, or are unforeseen barriers slowing progress?
What can your board do to support the staff in overcoming those barriers or celebrating the progress made?
Were the original assumptions on which you developed your targets correct? If not, do you need to amend your targets?
How will you report and celebrate progress made with your school community?

Can your board change its strategic plan once published?

Unexpected events may require updates or revisions to your strategic plan at some point during the plan's duration.

Section 141, Education and Training Act 2020open_in_new, allows boards to amend its strategic plan.

However, any significant changes to your strategic plan will require further community consultation and resubmission to the Ministry.

Your board can modify its annual implementation plan as required.

Questions your board could ask:

Are we aware of the requirements for planning and reporting?
Are we clear about the timeframes we are required to work to?
Does our current strategic plan align with the primary objectives for boards?
What changes do we need to make to our strategic plan to align them?
When and how will we consult our community?
Are our proposed goals aspirational and focused on the most significant areas that will improve educational achievement for all?
Are we clear about what we need to do this year to achieve the targets in our annual implementation plan?
Do we clearly understand what “good” will look like? What changes will we expect to see in the school?
Do we have a clear plan for measuring this expected change in practice and/or outcome?
Have we clarified our expectations to the principal regarding reporting progress towards our annual and strategic targets?
Do we have a plan for communicating progress with our community?

Templates, resources, and references

Click on the link(s) below to access this topic’s templates, resources, and references.