Parents who attended last week’s ‘State of the School’ address were the first to hear that Awty will soon begin the process of developing a new Strategic Plan.

Our last Strategic Plan was developed during 2006 and 2007, and was designed to steer the school through the period 2007 to 2012.  Our next plan will provide the ‘big picture’ framework for Awty’s development during the coming five years (through to 2017 or 2018).  If we get this Plan right, it should be capable of guiding us through growth and development to even greater heights of excellence, enabling us to prepare our students effectively for the highly dynamic global environment in which we hope they will play positive and influential roles.

At last Saturday’s full day Board meeting, I gave an hour-long presentation to the Board on the characteristics of an efficacious strategic plan, proposing a timeline and plan of action to develop our new Strategic Plan.  I was thrilled that the Board received my report so positively and enthusiastically, and as a result I have already started work on structuring the planning process.

In early January, a comprehensive questionnaire will appear on the Awty website seeking the views of parents, faculty, staff, students and alumni on a wide range of factors pertaining to the School.  I am hoping that we will receive a huge number of responses to this questionnaire (which will appear in both French and English) as it will be used to develop the first draft of the list of issues to be addressed in the Strategic Plan.

Of course, the questionnaire will not be the only level of consultation during the development of the new Strategic Plan - it will simply be the first.  We will shortly form an Advisory Committee with representatives of all our constituencies (including the students) to ensure that the voices of all our stakeholders are included.  Then, towards the middle of 2012, we hope to form mixed discussion groups to help develop the details of some of the specific priorities for the Strategic Plan.  Finally, all members of the Awty community will be welcome to offer their perspectives at any time during the planning process.

If you are interested in viewing the visuals of the presentation that I gave to the Board, you can access it for online viewing at http://public.iwork.com/document/?a=p1444175092&d=Strategic_Plan_2012-2017_Intro_for_Board_meeting_2011-12-03.key.  Please note that playing the presentation is optimized for the Safari browser (on a Windows PC, Mac or iPad); viewing might work in other browsers but it is highly recommended that the Safari browser is used to avoid losing animations and some of the details.