The 2022 school year can already be described as “interesting”. Starting a new school year is filled with possibilities. There are many areas that you COULD focus on in 2022. You might choose to focus on connection (or re-connection following the challenges of COVID), engagement, well-being, clarifying your shared purpose, formative assessment, literacy levels, inquiry learning, behaviour management or building a positive school culture, to name a few. This year it is vital that your school focuses on clear and consistent leadership. Getting leaders in your school aligned and working on the same page is more important than ever. That is the sole purpose of the School Leadership Sprints.
Starting a new school year is filled with possibilities. There are many areas that you COULD focus on in 2022. You might choose to focus on connection (or re-connection following the challenges of COVID), engagement, student well-being, staff well-being, feedback processes, clarifying your shared purpose, formative assessment, data mining, literacy levels, problem solving, thinking skills, inquiry learning, project based learning, behaviour management or building a positive school culture, to name a few.
It might be my upbringing in North Queensland but I am a great believer in keeping it simple and following the KISS theory (Keep It Simple School leaders). Try to limit your focus to just THREE priorities this year. Once identified, these three areas need to be clearly and consistently communicated so everyone in the school community knows exactly what is on our agenda in 2022.
It is FAR more effective to identify just THREE priorities for the year and have an impact on them, than to identify 57 areas for improvement and have our impact diluted and have very little impact.
In identifying your TOP 3 priorities for 2022 I’d highly recommend thinking of school culture as unlocking a combination lock. It is vital that leaders are constantly monitoring the STUDENTS, STAFF and PARENT groups to identify which area needs our attention at this particular time.
Setting up for success helps us to identify what we are going to START doing in 2022 as well as areas we need to tweak or refine. It is JUST as important to take the opportunity to identify what your leadership team are going to STOP doing in 2022. Traditionally in schools, we are great at adding more to our agenda but not so good at deciding what we are going to STOP doing. We keep adding to our already full plates and find it difficult to say ‘enough’. Sounds like me at a smorgasbord or buffet in pre-COVID times.
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