These 5 common mistakes most schools make happen in even the best of the best schools. Often times, you may think you are doing everything right with your school admin and playing by all the rules, yet you are not getting the growth and results you desire.
From our observation, these are the common mistakes most schools make, when it comes to decisions and administration:
1. Student needs are not a priority
Making students the top priority of your school may sound like a tired cliche right out of the books, yet a lot of schools are ignoring this obvious move.
Putting students first means investing in the right tools and resources for them instead of being focused only on being profitable or on paying eye service to the parents, investors or school owners.
Most great schools– big or small, have student success at the heart of their business by always putting what is right for the kids ahead of decisions, and it definitely shows in their results.
2. Not communicating with Parents
Who calls the shots in any school? You may think it is the school admin but ultimately, it is the parents – after all, they are your paying customers and the customer is always right! But what do parents really want? Most times, it’s whatever is best for their child. And even though you assume you know what that is, you might just be wrong. What school admin or teachers feel, is often different from what parents themselves know or think is important – the key is to find a balance through communication.
Figure out the right tools for parent communication in your school. You don’t have to wait till PTA day. You can send out surveys from time to time using google docs or make use of SAFSMS Parents App, specifically designed to ease school-parent communication. The parents will appreciate it, and most of all – your decision making process will be better and based less on guess work.
3. Not empowering teachers
You’ll know this one is your problem if you’re always struggling to figure out why your best teachers keep leaving your school and how to make them stay.
The simple answer is this: empower your teachers with the tools and resources they need to not only do their job well and make it easier, but also for their personal and career development. Organize in-house training seminars and invite education experts, sponsor your teachers for training events.
The mindset of the teachers eventually impacts on the students and remember what we said about students being your No1 priority?
4. No online presence
If your school doesn’t have a website and at least one active social media page, stop what you’re doing right now (including reading this article) and go and create one right away! You can get started easily with Facebook or Instagram.
In 2018, every serious business, brand or community that wants to stay relevant has to be online in one way or the other. You can assign a team of teachers/staff dedicated to online activities or outsource it to marketing/PR companies – choose what suits you.
While you’re at it, list your school on directories, create a school website and research more ways you can be seen online.
5. Managing time poorly
We all know what I’m talking about here – the bell rings and student and staff look up hoping it’s closing time. 3 hours into the school day and things seem to be going out of control, staff are overworked, students are barely learning. Busy periods like exam or resumption times are even worse, but this doesn’t have to be the case.
In fact, this usually happens when schools do not take advantage of the dozens of tools out there designed to ease the burden of staff and make life easier for admin and teachers.
Read: Deploying 21st century tools for better Time & Records Management
Using the right tools, schools can cut down half of the time wasted on repetitive day-to-day tasks and focus more on teaching and learning.
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