Clarity of Vision: The Importance of Values and Valuing How We Learn

by Iain Hope

Introduction

In recent times, my school has undergone a significant change in name and identity. It has moved from being the last vestige of a local international school to becoming part of a global group linked to an old British school. As such, it was time to revisit the school’s identity and purpose; what it wanted to be. We were in a new, but increasingly competitive market; we needed to define ourselves in that market.

Having been through this process before, I was aware of how we should do this, but upon reacquainting our school leaders with the what, it became clear that there were differences of opinion, not just on the structure and content, but even on the terminology.

Vision or Motto? Mission or Aim? And Values?

A lot has been written about the need for an institution to have a clear vision. Yet, what did a school vision look like? The answer was that this was not clear to our community or leadership team. There was no ambiguity in the idea of having a long-term vision, but there was in the terminology and in the structural aspects that could, or should, be used. 

Looking at other schools, there were differences. Sometimes a vision includes a mission or mission statement. Sometimes these were the same. Sometimes schools had goals or aims. Some had a tagline, others a motto, particularly old British schools. Some schools also had attributes or values, but their content differed widely. Some schools did not have a vision at all. 

So, did we need a vision or motto, mission or aims? Did we need values?

One thing that was clear was that we needed agreement on terminology and structure as we all agreed we needed a vision to support our new identity.

Defining Terminology and Structure

As a school, we needed to look at defining the function of the structural elements of the vision, to bring the pieces together, before we decided what we would use. The definitions we created were:

●Vision and/or Motto or Tagline: provides a short, memorable statement of what the school aspires to be; serving as a unifying source of inspiration and a driver for change (as well as a useful and easily remembered marketing tool). 

●Mission Statement and/or Aims: this would be where the school clearly articulated its fundamental objectives in a series of clear, ambitious ‘To…’ statements.

●Values and/or Attributes: these would represent the core principles (or virtues – see Double and Cook, 2023) that would support learning and wellbeing, guiding the behaviour and decision-making processes at all levels.

The terms we decided to use: Vision, Aims and Values. 

Values: What would they be?

With our structure and terminology clear, as a community we could begin to formulate our vision and create our aims, drawing from our British school connection, however, values proved more difficult.Values were the foundation upon which everyday operations needed to sit; the vehicle that would allow us to achieve our aims and fulfil our vision. In consultation with our community, the number and variety of things valued were wide-ranging. However, we knew if we chose too many, they would not be unique, would not support our aims and would not be easy to focus on. 

Consequently, we could not decide on which to use. We were stuck. Yet, there was one theme that came through repeatedly; all our community valued high-quality learning.

We decided on a new approach, instead of asking what high-quality learning and well-being looked like for us in the classroom. How did it happen? What did we think were most important when learning and so were most valuable?

What we Value is How we Learn

A benefit of this was that because the values we derived came from the classroom, we could easily use them every day in lessons. However, because a good classroom environment should embody the best learning practices, and because a school and even life in general, would be supported by continuous learning, the values we derived turned out to be applicable at all levels of the school and to all members of our community. These values could be applied to how we wanted things to work in playgrounds, parent workshops, communications, leadership practices, training sessions, monitoring…

These values were not what most schools had at the level of supporting their vision (some did not even see them as values), yet they were things we valued, and they required similar attributes or virtues as the things our community valued.

In Summary

Whatever terminology defines and structures your school’s vision, the most important thing I feel must be values, and when looking at values, for me, the classroom is the level we need to focus on.

‘What do we value for learning and well-being in the classroom and how do we promote it?’

This key question helped us to focus on creating values that would support achieving our vision and aim every day in school. The unforeseen bonus was that what we valued for how we should learn in the classroom was also a model for how we should do things in our organisation. It turned out that a high-quality learning classroom with well-being at its heart was actually a microcosm of how our whole organisation should operate!

Iain Hope is Headteacher,  Reigate Grammar School Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

To connect with Iain on LinkedIn, click here       

Next week’s Principal’s Blog is written by Daniel Reynolds, Head of School, Tokyo International School, Japan

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