If you’ve been involved in school improvement planning, you’ll know it’s one of the most important things a school does. But let’s be honest—it’s not always the easiest. From my experience of working with loads of schools over the years, I’ve seen first-hand how the process can get bogged down, even with the best intentions.
It’s not that schools don’t know what they want to achieve. It’s that the tools we’ve used for years—lengthy documents, scattered spreadsheets, and meetings with more questions than answers—don’t always help us work in the way we need to.
Below are five common struggles I’ve seen crop up time and again.
Table of Contents
- Plans That Are Hard to Use Day-to-Day
- Getting Everyone on the Same Page
- Keeping Track of What’s Actually Happening
- Proving Progress Without the Hassle
- Making Sense of Data Without Getting Lost in It
- A Practical Solution
1. Plans That Are Hard to Use Day-to-Day
A good school improvement plan should be a guiding light, not a dusty document hidden in a filing cabinet. But too often, plans are written to tick boxes for accountability purposes rather than to provide practical support for teachers and staff.
Think about it: if a teacher wants to check what’s expected of them or how their work ties into a wider goal, can they find the answer quickly? In many cases, the answer is no. Plans might be detailed, but they’re rarely designed with usability in mind.
The result? Staff feel disconnected from the bigger picture. They’re left guessing how their efforts contribute to school priorities, which can lead to frustration or even disengagement. A plan needs to work for the people on the ground—not just look good on paper.
2. Getting Everyone on the Same Page
A school is like a rowing team: everyone needs to pull together in the same direction. But that’s easier said than done when different stakeholders—teachers, senior leaders, governors, trust staff—don’t have an easy way to collaborate.
What happens in many schools is that improvement plans are created in isolation, often by a small leadership team. While these plans might be shared in staff meetings or emails, there’s rarely a mechanism for ongoing collaboration.
The challenge is making sure everyone has a voice, especially when staff are already stretched thin. Without meaningful collaboration, improvement planning can feel like something that’s done to people, rather than with them.
3. Keeping Track of What’s Actually Happening
The best plans are living documents—something that evolves and adapts as the school year progresses. But keeping track of progress can feel like a full-time job in itself.
You might start the year with clear actions and deadlines, but as the weeks go by, it’s easy for those to slip through the cracks. Staff turnover, shifting priorities, or simply the busy nature of school life can derail even the best-laid plans.
What’s needed is a system that makes it easy to monitor what’s been done, what still needs doing, and where adjustments might be needed. Without that, plans risk becoming little more than wish lists.
4. Proving Progress Without the Hassle
Accountability is part and parcel of education, whether it’s demonstrating impact to governors, trustees, or Ofsted. But pulling together evidence can feel like jumping through hoops—especially when plans aren’t set up to make this easy.
Schools need to show not just what actions they’ve taken, but how those actions are making a difference. This might involve linking improvement plans to pupil outcomes, staff development, or changes in behaviour.
The problem is, when evidence is scattered across different systems—or, worse, buried in emails or meeting minutes—pulling it all together becomes a major headache. Plans need to do more than sit in the background; they should actively support accountability by making reporting straightforward and stress-free.
5. Making Sense of Data Without Getting Lost in It
Schools generate more data now than ever before. Attendance figures, attainment scores, progress measures—the list goes on. But having lots of data isn’t the same as having useful data.
The challenge is linking all that information back to your school improvement goals in a way that’s meaningful. For example, if your priority is improving reading outcomes, how do you track whether the interventions you’ve put in place are actually working?
Too often, schools rely on spreadsheets or data systems that don’t talk to each other, making it hard to see the full picture. What’s needed is a way to bring everything together—so you can focus on insights, not admin.
A Practical Solution
These problems aren’t new, but they’re not something schools should have to just put up with. That’s why we’ve worked hard on tools like Smaps—designed to make the whole process simpler and more manageable.
Smaps brings your plans to life, making them easy to access, update, and track. It’s about helping schools stay focused on what matters without getting tangled up in unnecessary admin. You can keep your plans clear, involve the whole team, track what’s happening, and make sense of your data—all in one place.
From my time working with schools, I know how important it is to have something that just works. You’ve got enough on your plate without wrestling with complicated systems. Smaps takes away that stress and gives schools a way to manage improvement planning that actually fits into the day-to-day.
If any of this sounds familiar, why not take a closer look? School improvement planning doesn’t have to be a headache—it can be something that truly supports the work you’re doing every day.