SWOT analysis - a different approach to school improvement planning?

In his book, 'Wake Up and Change your Life', Duncan Bannatyne talks about SWOT analysis as being an approach to improving a business and for regularly reviewing the situation. Could this be an approach schools could adopt?



SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Each part of this analysis process could easily be transferred to schools.


Strengths: What are we getting right? What do we do better than anyone else? It's easy to overlook successes, but they should always be valued and be made even stronger. After each analysis new strengths may be discovered.

Weaknesses: What's not performing well enough? This is about Identifying your vulnerabilities. Data (qualitative, as well as statistical) will be crucial for this. What part of the school is under-performing? What do your parents think we could do better? Which lessons have pupils said they aren't enjoying as much as others?

Opportunities: What is your best chance of developing further based on your current situation? What has been overlooked? Was there a part of your school's plan that has been brushed aside for a while? Could now be the right time to bring it back? What have we learned that could help the school improve? Is there a new initiative that offers an exciting opportunity for the school to try something new? 

Threats: Threats, is possibly the one business term that doesn't transfer to schools as easily. But this is mostly because we don't really use the word 'threat' in a school environment. Threats, in a school sense, might mean the effects of physical damage to the building; a member of staff about to leave; or a different issue. Basically it means what could affect your school's situation adversely?


These questions will form the basis for the school improvement planning process when I'm a headteacher. 

Three Word Branding

Duncan Bannatyne writes in his book, 'Wake Up and Change your Life',

"Branding is basically about conveying your values to your customers. You might want to indicate that your product or service us honest, fun, upmarket, ethical or fast. Values are not always easy to pin down and they can be quite abstract, but once you've worked out what they are, then it becomes easier to establish a brand that means something to your customers. The best way I know to do this is to come up with three words - just three words - that you want your customers to associate with your company."

Three words to describe yourself. Blimey. That's not very easy! But such branding is quite important. When people think of me I'd like them to say that I'm x, y and z.


In interviews that we had in school a few months ago, we asked our candidates to describe themselves in three words. It gives a quick snapshot of that person. Thinking of three words on the spot is not easy though, so I've been thinking.


I think the words that best describe me are: dedicated, motivated and responsible. 


Dedicated because I always follow through with what I believe. I have values which I try to uphold through everything I do. Once I start on a challenge I always see it through. I can be relied upon. I am loyal and will support people when I believe they deserve it.


Motivated because I am always active. I get quickly frustrated when I can't get on with things. I have plans for the future and I reflect upon things and try to develop and improve when I can. I am ambitious in the short and long term. I am fun, hardworking and I hate laziness.


Responsible. I believe that I can be relied upon to do a great job, relied upon to be a caring and loving family member, and a loyal friend. I take a responsible approach to everything I do.


Now that I have my branding, I want to ensure that others would use the same words to describe me. This has to be done through my thoughts, words, actions and interactions. 


If I was allowed a fourth word it would have to be a word best explained in this poster, featuring Barney from 'How I Met Your Mother':

Image: http://www.sharenator.com/To_our_sharenator_Veterans/barney_stinson_awesome-174144.html

Flat Stanley

 One of the best projects that we have enjoyed in Year Three this year is based on Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. I found a copy of Flat Stanley: Three Books in One and I immediately felt it would provide real inspiration and would allow the children to produce some great work during the last few weeks in school.


These are the activities that we completed:

• We read the book together, with the children taking turns to read the story. We discussed the themes of the story and its realism (or not).
• We wrote play scripts based on parts of the book after looking at a play script version (Flat Stanley: Play (Take Part) and comparing the features of play script writing with the book itself. 
• When Stanley travelled around the world we pretended we were Stanley and sent postcards back home to mum and dad.
• We wrote instructions for how to catch a museum thief.
• We looked at the picture of Stanley flying like a kite in the picture book version of the story (Flat Stanley). We read the description of Stanley flying in the wind. Using a video of a carrier bag 'dancing' in the wind we wrote a similar paragraph about the movement of a bag. The children wrote some great descriptive writing.
  
• We wrote a newspaper report about Stanley stopping the museum robbery. (We entered our reports in a local writing competition for journalism and three of the class won awards!)
• We used the Flat Stanley iPhone app to take some pictures of Flat Stanley in our school. We then wrote letters to a school in Cornwall (thanks @purplelady1979) to share information all about the school. We received letters from our new friends as well.
• We designed our own flat characters and wrote short stories about how they came to be flat.

The whole project was real fun and it was great to have a real reason for writing. The work produced was fabulous and I'm pleased that it kept the children focused and enjoying their writing during a very busy summer term.

