Action planning

Getting support - in your school

Many Developing Citizenship project teachers have found that initial action planning is often (but not invariably) taken on by only one or two enthusiastic teachers.

Although small may be beautiful, to see things through from initial ideas to practical school change requires the ability to make friends and influence people.

The following suggestions from one of the project teachers may help:

	Take time to make a professional presentation to the senior management team (SMT). Go for 'the works', use power point, bells and whistles.
	Have an action plan, not just ideas: show how it is going to happen and name key people you have already spoken to. Specifics are the things that leadership teams like to hear.
	When SMT are impressed, ask for a link member from the team to report to and get advice from.
	Don't ask for time or money in the first instance: that will come after SMT has bragged about the success of your first implemented ideas.
	Ensure that your action plan does not involve you in doing all the work.
	Once the SMT are on board, ask them if you can make a similar presentation at a staff meeting.
	When it comes to the staff meeting, speak about SMT as if you are one of them: if you are trying to promote Citizenship education and you give the impression that you are unsupported by SMT, you may get sympathetic comments and nods but your colleagues are unlikely to have confidence in you or your citizenship work.
	At the staff meeting, don't rely on asking for volunteers to help with further work: make sure you have approached the people you want and need before the meeting.
	Involve the Student School Council (where you have one) and/or students in your planning and implementation.
	Keep the Governors informed.
	Develop and where needed adjust your action plan in the light of comments and suggestions from colleagues, SMT and others.
	Remember! The best way to witness to citizenship is by example.

Getting support - from outside

Although you may feel lonely in developing (and trying out) ideas, you are not alone in the big wide world. Plenty of individuals and organisations outside the school can help in planning and in providing support for implementation, including LEA advisers, Healthy Schools Partnerships and Development Education Centres. Getting them to work together on your project will give an added bonus, since they all have particular interests and expertise - all of which should be relevant to the education of your students and to the development of your school.

Action plan

Keeping plans simple but sufficiently detailed is a key factor in making implementation a success. The following proforma can help in developing your first ideas into an action plan.

Action planning example