Session Information
As we go forward from Covid and a changed world in so many respects, it is what we can see and envisage that matters most to great planning in schools. To develop visionary and responsive strategic plans, schools will need wider inputs and better mindsets, systems and supports to enthuse. More than ever, outputs of a strategic plan need to provide compelling and cogent reasons for parents, students and staff to choose your school.

In an open and choice-based context that almost all independent schools now operate in, what should be the objectives and characteristics of an impactful strategic plan to help build market success for your School? I would suggest five as paramount for schools today:

1. Enact and support Core Statements (Vision/Mission/Values/Graduate qualities that shape a cogent and compelling school identity to choose your school)

2. Name and Acclaim (Reputation ‘’capital’’)

3. Uncontested space (A flagship/specialization that others find hard to replicate)

4. Valued Advantage (Attributes high valued by the community and key evaluators of your school)

5. Differentiation (Intrinsic and extrinsic factors that distinguish your school meaningfully from peer/alternative schools)

In impactful strategic planning processes, the best leaders create compelling and ambitious, big picture understandings, bring them into possibility through strategic foundations including visioning, make them live through pedagogy and curriculum and sell them through authentic marketing and communications messages. Far beyond a compliance, ‘steady as she goes’ activity, strategic planning should be seen as a one-off opportunity to create a shared sense that the school is ‘on the move’ with purpose and an ambitious, defining trajectory.

Through case study led discussion from Dr Holmes global strategy work with schools, explore:

1. How should school leaders address and respond to this new challenge? 

2. How can strategy planning be a key tool for school leaders to fit in a world crying out for optimism?

3. Where does authentic identity and marketing fit and flow from such a strategic planning process?

About our presenter:
Dr Stephen Holmes B. ED, MBA, M. ED, PhD (School Marketing/Reputation) is the Principal and Founder of The 5Rs Partnership established in 2004.

Dr Holmes is widely regarded to be the most experienced, credentialed consultant/facilitator in the world in the related concepts of marketing, strategic planning, reputation management for the education sector. Stephen is the only full-time practising consultant in the world with a PhD in the specific field of school marketing/reputation.

Dr Holmes is recognized as both a pioneer and thought leader globally in school communities at a practical level through his consulting, academic and professional contributions. Dr Holmes’ reputation specific to the education sector has centred on being an evidence-based strategist with a holistic, market perspective on education.