Vision and values workshops for schools
Vision and values workshops give you guiding principles to determine behaviour, actions and words. These principles underpin the culture that drives teaching and learning in school. Therefore, they shape pupils’ experiences.
An effective vision and values set is not just a list of words displayed around a school. They should reflect the kind of school your staff want to create and lead. Feed them into every part of school life, from lesson planning to assemblies. And, ensure they cover behaviour policies and the whole structure of the day. They should become the heartbeat of your school and every staff member needs to commit to the process. This is the best way to uphold, teach, promote and communicate your school’s vision and values.
How will a strong values set help senior leaders?
A strong set of core values will help Senior Leaders make strategic decisions for the school. This includes what projects you take on and how you run them. Similarly, a clear values set will define the relationships between staff, pupils, parents and the wider community. In addition, they will help ensure consistency. They’ll provide a unified level of experience for all involved in the school. In this way they can foster a culture that helps people work together in an effective and valuable way.
Why do we need a vision and values workshop?
First of all, it is essential that a school’s vision and values are regularly reviewed and evaluated in order to ensure they are still relevant. Even small changes can completely transform the direction a school is heading. Then, they can increase positivity and improve attitudes from staff, pupils and parents.
Is your school looking for a complete transformation, a new start or a reflection and re-establishment of your core mission? If so, a Vision and Values Workshop can help you. A session with our consultant will focus on helping you to identify and encapsulate a school vision and a set of values. As a result, these will shape the strategic direction of your school.
What will you gain from the workshop?
Our Vision and Values workshops are aimed at encouraging reflection and giving you a clear driver to pin strategic decision making. In this way, you can shape the future of your school through:
- Define a clear vision and values
- Establish missions for the school and individuals
- Identify common goals
- Create cohesion and unity amongst senior leadership/staff/ community
- Develop a clear strategy for implementing/communicating vision and values
How does the workshop work?
We can cover a wide range of topics within your vision and values workshop and the workshop will be tailored to your needs. Furthermore, our session can run over a half or full day according to your school’s requirements. Also, we can run sessions with senior leadership teams, whole staff groups or a combination of both for example:
Senior Leaders half-day session
- Consider the current strengths and challenges of the school (this can include reflecting on the school’s self identified improvement plan areas, parts of Ofsted reports and other self evaluations/ accreditations that are relevant or important to the school)
- Vision and values history – what has worked? What benefits have there been with previous visions and values?
- Vision and values exercises – identify and define these
- Incorporate current school requirements e.g., Unicef Rights Respecting, BLP, Growth Mindsets, etc
- Plan your implementation
Whole school half-day session
- Consider the current strengths and challenges of the school
- Individual vision and values exercise – what motivates tour staff, what are their personal visions and values
- Merge of findings from the leadership and whole school session to reach a common and shared understanding
- Plan your implementation and next steps
If you combine a half day with Senior Leaders followed by a whole school session, then you can combine the findings to finalise a clear and cohesive set of vision and values. Most importantly, they’ll become a framework that the whole school believes in.
Testimonial
‘Participating in this workshop allowed me to think deeply about my career as a teacher and what my vision is for myself in this profession. This was an area that I hadn’t yet explored seriously so was challenging, yet enlightening for me.‘ Marilyn, Osmani Primary School.
