How to develop your long-term strategic plan

Last reviewed on 9 April 2021
School types: All · School phases: All
Ref: 42237

Long-term strategic planning will give you an overview of the direction of your school improvement over the next 3-5 years. Find out how to develop a robust plan that will help you achieve your school's vision. Plus, download our template plan to save you time writing your own.

Article tools

Contents

  1. How is a long-term strategic plan different to a SIP/SDP? 
  2. Lean on your school leaders and governors for their expertise 
  3. Make sure your vision statement still reflects your school's aspirations 
  4. Hear from your school community to identify priorities for action 
  5. Once you've decided on your priorities, check they tie into your vision 
  6. How to write clear objectives and actions
  7. Map out what you can realistically achieve each year 
  8. Use our template to write up your plan 

How is a long-term strategic plan different to a SIP/SDP? 

A long-term strategic plan will: 

  • Outline a top-level overview of the direction of your school improvement over the next 3/4/5 years
  • Help you break down how you're going to achieve your school's vision

Whereas, a school improvement/development plan (SIP/SDP) will:

  • Outline how you'll achieve part of that strategy across a 1/2/3 year period
  • Include specific actions you need to take to meet your medium-term objectives
  • Keep you on track for achieving your overall long-term strategy

You can get further details on the differences and learn how the two feed into your school improvement planning in this article.

Lean on your school leaders and governors for

Read next

Also in 'Planning and supporting school improvement'