Managing people

I love the advice Duncan Bannatyne gives in his book, 'Wake Up and Change your Life'. The book is about how to start a business, but lots of the guidance in the book is relevant to leading schools. The chapter on 'How to manage people' is a prime example of this. It explains really clearly how to delegate effectively:

"If you're part of a management team, you want to make sure that everyone's roles are well defined and that you each know what you are responsible for, so that you don't step on each other's toes. These are my guidelines for effective people management:

• Agree what each of you is responsible for.
• set an achievable target.
• Set a deadline for achieving those targets.
• Meet at a regular time and place to update each other on your progress. 

Aside from that, leave each person to get on with his or her own job... When you're all hyped about your venture, there's a natural tendency to want to get involved in everything, and that leads to a natural tendency to want to get involved in everything, and that leads to meddling, a duplication of tasks, time-wasting and conflict. The people who work for you need to know what is expected of them, how their work will be monitored, what they have the authority to do without referring to you and the timeframes they are expected to work to. No one appreciates a boss who micro-manages their every move, and once the boundaries have been set, you should stick to them."

Chris Gorman later adds in the same book:

"Sir Tom Farmer, the founder of Kwik Fit told us something that I've never forgotten: it's all about people. You have to remember that your staff have lives outside work, and sometimes they might have had a bad day, but the more you understand your people, the more you get out of them."

I can immediately see how this advice transfers to working in school. It's vital to have a clear management structure with clearly defined roles, responsibilities and expectations. Job descriptions for each person should be clear, possibly tailored to the person who is most right for the job. It is vital that you play to the strengths of your team. It's important to value the person as a whole so that expectations can be realistic yet forward-driven. When I'm a headteacher I must remember this good advice.

Habits of Mind and Leading

The Leadership Daily blog wrote about the habits of mind that leaders should demonstrate. You can read the post here. 

The post is about developing habits of mind - getting your mind into habits that will demonstrate good leadership. The write shares six good habits. Here's how they could apply in school leadership:

Modelling: If we want others to achieve we need to model what we expect in terms of behaviour, attitude and the approach to the way we work.

Coaching: We should encourage others to think through what they are trying to do. Raise questions to help others arrive at the answers rather than telling others what to do.

Scaffolding: Provide the opportunity for members of staff to experiment and try new things. Give them the chance to explore and perform well.

Articulation: Explain what you are thinking and why you are considering making change so that colleagues, parents and pupils appreciate the process.

Reflection: Reflect on all aspects of your leadership role. What went well and why? What didn't go well and how could we do it differently?

Exploration: Model risk taking so that others can see that there are rewards for taking a  risk and trying something different.

Do leaders have any other habits of mind?

Monthly Review: July 2011

July is probably the month that I like least. It is, without a doubt, the busiest month of the year. When people (non-teachers) say things like, "You must be winding down for the end of the year now," I get really annoyed. It's more like the exact opposite! After feeling lucky to have had two weeks off at Whit, the extra week that we have in school in July seems much longer!


This is what has kept me busy this month:

Christening
The month began with our baby's christening. The preparation for the day was immense, mainly because we decided to cater ourselves. We had asked almost one hundred guests and just about everyone said yes! A mammoth sandwich making took place at one family member's house, a sausage roll factory was at another, trifles were made elsewhere and lots of salads and other things were made here. It was a real team effort, but Baby Lily enjoyed a lovely service and a great reception afterwards. She was very well behaved, despite the heat that day.


Moving to Year Four
After nine years in Year Six, I moved to Year Three at the start of this year. It's been a brilliant year. But, due to various staff changes in school, I will be moving to Year Four next year. The end of the year was spent packing things into boxes once again, ready to move to a new classroom.


Primary Deputy
As a result of moving year groups once again, I've decided to change my blog and Twitter username once again. I'm now @primarydeputy, a name which I can't believe was still available!


Flat Stanley
Our final project in our English lessons was based on Flat Stanley. It was probably my favourite project of the whole year and I could easily have planned more on it. But it kept the children focused and working hard right up until the end of the year. @purplelady1979's class exchanged letters with my class, using Flat Stanley as a reason for writing. This was the first time I have tried something like this. I just wish we had started this earlier so that we could do an even better job!

School University
The school's university project, which I organise, came to its conclusion with a graduation assembly in which all course leaders are invited to speak about what happened on their course. It went very well!


Football and Sports Day
A colleague and I organise various football competitions and they were finally finished in July. Our sports day took place on the day it was supposed to this year. This was the first time in three years that this has happened!


Catalyst Science Discovery Centre
We had a brilliant visit to the Catalyst Science Discovery Centre in Widnes. It was a great day, and it helped keep the children working hard.


