Subject leadership: how to develop and embed a vision

Find out how to write your subject vision and embed it so that teaching and learning in your subject are strong and effective. See examples of vision statements and a case study from a secondary teaching school.

Last reviewed on 23 May 2025
School types: AllSchool phases: AllRef: 1607
Contents
  1. Why have a subject vision?
  2. How to write your subject vision
  3. How to implement and embed your vision
  4. Link your subject vision to your subject action plan
  5.  
  6. Secondary case study: how George Abbot School developed a new vision for English
  7. School examples

Why have a subject vision?

Individual subject visions are important because they feed into the broader whole-school curriculum intent. Your curriculum intent is something Ofsted will pay close attention to as part of the quality of education measure. Read more about how Ofsted inspects your curriculum in our other article.

A good subject vision should:

  • Support and feed into your school’s vision
  • Demonstrate ambition and high expectations
  • Be clear so that it’s understood and remembered by staff
  • Be accessible to pupils and parents/carers
  • Be tailored to your school and context
  • Link to other curriculum subjects
  • Feed into continuous professional development (CPD)

How to write your subject vision

If you’re following the National Curriculum, use the ‘purpose of study’ for your subject as a starting point – for example, you'll find the purpose of study for English at the top of the DfE's programmes of study for English. If you don’t follow