How To Create Better Action Planning At Your School

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How To Create Better Action Planning At Your School

Action plans are fundamental to your school’s success. A plan provides you and your staff with clear aims and objectives, and ensures that all actions to meet them are going in the same direction. There are many ways to create action plans, but not all methods are successful.

So, here are ten ways to improve your action planning.

Use SMART Objectives

The first step is to make sure that all objectives are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely). If your goals don’t match any of these criteria, they are less likely to succeed.

For the timely aspect, be sure that you are realistic and everyone else in the setting agrees on the timescales. Others might have the same idea of direction, but other commitments make it harder to meet your time-scales.

Agree On Targets And Definitions

For your staff to get behind action plans, you need to make sure everyone agrees with the direction you want to go in. Communicate clearly with others in your educational setting and make sure they are happy with the direction you’re taking.

At the same time, you need to discuss what success looks like. Is there a specific figure that means you have achieved everything? The more quantifiable success is, the more motivated staff will be and the easier it is to measure your targets.

Set Priorities

There’s probably a huge list of things that you want to achieve at your school. There always is. However, taking on too much will mean none of it is likely to be done well. Therefore, steady yourself and take on a limited number of projects at the same time.

To do this, you need to look at your goals and set priorities. Perhaps you could group them into three categories: need, would like and not necessary now. Prioritisation adds focus to goal setting and action planning.

Keep Action Plans Short

When you write your action plan, keep it short. The longer it is, the harder it is to remember. We forget nearly 90% of everything that we’re taught within one month. The longer something is, the harder it is to remember. Therefore, keep plans to the bare minimum.

Try using a single side of paper for your action plan using bullet points to identify key actions and goals.

Format It For Ease Of Reading

For people to read your action plan, they’ve got to be able to read it quickly. Therefore, you need to format your document in such a way that someone can skim read it and know everything.

This should include clear headings, bullet points and writing that isn’t too small.

Do you create action plans for your educational setting? Do you have any tips?

Let us know in the comments.

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How To Create Better Action Planning At Your School

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