Situational analysis
Write about the Masters of Education for Academy of Educational Leadership Journal.
Mac Robertson girls’ high school is an academically selective, high school for the gifted student that is located in the Melbourne Australia. The high school was incorporated in 1905 in Australia. The high school was operated and managed by the Victoria department of education in the country. It has been found that Mac Robertson girl’s high school has ranked sixth in Australia’s top ten girls schools. The school provides an educational experience to the girls in the territory. It improves and enhances the skills, talents, and knowledge of the girls by providing a variety of education to them. The school has a long tradition of educational distinction. The school offers an educational knowledge which equips girls for the leadership roles in the academic and professional life. In this report, the situational analysis is discussed along with the SWOT analysis.
The education system of Australia is a pillar of the economic growth of Australia. It leads to innovation, increases productivity and has a direct impact on the health of individuals’ wealth, wellbeing and social agility. Education is obligatory in Australia between the ages of 5 or 6 and 15, 16 or 17. It depends on the state and date of birth. The government schools graduate almost 60% of students and 40% students by private schools. The Australian curriculum has been progressively developed for the primary and secondary schools (Baroutsis & Lingard, 2017). Many aspects of the education system in Australia are strong whereas some measures do not indicate the optimum performance. The education system in Australia relies on the dual funding from Commonwealth and state government. Key influences on the contemporary education context are:
- Changes in the perspective of education influences teacher’s personal and professional standpoint.
- The languages have an important role in the education system of Australia because they intercede the interpretation and makes meaning among people.
- The advancement in the technology amends the way people use language, connect and relate to each other through information and learning.
- The time and place influences and orients the role of teachers in the education system.
The education has existed in Australia for more than 200 years. The education system was dominated by the social and moral needs of society. There was great concern for education in the history even for the families. There was great concern for the education standards and outcomes. By the end of 1830, it was assumed that the crime was outcome of ignorance and ignorance was the consequence of the lack of education. Therefore, the education can reduce crime so it was mean to organise society in the Australia. It was authoritative for the government to set up schools so that students can be taught three R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic), good moral and how to be law enduring citizens. The government had laid down certain guidelines for the curriculum of schools including teachers and student’s behaviour and the activities which can be and cannot be performed in the grounds of school. The compulsory education was familiarized in the 1870s which was challenging to enforce. There were three levels of certificate introduced in the Australian education system, qualifying certificates, scholarships and intermediate certificate (Foster, 2018). The qualifying certificates were used to award students for completing 6 years in the elementary school. The scholarships were permitted to the students for the successfully completing 4 years of higher education. The intermediate certificate was awarded for the successful completion of 4 years of high school. The leaving certificate was given for the accomplishment of another 2 years. The student who wants to take admission in the university are required to attain leaving certificate from the school (Zyngier, Traverso & Murriello, 2015).
Political factors
The situational analysis is collection and evaluation of the political, economic, social and technological data aiming at internal and external forces which can influence the performance of an organization. The PEST analysis provides encouragement to the governors, management and staff indulge in the environment of school which could influence planning, future finance and administrative decisions (Fogarty, Riddle, Lovell & Wilson, 2017). The PEST analysis of Mac Robertson high school is:
Political: The political factors include factors like schools being privatisation. It has less impact on the Mac Robinson high school as it is owned by the government. It has been observed that government enterprises create the risk which the schools fail to deliver policy or abstracted from the local main concern. The political factors include the skills which are required to be a teacher or tutor (Yeom, Fan & Garg, 2016). It comprises the changes with the short lead times. It includes the requirements to be self-managing and self-financing. The Australian government and state and the territory government has set goals and directions for the Australian schooling (Fieger, Villano, Rice & Cooksey, 2017). The education and training department has major authority for the school education and programs. The prime minister and the cabinet do funding for the indigenous school students. The education council in Australia is responsible for the native affairs and for the department of education and training. These factors include prospects to become self-financing. The government enterprises create risk of the failing of industry. The curriculum changes can come with the shorter lead times. The report on government services provides a summary of the school education in Australia, key statistics and figures on the funding available for the schools. There are various standards developed by the government which provides resources for the three focus areas, initial teacher education, school leadership and education (Edwards & McMillan, 2015).
