Being in charge of a school is a job like no other. As a principal, you likely find yourself in a constant state of busyness as you attempt to keep your school running smoothly. Being a principal is certainly a highly pressurized role. Trying to manage every aspect of the running of a school is a neverending task that you may struggle to keep on top of. With so many tasks filling your working day, you may find it increasingly difficult to focus on the bigger picture and to keep moving your educational establishment forward.
When it comes to running a school, setting high standards and achieving or exceeding them is essential. After all, you want your students to leave your establishment with a set of impressive qualifications and feeling fully-prepared to take on life away from the school setting. Attempting to ensure this happens is a big responsibility, and requires constant effort.
The world is changing fast, and that means that schools need to keep up with understanding the challenges that young people face, and the barriers they come up against when trying to gain an education that will set them up for life. For schools, this requires standards to be continually improved, innovations to be made, and a commitment to an ongoing quest to increase standards. There are many factors that influence a school’s ability to deliver the best possible education to its students. The following tips should help schools in their pursuit of raising standards and achieving the most positive outcomes for their students.
In an ideal world, it would be possible to address every issue a school faces at once and solve all these problems right away. However, with a finite budget and limited time, the best way to achieve meaningful results is often to focus on specific areas of improvement. Identifying the areas that are of main concern to you and most in need of immediate attention can help you to elevate overall standards in the school more quickly.
Making school improvements is never a one-person job. So, it’s vitally important to consider the opinions of other members of your leadership team and, in some cases, the school community at large. Getting input from your fellow stakeholders will help you develop a more rounded view of the issues and how best to tackle them.
Once the issues are identified, it’s then possible for you to collaborate on the best ways to improve them as part of a working group. Creating SMART goals around the improvements you want to see and allocating ownership of different roles that will help achieve these goals is an excellent way to get things moving quickly.
Sometimes, attempting to make major changes to the way your school operates and the way it serves its students can become an ad hoc practice without a clear direction driving the changes forward. Taking this approach rarely helps to achieve the goals you are striving toward, and can simply result in wasted time and effort. Instead, it’s advisable to take a more structured approach to making improvements in your educational establishment. Seeking an accreditation in education is a really helpful way to achieve this.
Working towards an accreditation enables many aspects of your school to be assessed and improved upon during the process. Making improvements in this way helps to facilitate a continued approach to raising standards and ensuring your school offers the best learning opportunities and resources to its students not just now, but in the longer term, too.
As well as benefiting the students, achieving accreditation is an excellent way to raise the profile of the school and ensure it is well-regarded by parents and the wider community.
Finally, it would be impossible to raise standards and make improvements to your school without having the right team around you. Having staff that you can depend on and are as passionate about improving the school as you are is a powerful asset for any principal.
Fostering a positive culture through your treatment of staff and supporting them to perform their role to the best of their ability is crucial to reduce staff attrition and keep hold of your best teachers. Working on staff retention provides greater stability for pupils, and ensures you have a strong team around you. When you have a team that feels appreciated and wants to work together, this positivity trickles down to your students, helping improve engagement and achievement.
P.S. Before you zip off to your next Internet pit stop, check out these 2 game changers below - that could dramatically upscale your life.
1. Check Out My Book On Enjoying A Well-Lived Life: It’s called "Your To Die For Life: How to Maximize Joy and Minimize Regret Before Your Time Runs Out." Think of it as your life’s manual to cranking up the volume on joy, meaning, and connection. Learn more here.
2. Life Review Therapy - What if you could get a clear picture of where you are versus where you want to be, and find out exactly why you’re not there yet? That’s what Life Review Therapy is all about.. If you’re serious about transforming your life, let’s talk. Book a FREE consult call here.
Think about subscribing for free weekly tools here.
No SPAM, ever! Read the Privacy Policy for more information.
