How to develop your long-term strategic plan

Long-term strategic planning will give you an overview of the direction of your school improvement over the next 3 to 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.

Last reviewed on 26 May 2023
School types: All · School phases: All
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Contents
  1. How is a long-term strategic plan different to a SIP? 
  2. Make sure your vision statement reflects your school's aspirations 
  3. Collaborate with governors to develop your strategy 
  4. Identify priorities
  5. Once you have 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 
  9. Examples

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

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

A school improvement plan (SIP) 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

Get more detail on the differences and learn how the two feed into your school improvement planning in this article.

Make sure your vision statement reflects your school's aspirations 

You likely won't need to review your vision statement in light of the changes over the past year and the issues

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