Economic factors: The economic factors which affect Mac Robertson girls’ high school are the cost of resources such as books or documents, teaching and support staff. It also includes the technology solutions such as laptops. The school is affected by the material shortage on the international and national market. There is a risk of high valued staff members who move from low performing schools to the high performing schools (Correa-Velez, Gifford, McMichael & Sampson, 2017). In the economic factors, operational activities consider the ability of parents to raise funds. The local industry can affect the fund of industries to raise funds. The funding decisions of central and state government can influence the school finances. The termination of local industries can affect the fundraising plans. The economic factors also consider the capability of parents to raise funds for the possible activities. The breakfast and school clubs are the concerns which are included in the economic factors. It includes the cost of providing resources such as staff, basics, and technology solutions. There are risks involved such as staff moving to other schools and shortages of material (Treagust, Won, Petersen & Wynne, 2015).
Economic factors
Social factors: The social factors have influence on the school such as decline in birth rate and changes in the population due to the national trends. The demographic factors may affect the nature of people needs like people consider English as second language (Bourke, De Klerk, Smith & Leonard, 2016). The termination of local firms provides employment incapability to attract staff. The social factors influence school by social networking sites like blogs, Facebook and Twitter. The integration is expected with the local community. The incorporation of students with special needs and preferences has increased parent power. It has given parents more autonomy over the school of child. The information is available to the staff via internet although they are not given sufficient training to transform habits and anticipated information to be made available. There are legislation which are relevant to the harassment, discrimination and violence in the schools. Some of these legislations are disability discernment act, racial discrimination act, racial hatred act and sex discrimination act (Chesters, 2015). The alternative strategies are also considered by the government. Out of them one strategy is ‘getting the foundations right’ which includes participation in the early childhood development. The other strategy ‘learning for all’ improves outcomes of learning and improves quality of education (Gurr & Drysdale, 2016).
Technological factors: The technological factors have an influence on the schools and include the change in standards and equipment required. There is a risk of selecting the wrong technology in the school atmosphere (Daly, Lewis, Corliss & Heaslip, 2015). The virus in computers can affect the operations of the school. The troubling images on the internet affect the ICT security measures. The technology factors include moving from the paper-based book to the e-book. The other technological factors are computer hardware and software is being out of date. The focus is given on the internet other than the teachers and classrooms.
The situational analysis such as PEST reflects the operations of school in the environment. The political factors include the skills which change with the short lead times. The economic factors have an impact on the school as teachers move from the low performing schools to high performing schools (Luke, 2018). The school is affected by the social networking sites. The integration with the local community has increased the parent power. The technology factors have made move from the paperwork to the e-book. From the situational analysis it has been absorbed that children have high level of anxiety and aggressive behaviour along with the attention problems. It is because they find it hard to adapt the settings of class room and find it hard to focus on the tasks and the instructions of teacher.
Social factors
SWOT analysis for schools is very useful in improving the conditions of Mac. Robertson Girls high school, its teachers and students. It is tool that promotes governance, manage teachers and increase staff involvement in the investigation of what is effective and what is less effective in the school procedure and system. SWOT also used in preparing audit report, assessments and quality check. It can be used for planning and analysing the activities which could provide their impact on future such as financial planning and management decision of the school. It also enables the governance and management of school to carry out more comprehensive analysis (Leung, Johnston & Cowling, 2013)
The highly skilled teachers are the prime assets of Mac. Robertson girls’ high school. The teachers are passionate about their subject and they are very dedicated towards their work. The teachers are very supportive and always invest their time in providing best knowledge to the students. They work with the motive to bring difference in the lives of students through their knowledge and their personal life experiences because at this age students will not understand what they want from their lives (Helms & Nixon, 2010).
Some other strengths of Mac Robertson Girls School include, the school is collaborating with some other local colleges and high schools that will provide the school a basic technology that the students are not having in their school.
Student participation in the health and science academy is given the opportunity to acquire internship to give them a work experience in their related fields of study (Edwards, Radloff & McMillan, 2016).
Looking forward in the future the Mac Robertson Girls School stated art facilities for the students of maths and science which include mock hospital setting that will provide a live experience in the work setting that will prepare them for a solid future.
This a complaint rise by many parents that whenever they visit the school to meet teachers for knowing or talking about their child performance they are not available in the school. In some cases, the teachers are on leave or otherwise they deny by saying they are busy with student or principle. This behavior of teachers is bridging a gap between the parents and school (Little Rock, 2018).
The school is very famous for their academic culture so the management and staff members focus more on studies. They are not much active in organizing open events or other curricular activities. Most of the students have dropped their suggestion to the management regarding conducting events and other activities but till the date, no action has been taken.
