Last week a new LAC school presented me with an interesting question: “How do we know we’re meeting our mission?”. It’s the kind of question that we often ask ourselves at accreditation season, but how many schools can truly answer with confidence and evidence?
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that unpacking this question is no different to any other data dive we might do. It requires us to understand what we’re measuring, to find a range of data to analyse, and then to use all that evidence to gain a deeper and more holistic understanding of our current situation and future goals.
Step 1: Translating values into visible behaviours
What does our mission look like in action?
When we are living our mission, our values align with our actions. Let’s take “lifelong learning” as an example phrase we often see in mission statements. Schools that value lifelong learning will likely have administrators that promote and encourage staff professional development, teachers that participate fully in learning opportunities, and students who demonstrate independent learning outside of the classroom.
Look at your mission, and break it down into the key areas: these are your values. For each value, what might the visible behaviour be? Consider all your stakeholders and all sections of your school. Ask teachers to to link each value to a classroom activity or observed behaviour. (lifelong learners do additional research outside of class time). The more we can identify the connections between our actions and our values, the better we can support students to develop these skills and live these values.
Step 2: Gather the Evidence
For each of these actions or behaviours, what evidence might you collect?
In the case of our lifelong learners, we might look at the annual PD budget, staff PD participation rates, and the grades awarded to students for completing independent projects like the Personal Project or CAS.
Remember that data is not just the quantifiable metrics; equally important is the “street data”, or using the voices of the people involved to contextualise the information. A survey of teachers asking if they believe their professional development is valued, supported, and prioritised by school administration would bring useful context to show alongside participation numbers. Equally, interviewing parents to learn more about their children’s attitude to learning outside the classroom will bring some valuable insights.
Step 3: Analyse the Data
What are your expectations, and how will you know if you’ve met them?
For each data set, it is useful to identify benchmarks or success criteria. How much money needs to be allocated for a PD budget to be considered “healthy”? What percentage of teachers need to participate in external PD annually for it to be considered a “priority”? What does the average Personal Project score need to be for students to be considered “engaged”? It’s helpful to have an idea of your expectations before looking at what the data says.
From there, to what extent have you met your expectations? And if not, why not? Examine the data, and consider why it has or hasn’t met your benchmarks.
LAC provides custom designed board and operational dashboards that let you see at a glance multiple metrics, and the degree to which you’re meeting your internal standards for success. A mission dashboard could look at each value, each stakeholder, and combine data from multiple metrics to give you a comprehensive picture of your mission in action.
Step 4: Identify questions and goals
What’s next?
In practice, I have always found that this step almost goes without saying. When people look at data with a clear idea of why they are looking and what they expect to see, the questions naturally follow. “Why are parents saying that students are curious and engaged in their learning, but students are not participating actively in CAS?” “How can we say that professional learning is important to us, when we’ve only budgeted for one quarter of our teachers to attend conferences this year?”
Each of these questions is an opportunity to learn more, to investigate deeply, and to set goals for the future.
How well is your school meeting your mission? How do you know? And what’s the next step in your growth? Let me know in the comments.
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