You are here:
Departmental and subject action plan template
Download our departmental and subject action plan template to help you plan and evaluate improvements in your department or subject. You’ll also find out what to consider when developing and embedding your plan.
Contents
- Downloadable departmental/subject action plan template
- How to develop and embed your action plan
- Examples from schools
Downloadable departmental/subject action plan template
Use our action plan template to set out your long-term and short-term priorities, and any associated actions, to help you plan improvements in your department or subject.
English department action plan example
Use the following sample action plan to give you an idea of how the details for one priority in a secondary English department action plan might be filled in. It is intended as an example only.
Our contributing associate experts
Our template and sample plan were developed in collaboration with Trevor Bailey
David New, Jeremy Bird and Sue Rogers also helped us write this article.
How to develop and embed your action plan
The plan should reflect whole-school priorities
Your action plan should not be set in stone as it will be changed and updated regularly. You should also ensure it links with other documents, such as:
- Curriculum maps
- Departmental/subject self-evaluation
- Records of training
- The school improvement plan (SIP)
For example, your departmental/subject self-evaluation results and the priorities in the school improvement plan will feed into the long-term plans and short-term priorities of your subject or department.
You can find out more about linking subject plans to the school improvement plan in a further article.
The plan should be costed into the budget
If the action plan is ready prior to your school's budget-setting process, it can be costed into the budget.
This makes it possible for senior leaders to allocate money to things they know are making a difference. For this reason, you should try and align the departmental review process with the school’s financial cycle.
The plan should include professional development actions
Performance management of staff should feed into professional development for the next academic year, and you should include actions related to this in your departmental action plan.
For example, one action could be to raise standards by having a particular teacher attend a course.
Examples from schools
Primary schools
Thorney Island Community Primary School in West Sussex has published action plans for subjects such as maths, English and science.
For each key objective, it sets out desired outcomes and associated tasks.
Cranmer Primary School has also published subject action plans which outline:
- Key objectives
- Success criteria
- Actions
- Persons responsible
- Resources
- How progress will be monitored
Each action is red, amber, green (RAG) rated to indicated whether it has been achieved, partially achieved or not achieved.
Secondary school example
Helston Community College in Cornwall's literacy and numeracy action plan outlines:
- Actions that need to be taken, the key person leading on the action and the staff involved
- Timescales for completion and evaluation, and when updates will take place
- Criteria for evaluating impact
- Funding
The action plan can be downloaded from the school's 'policies' web page.
Special school example
As part of its school development plan for 2018/19, Amwell View School in Hertfordshire has budget action plans for different subjects, including:
- English
- Maths
- Science
- Computing
Sources
Trevor Bailey has extensive experience in school leadership and management. He was a secondary school headteacher for 14 years.
Jeremy Bird has extensive experience of primary headship. He has also worked with local authorities and published guidance for new and aspiring headteachers and senior leaders.
David New, an education consultant, was the headteacher of a large secondary school for 9 years. He has particular expertise in lettings, staffing, academy conversion and the secondary curriculum.
Sue Rogers is an education consultant. She has been the headteacher of 3 schools, worked as an adviser to local authorities, and taught in the primary and secondary phases. She is also a former inspector.
- Academy conversion: action plans
- Action plans for the Early Years Foundation Stage
- Action plans to raise attainment of boys (primary)
- English and maths action plans: examples (secondary)
- Five-year strategic plans: guidance and examples
- How to develop consistent teaching in your school
- Improving teaching and learning: action plans
- Linking subject plans to the school improvement plan
- Linking your school improvement plan to your budget
- Literacy and maths action plans: examples (primary)
- Phonics aims in action plans
- Post-inspection action plans
- Premises development plans: template and examples
- Raising attainment plans updated
- Reading action plans (primary)
- School improvement planning: role of governors
- School improvement plans based on the Ofsted framework (primary)
- School improvement plans: EYFS
- School improvement plans: primary
- School improvement plans: schools rated 'requires improvement'
- School improvement plans: secondary
- School improvement plans: special schools
- School improvement plan: template and checklist
- Science action plans (primary)
- SENCO action plans
- SMSC development: action plans
- Template for writing a case study on classroom practice
- Whole-school pastoral action plans
More from The Key
Coming soon: summer term safeguarding briefing
Brief your staff on the latest statutory guidance this summer term.
CPD Toolkit makes it easy to run training in-house
Covering topics including differentiation, assessment, SEND and growth mindset, CPD Toolkit has been created by subject experts and tested by teachers to guarantee practical, engaging training that's also excellent value for money.
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 15-22 March 2019 22 Mar 2019 08:00
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 8-15 March 2019 15 Mar 2019 08:00
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 1-8 March 2019 8 Mar 2019 08:00
- In the news: Your weekly round-up for 22 February-1 March 2019 1 Mar 2019 08:00
- Need-to-know: Reception baseline assessment – national pilot launched 27 Feb 2019 14:31
The Key has taken great care in publishing this article. However, some of the article's content and information may come from or link to third party sources whose quality, relevance, accuracy, completeness, currency and reliability we do not guarantee. Accordingly, we will not be held liable for any use of or reliance placed on this article's content or the links or downloads it provides. This article may contain information sourced from public sector bodies and licensed under the Open Government Licence.