Strategic planning requires clear and transparent goals that engage key stakeholders in schools. These include leadership teams, teachers, students and the broader school community. Fundamental to illustrating these goals is the existence of vision and mission statements. Understanding the difference between the two, and their importance in strategic planning, is imperative to quickly establishing a profile of the school and the objectives they wish to achieve.

Bruce Johnson’s video highlights the difference between a mission and a vision statement. A mission statement describes the current principles and focus of an organisation, and a vision statement illustrates the aspirational goals of an organisation.

A series of videos presented by Erica Olsen, clearly explained the difference between the two statements and how a mission and vision statement can be written. I really liked how she provided clear checklists that keep the writer accountable for their statements. This led to an interesting exercise where I delved into my school’s vision statement and critically analysed it using the checklists. Interestingly, I found that although it was labeled a vision, it clearly displayed attributes of a mission statement. This was equally true for the school’s library vision statement. Moreover, the latter’s statement was not even titled as mission or vision, but rather purpose. It led me to think about how people may incorrectly percieve a school’s objectives and vision if such statements were incorrectly written and labelled.

Although there are many aspects of a school to consider when planning strategically, a key thought process was keeping accountable to the strategic objectives outlined by the SMART acronym. Keeping objectives Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound, ensures targets and goals set by the school leadership team can be realised within a reasonable time frame.

With this in mind, I begin to think about the role of the TL and their position within the school. Understanding curriculum needs, available resources, scope for improvement and projecture into a 21st century educational agenda and the needs of the students within the school, it is clear the TL has a valuable collaborative role to play within the school leadership team. Planning strategically for the future requires a key player who is central to the school and offers expertise in a range of educational agendas such as literacies, resources and curriculum.