You cannot underestimate just how important it is for a school to have a strong vision and ethos. However, it’s all too easy for the likes of a vision, an ethos or a mission statement to be something that exists in name or on paper only.

These are the sorts of things that become a part of a school’s marketing strategy and emblazoned across wall displays or the school prospectus. But it’s only when a school’s vision and ethos is walked and talked, or lived and breathed that it will really have a full impact on a school. A vision needs to be created If you were to look at all the vision or mission statements of schools up and down the country, the chances are that you wouldn’t notice a great deal of difference between them all.

Common themes and ideas, such as mutual respect, belief and achievement for all are likely to be recurring motifs. This should come as no great surprise.

After all, all schools essentially exist for the same reason – to nurture and develop young people, enabling them to achieve their full potential and setting them up for adult life. But, although you could say there’s ‘a much and a muchness’ about the vision and ethos of all schools, one still needs to be created and individually tailored to meet the needs and context of the school. The culture of a school will shape and help form its vision and ethos, to a large extent.

The focus can be on fostering a sense of community, inclusion, or striving for academic excellence – or all three of these (and more).

Narrowing these ideas and goals down into a phrase or tagline can be a challenge.

But finding the words that encapsulate what the school is all about is a very worthwhile exercise. A vision needs to be shared The vision and ethos of a school cannot be determined or decided purely within the confines of a Senior Leadership Team meeting.

If the vision of a school is to mean anything, it needs to be shared by all its stakeholders.

From the cleaning staff to the pupils and the parents and governors, every person that shares any sort of stake in the school needs to be involved in shaping its vision and ethos. This is obviously easier to do if it is a new school opening – a school converting to an academy, for example.

However, at the very least, there should be some sort of consultative process, regardless of the situation and context of the school. A vision needs to be owned By the far the most important aspect of the vision and ethos of a school, in terms of ensuring that is has a demonstrable impact, is that all stakeholders take a genuine ownership of it. The school’s vision needs to be more than a catchy slogan or words on a wall, leaders need to walk and talk the vision around the school.

Teachers and pupils need to understand how it looks in practice.

A discussion needs to be had about how the vision is communicated and exemplified in lessons, and through policies and in all decisions made by the school.

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