The year plan is the most critical of your school’s planning and communication documents. Ensure that it is based on careful research and thorough consultation with staff and members of the school’s governing body (SGB). This should be done before the start of the school year so that the final programme for the year can be issued to teachers before the start of the first term and to pupils and parents on the first day of the new school year.
Make a list of all events, including public holidays, that fall within the school terms. They will include:
- Dates and deadlines for the collection and submission of statistical returns and similar data required by the education department each year.
- Dates of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations and other nationally or provincially determined testing dates such as the dates of the grades three, six and nine systemic tests for literacy and numeracy.
- School events such as prize-giving and valedictory assemblies (the assembly at which the school takes leave of the matrics) whose dates are influenced by events such as the NSC examinations or the last day of a school term or year.
One of the simplest ways to prepare a draft year plan is to use the pages of an A4-size book, listing the days, weeks and months of the year in the margin. Most lined A4 pages hold about 30 lines so you may find it simplest to allocate one page for each month of the school year. Divide each page into two columns using the left-hand column for activities and events that take place during the school day and the right-hand column for those that take place in the afternoon and evening, outside school hours.
If your school is a busy one with a range of extramural activities, divide the page vertically into three columns using the first column for morning activities or those happening during school hours, the second for activities taking place in the afternoon after the end of the school day, and the third column for evening activities and functions such as plays and parent meetings. Use a red pen or coloured shading to indicate school and public holidays, and weekends. Do not fuss too much about making the whole thing pretty — remember that it is a draft programme.
Once the basic layout is complete, use a pencil (so that you can make changes when you need to) to fill in your “major events” list. It is important to list these first, because they will mostly be events that have to take place on a particular date and the decision about the date mostly lies outside the control of the school. Because of their importance the scheduled dates of these events influence the dates on which other, less important, events and functions are scheduled.
Fill in the dates of those events that form an important part of the school’s academic programme and its tradition. These may include the following:
- The starting and ending dates of the mid-year and end-of-year examinations. You will need to decide how many days to allocate to these examinations.
- The dates when reports will be issued/posted to parents and the dates on which parents can meet teachers to discuss the results of their children’s reports.
- The date for the completion of marking for all items related to Continuous Assessment (Cass) together with the deadline for the capture and collation of all Cass marks.
- The dates of cultural, social and sporting events, which will require significant involvement from most members of staff and participation by large groups of pupils. Examples include school plays and choir festivals, sports derby days with other schools and school camps and excursions.
- The dates of important events involving parents and the SGB. Examples include SGB elections and the meeting at which the SGB presents its budget for the year to parents for their approval.
At this point, the draft year plan needs to be circulated to members of the senior management team (SMT) and the SGB for discussion and approval. Once the dates and times of major events have been decided and approved by the SMT and SGB, it is important to avoid changing them unless it is absolutely unavoidable. This is because any change is likely to have an impact on other events that might be planned later, thus creating uncertainty and a perception that the school’s management is not on top of its planning. Avoid this by being thoughtful and taking care when deciding on the date for each event.
Groups like the SGB and finance committee are required by law to meet on a regular basis, the SGB at least once a term and the finance committee at least once a month. It is good practice for school-based management teams such as the SMT and subject and phase teams to meet on a regular basis. The best ways of ensuring that these meetings happen is to list them on the school year plan.
Once the dates of the main events for the year have been fixed, it becomes possible to plan and enter the dates and deadlines that must be met to ensure these events happen as planned on the dates set. So, for instance, the deadlines for the setting of examination papers and the completion dates for the marking of scripts can be set and entered on the year plan.
Use the checklist to ensure that you have entered all the management-, governance- and curriculum-related dates and deadlines that are required for your school to operate efficiently in the coming year.
Year plan: dates and deadlines checklist
For 2011, these are the events and dates to put into your calendar: holidays, public holidays in school terms, religious holidays which may affect a significant proportion of the pupil population, the start of the National Senior Certificate examinations, and the writing of grades three, six and nine systemic evaluation tests, among others.
Term 1 dates
Deadlines for collection and submission of all statistical and other returns required by the department of basic education and/or provincial education department.
Times of all formally constituted senior management team (SMT) meetings for the year. Except in the case of small schools with a staff of less than 10, the SMT should meet for at least 30 minutes either weekly or fortnightly.
Times of all formally constituted meetings of subject/ learning area/ phase heads with their subject/learning area/ phase teams if these meetings cannot be timetabled into the school week.
Times of meetings of the school governing body (SGB) and of formally constituted sub-committees.
The finance sub-committee of the SGB must meet at least once a month.
When marks must be handed in for processing and collating for the first-term report.
Staff meeting at which the term marks of pupils will be discussed.
The deadline (date and time) for the completion of reports.
Parents’ meeting at which they can discuss their children’s reports.
The date and time at which the school closes for the term.
Terms two to four
The same pattern used in term one should be adhered to for terms two to four except that you will need to add the following:
Examinations: For each examination be sure to include the following dates, deadlines and times:
The starting and ending date of the examination.
The date by which the examination timetable must be finalised and approved by the principal and SMT.
The date by which examination question papers and memorandums must be set and checked.
The date by which examination question papers must be printed, stapled and stored ready for distribution and the day on which the paper must be completed.
The date by which the invigilation timetable for the examination must be completed and approved by the principal/SMT.
The date by which the marking of all scripts must be completed.
The date by which all subject mark sheets must be completed and handed in.