Falling behind
The backlog of things I need to do has now grown significantly. I need to sort out: my new classroom, my office in school, my office at home, emails, my desktop, the garden and the garage. It's going to be a busy summer!

Catalyst Discovery Centre

We took our Year Three pupils to the Catalyst Discovery Centre in Widnes. We had a great day out and we were well looked after by the staff.


We had the chance to try various science experiments (all with a practical industrial theme). There were lots of problem solving activities to explore. We watched a film all about recycling. We were able to find out about industry in the area and enjoyed looking out through the observatory across Cheshire and Merseyside.


The best part of the day was in a data logging workshop. We are expecting a delivery of a class set of data loggers in September so this would be a great opportunity to see how they can work with a whole class. The challenge was to investigate which sunglasses were best by finding out how much light they let through. We then explored best colours for sunglasses which prevented light coming through (purple was best!)


Data logging provided a real, practical application of science investigation and I'm looking forward to using them next year!

Promoting wow words and understanding connectives

The idea of using Ros Wilson's VCOP to improve children's writing is one that I've fully embraced. Although it should be used carefully, when I teach it well I find that it can really help to scaffold a piece of writing.
For anyone who doesn't know, VCOP stands for Vocabulary, Connectives, sentence Openers and Punctuation. It's actually a simple but brilliant concept that will help a child's writing mature (and it will help with SATs scores!). I find that I need to introduce a couple of things at a time to allow them to master their use and experiment with their new skills.

One way I've tried to encourage children to use 'wow words' (ambitious vocabulary) is to record exciting words for all the class to see when a child has used one. We discuss the word and its meaning and at the end of the lesson we make up sentences together so that we can see how the word is used. The children loves to have their word on show for all. We also have a tally to record when other children have used it too.

The children love to see how many words they can use each day. I've seen a big improvement in descriptive writing. It's also really encouraged children to try to think of new words and to have a go at coming up with something different!

With connectives I tend to teach a few connectives at a time so that the children are really clear about how to use them. As many connectives can also be sentence openers, it helps to spend a little time teaching how they are used to extend sentences.

But whilst we only look at a few connectives at a time, many words are displayed on the classroom wall and I encourage the children to listen out for their use by adults. It really helps them to understand how they are used and it provides a good context for each word. Again, the words are displayed on the classroom wall and it is fun to discuss which words have been spotted and remember how they were used. We also use the opportunity to put them into new sentences and situations.

A quick search on Google will bring up tonnes of VCOP resources. I'd love to hear how others use the skills with their class.

Primary Deputy

This time last year I was preparing for one of the biggest changes in my teaching career - I was moving to teacher Year Three after nine years in Year Six. I can't say I found the change easy but I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I was expecting to remain in Year Three for a while.


After a number of staffing changes in the school it has become necessary for me to have to move year groups once again. Next year I'll be in Year Four! Whilst I was looking forward to building on what I've achieved in Year Three this year, there are many positives about moving to Year Four (which I'll discuss at a later date).


As a result of this move I've decided to change my blog to Primary Deputy. Please alter your feeds. I've also changed my Twitter name to primarydeputy. I was amazed that the name was still available! I wanted to pick a name that I hopefully won't have to change for a while!


Thank you to all readers of Year Three Teacher and I hope that you'll stick me through this latest change!

Monthly Review: June 2011

Busy is the word that would sum up my June!

Holiday in Wales

We are fortunate to have two weeks' holiday at Whit (I say fortunate now, but I will say the opposite when everyone else is off before us in July!). We had a lovely few days in New Quay in South West Wales. It was our first time taking Lily away and we had a great time visiting places like Tenby, Fishguard and Carmarthen.

School University

I need to write a separate blog post to explain this properly. Much of my time has been spent arranging the university, negotiating with local high schools and members of the community to ensure brilliant courses for the children to attend.

Grandparents' Tea Party

The School Council helped to arrange a tea party for our grandparents. It was a lovely afternoon including refreshments, a tour of the school, performances by the choir and orchestra and a gallery of work. The grandparents were very appreciative!

Report writing

We have changed our report format slightly this year which has made them slightly less time consuming. However, they have still taken me lots of time! I'll be so glad to be finished in the next few days.

Ofsted and ICT

I attended a course about the Ofsted inspection requirements for ICT. It was an interesting course and I've picked up some particularly good ideas about e-Safety. I need to write a post soon

Neglecting stuff

I feel that I've neglected many things this month as I've been so busy with work. Unfortunately this is likely to continue into July which is usually our busiest month in school!