Technological factors
The brand image of the school is well established in Australia and because of that, the school did not require any kind of promotion to invite admissions. The parents want their children to get admission into the school anyhow. That is reducing the advertising cost of the school and due to brand image, the every year school got full admissions (Rapidbi, 2018).
The school is open to people opinion and suggestion. The management of the school is always ready for taking opinion and suggestions from the parent’s teacher’s student and the general public to bring effective changes in the school. With the help of suggestion, the management will come to know about the place of changes or place which demands updates (Kinkin, 2013).
Management of Mac Robertson Girls School is very flexible they won’t pressure up to their staff members plus their students. The management believes in productivity as per their norms that will attain when the system is flexible. Rigidity in the system will lead to the gaps between management and its staff members and students.
The main threat to the school is the changes in government policies regarding schools and their policies. The government has full right to amend any act or policy any time and because of that the Government and their right to change school policies are considered to be the main threat (Education world. 2018).
Continuous change in technology is also a threat to the school as there are many changes is been recorded in current teaching style. The teachers are using different technological ways to teach their students. In the present condition, every student wants to learn from a new way of technology as the Mac. Robertson Girls School is old school the infrastructure of school is also traditional or not much change as per new technology. The change in infrastructure and installation of new technology in study involve huge cost (Addams & Allfred, 2013).
The main threat is the other schools in the market with modern infrastructure and the latest teaching technology. The modern schools are the main threat for the Mac. Robertson Girls School because they are diversifying the admissions (Hargis, Cavanaugh, Kamali & Soto, 2014). Due to increase in the number of modern schools in Australia the value of Mac. Robertson Girls School is decreasing and build up their schools image the school needs lots of changes.
It has been observed that parents show interest to link with the school about learning of children. The parents want to engage in the learning of child but do not how to get involve. The parents in school find it difficult to get to the principal as they feel they have to go through assistant principal, coordinator, and teachers. Another issue which is faced is the availability of teachers. The teachers are not available to meet parents at a time when they want to know about the performance of children. The universal participation should be promoted to make the transparent system so that parents feel connected to school (O’Connor, et. al. 2017). The school can enable some applications to track the performance of students. It can help parents to update themselves.
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that situational analysis has a role in the operating environment of the school. The SWOT analysis finds out the issues faced in the Mac Robinson girls’ high school. The school has highly skilled teachers, but there is equal risk of moving these teachers to other higher level of schools. The parents also face problem to interact with teachers and directly with the principal. The availability of teachers is also a critical issue faced by the school. The school should use technology to resolve issues and take advantages such as Facebook, Twitter, website and video chat. The teachers and students can communicate electronically.
The school teachers should plan home visit to communicate at the level of parents. The teachers should listen to the parents and prepare a follow up plan. They should avoid being authoritative. They should develop a plan and involve students within it. There are some strategies which should be following up such as getting the foundation right. This strategy participates in the early childhood development. There are some students who cannot reach the development potential due to poverty and poor health. So this strategy improves value for money and return on investment for the future education investments. The other strategy learning for all improves learning outcomes and quality of education. It focuses on developing high quality teacher workforce which is the critical factor. The school need to invest in teachers and build a high performing education system. The universal application should be used by school to focus mainly on the girls and disabled children. It is going to help school to improve outcome for girls by addressing various interlinked challenges such as safety, adequate facilities, quality learning and the local leadership. The skills for prosperity can be adopted by the school to improve accessibility to high quality education and training. It is helpful to take advantage of economic opportunities. The anxiety issues and other problems can be solved by establishing a strong relationship with children. The progress of children should be regularly monitored throughout the schooling. It can help to pick early problems faced by students. The school need to invest in innovators and leaders through the scholarship programmes.
References
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Leung, G. K., Johnston, J. M., & Cowling, B. J. (2013). Factors affecting implementation of accreditation programmes and the impact of the accreditation process on quality improvement in hospitals: a SWOT analysis. Hong Kong Medical Journal.
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Luke, A. (2018). Critical literacy in Australia: A matter of context and standpoint. In Critical Literacy, Schooling, and Social Justice (pp. 168-188). Routledge.
O’Connor, M., O’Connor, E., Tarasuik, J., Gray, S., Kvalsvig, A., & Goldfeld, S. (2017). Academic outcomes of multilingual children in Australia. International journal of speech-language pathology, 1-13.
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