Reaping the benefits of school development planning - 2

"Although not all change is improvement, all improvement involves change" states M.G. Fullan (Successful School Improvement, Buckingham, Open University Press, Toronto, OISE Press, 1992).

Louis and Miles (Improving the Urban High School: What Works and Why, New York, Teachers College Press, 1991) view good planning as essential for positive change but note that because of changing external pressures or internal disagreements over priorities, no specific plan can exist for long. Planning must be evolutionary, with many twists and turns as unexpected events occur along the way. Among the more successful schools in the development of school-based initiatives are those that spend time to facilitate staff planning together. Collaborative cultures appear to be closely related to school improvement.

Commitment to change is more likely when those who have to implement school improvements are also consulted and involved in making decisions. Decentralisation of decision-making in schools is not always straightforward, especially when principals have traditionally been used to making all the decisions; many teachers still expect this.

Nonetheless, the literature is replete with evidence confirming the importance of teacher ownership for commitment. Teachers must be motivated and interested to make a change. In short, they must possess the will to make school improvement succeed. This will is generated by increased empowerment.

A map for a journey

For those who believe in the need to link school effectiveness and school improvement, a key challenge has been to discover the mechanisms by which these two bodies of knowledge can be interwoven to help schools produce successful change and enhanced outcome for all pupils.

School development planning appears to offer a vehicle to connect the two fields and also illustrate a way to simultaneously open doors to improvement. Forms of planning are not new to schools.

In the last two decades or so, there has been an increased emphasis on development planning in schools. The school development plan has become a vital policy link between the school's professional staff, the parents and the education authorities.

However, there is sometimes a tendency to regard the development plan as an exercise in accountability, a response to legal requirements, rather than one key strategic process of all the school. The productive school is one that succeeds in bringing about purposeful and planned change in its participants.

School improvement has been likened to a journey. Thus, the planning process becomes the vehicle to reach the destination and the plan itself, the map. It should not be overlooked, however, that the quality of ongoing discussion and reflection is of considerably greater importance than the plan itself. If the plan itself becomes a substitute for school improvement or its intended outcomes, the whole process will become a pointless paper and pencil exercise.

Rhetoric and reality

Development planning is a living and active process. It is the responsibility of all involved to see that whatever is planned is eventually implemented. There is a fundamental difference between rhetoric and reality.

The written part of the plan is far less important than the ideas within it. There is also the danger that planning becomes an activity in its own right, separate from the main purpose of the school. There is a constant temptation of sidelining the process of development planning and highlighting instead the written plan, making it an end in itself. It is not uncommon to find that preparing the plan is seen as an unenviable, laborious task relating to external accountability rather than to internal development.

The central purpose of development planning, according to a 1985 report of a committee of the Inner London Education Authority, has to lead to improvements in children's learning. In 'learning enriched' schools, shared goals, beliefs and values led teachers through their talk to a more ennobling vision that placed teaching issues and children's interests at the forefront (Rosenholts, 1989).

As a process in itself, school development planning is insufficient to engender meaningful teacher commitment unless teachers generally derive meaning from their work in the classroom. Since educational change depends on teachers' commitment, their involvement is essential to the success of a change effort.

School development planning is a continuous process that enables schools to improve and become more and more effective. At the end of the day it must help the school in its most fundamental mission, that of providing all its clients with what is their due: a quality education that finally makes a difference in their personal development.

Benefits

The great benefits of such a process in our educational organisations cannot be over-emphasised. I shall list the major ones, with the hope that educational leaders and practitioners at school level will look into them and reflect on what needs maintenance and what needs improvement in their self-evaluation process to achieve the most of school development planning within their organisation.

School development planning is a process that enables schools to:

• Prioritise tasks and clearly set achievable targets;

• Involve staff in planning and carrying out action plans;

• Initiate themselves in a process of self-evaluation for improvement;

• Implement collegial management of change and decision-making;

• Create a quality culture at all levels within the school, which is a pre-requisite for quality education;

• Initiate staff members in action research;

• Foster team building through group work;

• Reflect on the teaching and learning process in order to improve students' performance.

Culture and collegiality issues

However, one of the most complex challenges to school development planning is school culture. The context in which development planning takes place not only influences teachers' orientation to the process but also the plan's content.

Until climate and collegiality issues receive attention, teachers in schools experiencing difficulties often show little interest in the development of teaching and learning strategies. We have to bear in mind that changes in any educational organisation affects its staff's beliefs and values, which in turn form the backbone of the school culture.

Education Minister Louis Galea, in his contribution to the publication, Knowing Our School (Dept. of Operations, Education Division, Malta, May 2004, Ministry of Education, Youth and Employment, p. vii) sums it up:

"Today we no longer speak of providing education for all, but of providing quality education for all. In this process of quality education provision, the issue of school development planning is one of the main pillars for a sound foundation. "School development planning is the process whereby schools prioritise the various development needs that arise from self-evaluation of their own practices and procedures.

It is an essential tool for schools in managing resources and workload issues. "The purpose of the school development plan is to make it easier for schools to devise and implement their own strategies for school development. It is envisaged that this will enhance school effectiveness in meeting pupils' needs."

Mr Chetcuti is a retired head of school. He spent his last 16 years of his career as educator, in the role of administrator in various state schools, first as assistant head and then as head of school. Prior to his retirement he was head of school at Lorenzo Gafà Boys' Secondary school - Vittoriosa, and at G. Despott Boys' Junior Lyceum, Verdala, Cospicua.

(Concluded)