Why smaller plans lead to bigger gains

Recently, I have been working with leadership teams drafting their 2026 improvement plans. The same pattern keeps showing up: long documents that try to capture everything, but struggle to guide what will actually change.

The idea: Simplify your improvement plan

An improvement plan should do one main job: decide on a small number of things you will deliberately improve in 2026. It is not a catalogue of everything you care about or will maintain. If it is in the plan, you are saying you will actively change it, not just keep it going.

30-Second Version

• A clear plan separates deliberate improvement work from the important work you will simply sustain.
• Naming a few priorities also clarifies what you will not try to improve this year, even if you care about it.
• Overloaded plans are demoralising. When we do not believe the plan is doable, we default back to “just getting through the week”.
• A simple, focused plan is more motivating and more likely to lead to observable gains for students and staff.

The Full Read

Most schools I work with are already doing a lot for their students. You are running rich programs, supporting complex needs and keeping a community going. Your improvement plan does not need to list all of that. Its job is different: to make a hard choice. Of all the things we care about, what are the few areas we will deliberately improve in 2026?

Once you see it this way, a useful flip side appears. By naming a few improvement priorities, you are also saying, “We will not try to systematically improve everything else this year.” Not because it does not matter, but because you respect just how limited your change capacity really is. You are choosing deeper impact over superficial breadth.

When we ignore this limit, plans quickly become bloated. Extra goals and strategies get added to keep everyone happy. System templates invite more and more detail. Underneath it all lies a quiet belief that if something is important, it must appear in the plan. Before long, you have what I think of as an “everything plan”. An everything plan sounds ambitious, but it quietly sets you up to improve nothing well.

Soon, you have a document that no one can remember and few people believe. A plan that no one can hold in their head will struggle to shape what people do with their time. There is nothing more demoralising than an overloaded plan. It scrambles our planning circuits. Deep down, we stop trusting that the work on the page will lead to real, observable improvement, so we retreat into our day-to-day tasks. We focus on running the school rather than improving the school.

A simpler plan works differently. It can be summed up in a few sentences. People know what you are trying to improve, why it matters and how you will go about it. It becomes easier to align meetings, professional learning and short cycles of action around those priorities. Instead of feeling guilty about everything you are not doing, your team can feel proud of making visible progress where it counts. When you make tangible progress, you build collective momentum and efficacy.

Think of it as an experiment

If you are unsure, treat 2026 as a trial year. Run an experiment with a simpler, more focused plan. See what happens when you concentrate your energy on a small number of things you could actually move forward.

The worst-case scenario? You discover you prefer the old approach and can return to more overloaded documentation in 2027. However, I suspect you will find something different: your team feels more focused, your progress is more visible, and your staff are more likely to engage and support the work.

You have nothing to lose and a year of genuine improvement to gain. Why not give it a go?

Small step → Print your current plan and grab a highlighter. Ask: “If this is meant to show our deliberate improvement work for 2026, what here is really improvement, and what is ongoing maintenance?” Highlight only the few priorities you are prepared to stand behind, then test a one-page version with your leadership team before your next meeting.