Strategic Planning - Applying STEEP

Post 1 - apply the environmental (scan) tactic of STEEP to your situation and discuss your results.

Social – The school in which I work  is relatively small, therefore the library is a only open three days a week at lunchtime. One of those I lunchtimes I am rostered on playground duty as there are not enough staff to cover. A  classroom teacher uses the library during this lunchtime  to teach chess club. This means I am unavailable  to assist students with library needs. Students use the library to read, play games, draw and use computers during the other two lunchtimE.

Technological – the library has a lab of 30 desktop computers which are used regularly throughout the week even when there is no TL available. There is a Connected Classroom attached which is used infrequently. Staff do not have enough confidence or experience to use and are unaware of what possibilities exist. Wi fi is being installed sometime this year and a class set of  laptops. There are no i pads available apart from staff’s personal I pads used in their own in class. There are no e books  or e readers available although staff are beginning to request their availability to use on smartboards. There are one or two teachers passively resistant to technology use.

Environment – There is minimal consideration of environment. Recycling paper and limiting air conditioning use. Perhaps consideration of solar power could be a possibility for the future with more energy use planned. My last school received some sort of grant for solar panels which seemed successful some years ago. Purchasing good quality second hand books assists with recycling.

Economic – Budget is always a bit unknown at the beginning of the year . A ‘Spend til I say stop’ mentality exists. This makes it hard to plan and budget. There does appear to be a fairly generous budget allocated to supporting Australian Curriculum and new technology.  Purchasing  of quality  second hand books assists with budgeting also. There is a strong marketing push to retain and gain new enrolments so money spent on new ( visual) improvements is met with positivity. These include grounds and facilities. Lower socio economic community means often user pays options are not achievable. We have a limit to what we can expect parents to pay for. We are not always able to maintain equity and access for all students unless fully or partially  funded by the school. 

Political – I think some schools, particularly smaller and lower income community schools like the one in which I work, tend to have more of a wait and watch approach. They often look to the models of more affluent schools to see what works and what is achievable. I see this with my own children’s school which are planning to implement BYOT ( bring your own technology) for primary from next year. Their vision is to be one of the leading schools for technology in our area ( I believe). The school in which I work would not be able to implement this due to restrictions of  family circumstances and limited incomes.  There would need to be some sort of government scheme or financial assistance to support the school in implementing such initiatives .