Schools usually have many objectives they would like to achieve with their buildings and sites. To achieve these objectives, projects need to be planned and implemented. School infrastructure projects may include:

• Maintenance to attend to repairs and upgrades.
• Replacing inefficient taps and urinals to improve water efficiency and reduce operational costs.
• Repairing fencing and gates to improve safety.
• Investigating the feasibility of adding new classrooms.
• Developing a long-term master plan for the site.
• Updating as-built drawings of the site to incorporate new developments.

A School Development Plan enables infrastructure objectives to be set out and projects to be defined for each of these to help ensure they are realised. It provides a way of prioritising, planning and coordinating projects that are needed to enable schools to develop and achieve their goals.

A School Development Plan aims to:

• Support the achievement of organisational and educational goals.
• Define key infrastructure objectives and targets.
• Develop effective plans to achieve objectives and targets.
• Ensures that changes and needs are addressed in an effective structured way.
• Considers requirements for the successful achievement of objectives and targets including capacity and resources.
• Embeds good practices and processes that support and sustain improved performance.

A short webinar on School Development Plans is planned for 22 September 2023, 15:00 -16:00. The Webinar is free to access, please sign up for this here.