Our Strategic Planning Process

As we move through our strategic planning process to get ready for the launch of a new publication in August 2025, I want to provide an update of completion points so far and our next steps.

One of the advantages of having been new in my Head of School role last year meant my commitment to Listen and Learn before Leading also supported the best practice in strategic planning which is to first establish what is ‘untouchable’ in an institution before making any change. I started gathering data around the question “What is sacred at Mulgrave?” before I arrived during transition weeks in October 2022 and May 2023. This was then formalised during the 2023-24 year when we asked four of the strategic questions suggested by the The Big Questions Institute covering distinct groups across the school.

This led to focus group activities with parents in our MVP, our student leadership group, during our two day Board retreat, our Advisory Board of friends and past parents and also members who met every three weeks as part of our strategic planning committee. Additionally, parent survey feedback drawn from our CIS survey, our annual Engagement Survey, and over a 100 parent voices who provided input for questions in my own Heads’ Evaluation survey provided incredible richness in thought.

All of our teachers and staff had a whole day dedicated to strategic planning in February 2024 when we went through intensive focus group work based around our strategic questions, following earlier work with middle and senior leaders on the same questions. This continued in divisional teams through the year and other representatives have also been working on the strategic planning committee this term. This team also includes student representatives who formed part of our student leadership group work. One of the outcomes of student feedback has led to the formation of a brand new student strategic leadership group that will work directly with me next year on gaining student insights from EY, JS, MS, and SS on new educational ideas and initiatives.

It is also worth noting that I have also been able to draw on my own extensive national and international connections in education for an environmental scan of future trends in education. This will ensure that Mulgrave compliments our own traditions and context with emerging themes representing outstanding global practice and research. To this end I tapped into insights gained from the:

• UWCSEA & UNESCO Future of Education Symposium, April 2022
• IB Global Conference for Heads Dublin, Oct 2023
• CAIS Conference for Heads and Board Chairs, Oct 2023
• Villars Institute presentation by Dr Lee Howells, Feb 2024
• Systems Thinking Transformation Summit - UWC Atlantic College - UK, May 2024
• Published work by Education in Motion shared by Dr Kevin House
• World Economic Forum’s research in future workplace trends
• Evidence Based Education group
• Geneva based Institute of Education at Ecolint
• John Hopkins University’s Best Evidence in Brief

We are now in the process of evaluating, reviewing, and refining all of this data into a draft set of principles, areas, and foci for our next strategic plan. These provisional outlines will be drawn up by December 2024 with the expectation that we will have the first full draft strategy ready to review at our Board of Directors retreat in February 2025. Any amendments and changes will be made in time for introduction to our school divisions and departments so they can produce their own Action Plans for the 2025-26 academic year. The full strategic plan will be ready to present to our full community by the summer of 2025.

What I can already say is that there is a clear community consensus around what we believe is sacred and special about Mulgrave. This fact alone will ensure our next strategy aims to enhance these qualities not diminish them. One of those distinctive elements of our school is our strong reputation to innovate and continue to establish our standing as leading on best practice and evidence based initiatives. You will hopefully identify best practice, leading global research informed initiatives, a core focus on learning and teaching and our commitment to shape character, values, and positive impact across the entire plan.

Another theme that is important for me to highlight to our community is the maturing school agenda. In one of my previous leadership roles as a Director of Education across a large schools group, I was able to identify the different organisational approaches to institutions that were start-ups, early phase, maturing, or fully established schools. Mulgrave is just over 30 years old and moving into the maturing/established zone that is typically associated with a focus on complexity, nuance, refining values statements, operationalising mission & vision, ensuring admissions alignment with school priorities, and using the best data points to ensure our students are developing, growing, and making progress. This often means being sure enough in your identity and mandate to focus on what works and makes an impact. This is an important point to signal as maturing schools in the past have faltered by continuing with approaches that are not proven to positively impact students simply because they were founding characteristics of a school. Equally, ensuring everything you pursue and do is mission and values aligned is another critical ingredient. This element also determines why maturing schools often spend more and more time carefully selecting new families to ensure this alignment is authentic and fully understood.

Thankfully, as a school with extremely robust applications and admissions, strong governance and oversight, healthy financial status, superb facilities, very experienced school leadership, strong teaching and a global leading curriculum means we are not an organisation that has to ‘over promise and under deliver’. Many start up/new ventures are ‘forced’ to market to every population segment to secure seats and admissions. Instead of operating in this less than ideal ‘marketing mode’, maturing schools can build on the trust and reputation they have secured to really focus on impact, research, and mission and values driven work knowing their community is receptive and supportive. As I mentioned earlier, the characteristic of maturing schools requiring nuanced understanding, comfort in complexity and a commitment to reading longer explanatory pieces (such as my Head Space articles), is an important part of this journey. Thank you for taking the time to do this and please drop in any comments you wish to make to help all of us create the best possible community as we move into our new strategic phase.