Environmental Education

By Khan

Key words; school strategic planning,
steps of school strategic planning, develop your objectives for
school planning

 steps of school strategic planning

The word strategy’ derives from the Greek word strategos The Greek term referred to the
civil-military officials elected by the citizens of Athens to assume leadership
during times of war. The strategoi were
expected to prepare and implement overall, top-level plans in order to achieve
the long-term goal of winning the war (through battles, negotiations, or any
other means available, according to the changing situation). They were not
directly in charge of daily short-term operations of managing troops to win
specific battles, which was the responsibility of lower ranking officers. This
was (and still is) referred to as ‘tactics’, another military term, derived
from the Greek word tactica, which means the art of disposing and maneuvering
forces in combat from its military roots, strategic planning has kept at least two
essential characters.

Seven Steps to Successful Strategic Planning in a private School

• Does your school have a strategic plan?

• Is it real or a fabrication of management's imagination ?

• Does it sound nice, sitting in the office somewhere having no
  effect whatsoever on day-

• To-day operations ?

• Are you ready to give up, or would you like to make your plan more
  useful?

Whether an organization
will succeed or fail often depends upon strategic planning.

In the short run, any
organization with a strategic advantage can survive and even

prosper, but in the long
run only those organizations that practice sound strategic

management will be able to
grow and survive.

To give your strategic plan
more power, you may   develop the
following seven-step

process.

step 1 - Develop your mission statement.
A mission statement should provide the core reason for your schools existence -
its purpose. Usually stated in broad terms, a mission statement should be a
unifying point for all the school activities and should describe the school's
ideal. A mission statement is an image of a desired state of affairs that
inspires action, determines behavior, and fuels motivation. For example, the
mission of a school might be: "To provide the citizens of this vicinity
with quality education programs and facilities that enable its students to
excel in life, while at the same time, providing an environment for all school
employees to enhance their skills."

Step 2 - Develop your values. Value statements back up
and support your mission statement. They should provide a guide to decisions.
Look at another way, value statements show what you hold near and dear. It is
an integrity check, a way of life; it sets the tone for the school land compels
management decisions. An example of a value statement is "We will adhere
to the highest standards of ethical conduct in everything we do and in all
dealings with the parents, visitors and among our fellow work team
members"

Step 3 - Assess your situation - internally and
externally. Assess the current situation inside your school, locally. Assess
the external situation by studying your visitors, competitors, the economy
(locally and nationally), etc. Use the SWOT technique: Determine your
organization's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (challenges).

Step 4 - Develop your goals. Goal statements must be
complementary to, and take off from, your mission and value statements. The
goals in your strategic plan provide you with general direction and guidance
for developing specific objectives and actions. An example of a goal statement
is "To encourage and promote community participation in City Government at
all levels" or we may say (Municipal government).

Step 5 - Develop your objectives. Objectives are specific
steps you must take to implement your strategy. An objective describes a result
to be accomplished by a specific individual or team within a specific period of
time.  Describe results that have a
positive effect on the bottom line or on the members of the school and in ways
that can be clearly measured. Objectives need to meet the following criteria:

             

A.        Objectives should state explicitly, in
writing, what is to be accomplished, by whom, and by when (what, who, when).

B.        Objectives should be realistic with
respect to the abilities and the potential of the people involved and to the
environment in which the objectives will be met.

C.        Objectives must carry built-in
evaluation. They must be stated in measurable terms. For example, a school's
goal might be to improve the academic environment and to enhance options for
the students.

 An objective of this goal would be: "Add
a course in Advanced Composition and Advanced Urdu to the curriculum by
September 2011(by the School Principal)." Note the agreement between the
goal and objective and how the objective is stated in terms of what, who, and
when.

Step 6 - Develop an implementation plan. Implementation is where most
organizations fail in doing their strategic planning. Implementation must
address anything and anyone affected by a strategic plan, and take into account
anyone who must contribute to the accomplishment of specific objectives. An
easy way to accomplish this is by using TEMPS².
TEMPS² stands for time, training, equipment, evaluation, money, materials,
people, policies & procedures, systems, and schedule. These cover all of
the possibilities to be considered in your implementation planning activities.  For each of these terms you need to list, in
detail, the activities involved to satisfy these terms. For each activity, list
who is responsible and the required completion date.

Step 7 - Collect feedback and make ongoing improvements.
Make sure you build in regular updates (perhaps weekly or monthly) to keep
track of your planning process and to measure progress toward your goals.

Once you have developed the
Strategic Plan and put in into effect it is important to follow through. Do
what you say you'll do when you say you'll do it. Tie individual employee's
objectives to the school objectives by being clear about what must be done, by
whom, and what the payoffs will be. Make sure to provide ongoing feedback and
progress reports.

One of the primary
functions of a successful leader is to establish, develop, articulate, and
reinforce the organization's mission, values, and goals. For a strategic plan
to be effective - and not dismissed as worthless by the work force - leaders
have to live, model, and continually beat the drums about the vision and the
planning process.