Continuous school improvement is a high priority for the attention of boards, principals and leaders for two reasons:

1. We will never achieve our mission dynamically in a contemporary world with changing circumstances and needs without continuous critical reflection on where we are up to, and a properly planned strategic address to the issues we find wanting.
2. We are now required to comply with he federal government’s National School Improvement process.

Sadly, many of us as Christian school leaders only respond to such “big-picture” issues when we are forced to by government compliance requirements, and then we work frantically to comply, but often we don’t see above the compliance to the bigger picture.

Don’t get me wrong; what the National School Improvement agenda is asking of us are good things – I am in favour of a proper diligent attention to all of the issues addressed in the NSIT.  But I believe we need to do better than that; we need to prayerfully and strategically pursue school improvement in a way that both meets national compliance requirements and enhances the Christian mission and vision of your school.

You have no doubt been looking at the National School Improvement Tool and found that it details measures for assessing the needs for improving the professionalism and effectiveness of many aspects of your school’s operations.  However, as a Christian school leader, you may find yourself feeling that something is missing.  You may say to yourself, “I find myself ticking all these boxes, and seeing lots of areas in which we need to improve, but is this helping us to comprehensively address who we are as a Christian school?” If you are thinking that, you will probably be concerned that, after you have completed the NSIT and started a comprehensive improvement process, your school might be on a pathway to improvement that is similar to every other school in Australia!  But maybe you worry that, in doing so, you will miss getting better at the core things that God originally commissioned your school to do!

I think Christian schools need to take an approach that incorporates the NSIT into a broader renewal and strategic development process that is based first on the mission and vision of the school, then on meeting government compliance requirements for improvement.

Equipping Christian Schools has developed a process that helps Christian school boards, principals, and leaders to work on school improvement and strategic planning keeping three crucial “strands” woven carefully together:

1. The “DNA” of the school’s reason for being – in this “DNA” is the beating heart of the school’s mission and the keys to its faithfulness to God’s call.
2. A dynamic engagement with today’s aspirations, skills, and ideas of the current board, executive leadership, staff, and key school community stakeholders.
3. The considerations and concerns arising from the school’s self-evaluation using the “National School Improvement Tool”

These three strands provide a set of inputs that can help a board and executive leaders to prioritise their needs for strategic improvement in the light of both the school’s historic mission “DNA” and its contemporary requirements.

Need more information?

To see a summary of the ECS Mission-Vision-Strategy program, and samples of other schools’ work with the program, click here.

Please contact Ray Tiller on 0409 646 279 or ray@raytiller.com.au if you want to discuss how this program might help your school.