The visioning tool 1/5 The aim of the exercise is to establish and agree a vision among a team that will drive improvement planning. Time: 10 60 minutes Group size: 5 to 12 team members Resources needed: large sheets of paper (flip chart paper), felt-tip markers, sticky notes What this tool does The visioning tool can offer a quick and easy means of identifying a strategic vision at the start of the planning process and engaging team members. It creates sign-up and agreement from the team about ways forward. It works on democratic principles in that everyone has a voice. It is a practical method for creating outcome measures so that when the model is revisited it can become a method of assessing progress.
2/5 To start Stick a number of large sheets of flip chart paper on the wall, divided into quadrants, labelled as below. Each piece of flip chart paper represents a group in the school, eg pupils, parents, teachers, senior leaders. Make sure that each piece of paper only refers to one group.
3/5 What you do Invite the team members to think about how they would like the school to be in 12 months time (or any other realistic timescale). Focus on a key initiative so that you can get the perspectives of the whole of the group, for example developing parental engagement with the school. Ask the team to write down answers to the question in the appropriate box on the flip-chart paper using a sticky note. In 12 months time, what do we want (pupils, parents etc) to think/feel/say/do? about this school? (in terms of parental engagement) For the parents sheet this might include: I really like coming to school because I am made to feel welcome. The information evenings for parents are excellent. The school website is a great source of information for parents. I m confident that my child is receiving a good education. My child is safe at school. Any issues I have about my child will be fully addressed. I know who to contact if there is a problem. I understand how things are organised with regard to behaviour. Attending parents evenings Forming focus groups of parents
4/5 Outputs What this tool produces is an agreed statement of the reality of your ideas for different groups. Give a sheet to a group to feed back to the rest. The group can move the sticky notes around so that groups of ideas hang together about attendance at parents evenings, or the number of telephone calls received from parents. Are there any issues at the top of parents agendas such as bullying or attendance? about what you need to do if the output isn t happening at the moment. If, for example, they feel threatened by coming into school, what are you going to do about it? Thus a simple statement can be unpicked by the team and a strategy developed. Measuring success Another advantage of this approach is that after a period of time you take out the sheets, remind the team that this is what you agreed and ask them how far they ve got. If the answer is that a lot of progress has been made (ask your team How do you know? ), clearly the plan is working. If the answer is that not much progress has been made, you need to go into problem-solving mode to find out the reasons and get some solutions going. The example deals with the parents sheet. The staff sheet will bring extra perspectives about increasing parental engagement. Repeat the exercise with other groups so that your team can focus on a broad range of opinions and objectives. Note that you are asking the team members to put themselves into the mindset of parents, pupils, staff, teaching assistants etc. You don t have to invite all of these groups along to the session, but it may be a good idea to include people other than teachers in the team for this exercise. Give the tool a try and see how you get on!
5/5 T I really like coming to school because I am made to feel welcome. F School isn t as bad as it was in my day. S I can t believe my child got the opportunity to do all of those things. S I understand now what the school is trying to do. D Joining in with a parents focus group