Planning and reporting: school charters

Why we have charters

Schools have been required to have charters since the Tomorrow’s Schools reforms of 1989. Originally much charter content was prescribed but there is now more flexibility as well as a greater emphasis on student progress and achievement. The charter is a key document in each school’s planning and review cycle.

The preparation and maintenance of the charter is key to the governance role and strategic leadership of the board of trustees. It is essentially a shared document for the community, board, staff and stakeholders that outlines the board’s aims, objectives, directions, priorities and student improvement targets.

The charter is a crucial part of the framework within which the principal has complete discretion to manage the school (Education Act 1989 Sec 76). In this sense, the charter is the board’s number one policy statement. It sets the direction for the school and identifies the priorities that the board expects the principal to be leading. The aim is for it to be a “living” document and as principal you play a key part in making that happen.

What’s in the charter?

Had you picked up a school’s charter in the early 1990s and looked for the links with its strategic plan and budget, or with planning for professional development and performance management of staff, you may have wondered if all the documents came from the same school. The goals in the charter would probably have been completely different from the ones in the strategic plan, and there was little evidence that any of these were aligned with the planning or resourcing of what was actually happening in the school.

The Education Standards Act of 2001 changed this. Its requirements, later integrated into the Education Act, included the need for charters to have both a strategic and an annual section. A “smart charter” format was made available for schools to follow but was not mandatory.

Since then, charters have contained these parts:

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Introductory section Values, mission and/or vision. The aim of developing policies and practices that reflect New Zealand's cultural diversity and the unique position of the Māori culture. The aim of ensuring that all reasonable steps are taken to provide instruction in tikanga Māori (Māori culture) and te reo Māori (the Māori language) for full-time students whose parents ask for it.

Strategic section For the next 3 to 5 years, strategic aims, objectives, directions, and priorities including those that reflect the special characteristics of the school.

Annual section Annual aims, directions, objectives, priorities and targets relating to student outcomes, the school’s performance and use of resources. Sets targets for the key activities and achievement of objectives for the year.

Charters must include the board’s aims, objectives, directions, priorities, and targets for: student achievement, including the assessment of students against any national standard meeting both general government policy objectives for all schools, being policy objectives set out or referred to in national education guidelines, and specific policy objectives applying to that school management of the school’s and board’s capability, resources, assets, and liabilities, including human resources, finances, property, and other ownership matters other matters of interest to the public that the Minister may determine.

You will find more information about these components at this link.

Another useful resource is the Ministry’s document School Charters Incorporating National Standards which was sent to schools early in 2011. This booklet has a “big picture” diagram of charters that is relevant for all schools as well as examples of aims and processes.

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Your role in charter development

Four things to note are:

• The word with. This differs from the expectations of NAG1 which the board achieves through the principal and staff. The board is expected to play an active role in setting strategic direction. As principal-trustee you will be involved in developing the charter; as principal-manager you will be the person responsible for its implementation.

• While the NAG does not specifically state that the strategic plan must be embedded within the school’s charter – the Education Act (Section 61) says that it does.

• The National Education Guidelines to which planning gives effect are made up of: the National Education Goals (NEGS), National Administration Guidelines (NAGS), New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) and National Standards in literacy and mathematics (NS).

• The plan has to document, or explain how the National Education Guidelines are given effect. There is no expectation that it should include the details of every policy, plan and programme – that would make for a very lengthy file! The important message is that these things must all be aligned.

The Professional Standards for Principals reinforce the governance / management partnership in the development and implementation of the charter.

Charter language

Though developing a vision and setting goals that help to achieve it are fundamental to the practice of strategic planning neither of these terms feature in the Education Act. This is why you will see aims, directions, objectives, priorities and targets used instead in the information coming from the Ministry of Education.

While goals and aims might be considered the same, mission and vision are not. An organisation’s mission states its purpose and reason for existing. It may also include the values and behaviours that guide the way it works. Vision tends to be more future focused reflecting where the organisation wants to be. It makes good sense to have a clear statement about where your school is heading. Vision could be seen as interchangeable with direction which is included in the expectations for school charters. Many schools are taking the vision in the NZC as a starting point for determining what it means in their context

Developing a vivid description of what achieving the vision will look like, provides something tangible to work towards.

Sequencing and links

Having determined the mission and vision, what are the key activities for the next 3 to 5 years that you need to focus on in order to achieve them? These priorities for action are the basis for developing strategic aims identifying expected outcomes that contribute to the achievement of the mission and vision. This is a governance role, so you will be working with the board to do this.

Determining the specific steps that will be taken year by year in order to achieve strategic aims is a management role. There should be at least one annual aim or objective for each strategic aim – so it pays not to have too many of these. It’s all about prioritising what the strategic plan, and thus each year’s annual plan, is going to focus on in order to achieve the mission/vision as well as government priorities.

The annual section of the charter does not have to contain all management planning for the year but it does have to be linked and aligned to everything that is happening in the school, i.e. to policies, plans and programmes, including those for curriculum, National Standards, assessment and staff professional development (NAG2). For example, school property should be able to provide for the curriculum, the school’s educational aims and its administrative requirements so there need to be links with the 10YPP in order for key activities for that year to be reflected in planning.

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Updating and reviewing the charter

Updating the charter occurs annually when annual report datat (including analysis of variance data) is gathered, analysed and used to set annual aims and targets for the following year. From time to time, as part of the school’s cycle of self-review, it is important to stand back and check that the hopes and aspirations contained in charter are still relevant to the school, its students and community. In order to do this the board needs to engage with stakeholders, key ones being parents, whānau, iwi and the students themselves.

Who else might be involved? It’s a good idea to develop your own list, thinking about such things as:

• Where do our students transition from?
• Where do our students go to continue their learning?

And then consider what it might be useful to find out from them:

• What are their expectations of the school and does it meet them?
• Are our students well prepared for the next stage in their learning?
• What do they think the school does well?
• What do they think it might do differently or better?

Anyone picking up a charter today would expect to get a sense of the school and its community, its priorities and expectations for students.

An important note about timing

Because the charter forms an important part of your school’s annual planning and self-review process and provides valuable information for you and your community, it needs to be updated before the year is underway. Communications from the Secretary for Education have underlined this expectation not only because it is good practice, but also because submitting the charter helps the Ministry work with you to identify what additional support the students or your school may need in that year. This could be Professional Learning and Development for teachers or resources for students. Information to support principals and board to meet this expectation is continually being updated in print and website resources and through webinar, e-workshop and face to face training workshops.

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