Strategic Plan

As we're preparing students for their exciting futures, we're also preparing OIS.

A critical element for every school is to have priorities and goals to match the mission and vision of the school. OIS’s mission is to provide a broad, stimulating, balanced international education in a diverse, dynamic, supportive school community. Achieving this mission in an ever-changing world requires us to continue to learn and evolve. The 2022-25 Strategic Plan will help guide our work while ensuring the school’s ongoing improvement and long-term health. We have rooted this plan in 4 key objectives, which you may read about below.

2022-25 OIS STRATEGIC PLAN

Strategic Objective #1: Build and Deliver a High-Quality, Inspiring, International Academic Programme

Initiatives

Design and execute regular curricular review and improvement processes, ensuring coherent, sequenced, rigorous learning experiences informed by the school’s guiding principles and best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. By aligning these with IB programme evaluation and CIS accreditation processes, we can deepen school wide reflection and improvement.
Perform reviews of resources, learning materials, and curricula to ensure OIS students benefit from a modern and inclusive education exploring diverse cultures and viewpoints.
Expand school wide expertise in technology and information literacy and information and communications technologies (ICT):
1. Increase staffing in the library
2. Increase staffing in technology
Execute research projects to learn about and from comparable schools’ programs and practices in learning support and learning English as an additional language (EAL).
Develop and execute the school’s next Technology Plan.
1. Impactful technology plans are rooted in global best practices and the school’s priorities. OIS’s will develop the school’s philosophy for technology, outline an educational technology action plan, and define a professional development plan.
2. Based on these, it will define the most suitable hardware, classroom technologies, and devices to achieve our aims. It will also define an appropriate budget for these items.
Create an engaging and contextually appropriate definition of intercultural learning at OIS, and then put that definition into action across the school.
Issue all graduates who complete OIS’s academic program an accredited diploma independent from International Baccalaureate credentials. Doing so will expand students' access to higher education institutions globally.

Strategic Objective #2: Expand and Diversify the School's Programmes for Holistic Student Care, Development, and Inclusion

Initiatives:

Investigate social emotional learning programs at schools worldwide to learn more about best practices that could better serve OIS students.
Adjust staffing structures to ensure:
1. Both divisions have a full-time student counsellor.
2. University counselling professional allocations are sufficient to provide all Upper Secondary students personalised support as they explore post-secondary options.
3. The Secondary contact teacher role is clearly defined and appropriately staffed so every student is known and has an advocate on staff.
Enhance community-wide opportunities encouraging health and wellness, including athletics and fitness, mindfulness, diet, sleep, and related practices.
Develop and implement a co-curricular outdoor education program for Secondary students
Increase opportunities for student-athletes to interact and compete with other schools and clubs.
Add or enhance parent education programs in areas related to students’ holistic development (mental health, raising Third Culture Kids, cultural competence, etc)

Strategic Objective #3: Strengthen Community Pride and Engagement

Initiatives:

Continually celebrate students, particularly their successes, cultures and identities, ideas, and learning
Foster a unified school culture by creating and celebrating opportunities for students and staff from different parts of the school to collaborate, interact, and learn together.
Increase attention to, and resource allocation for, maintenance and upkeep of buildings and grounds.
1. Add a full time Facility Manager position
2. Evaluate outsourced services to ensure buildings and grounds are consistently cleaned and maintained at high standards.
3. Plan and execute upgrades to changing rooms and shower facilities and changing rooms, toilets, playground, heating, ventilation, and interior doors.
4. Improve school-wide signage to eliminate makeshift solutions and ensure professional, effective, and appealing designs.
Deepen parent-school connections by
1. Building upon the OISPA’s culture of celebration and support for special events
2. Maintain feedback and dialogue structures—including survey processes and the Parents Works Council (PWC)—to allow parents and school leaders to communicate effectively.
3. Expanding parent education program (see 2F)
Enhance functions to attract, support, develop, and retain exceptional professional staff.
1. Develop shared protocols for hiring and onboarding rooted in best practices in international schools and organisations.
2. Encourage a professional culture defined by a commitment to ongoing improvement.
3. Prioritize training in assessment, inclusion, online teaching, and computational thinking.
4. Implement programs bolstering staff health and wellness.
5. Execute comparative analyses to ensure staff compensation is highly competitive in the local and international markets.
Improve key communication functions, with particular attention to
1. Increasing staffing for communication personnel to match professional needs of the school.
2. Increasing social media engagement
3. Implementing a new external website
4. Improving digital communication portals
5. Improving school-wide signage and displays
Enhance the school’s visual branding materials to ensure they distinguish OIS as a unique and modern community, and Norway as a unique country for an international education.
Collaboratively determine the school’s official mascot.
Expand distribution and availability of OIS-branded clothing and merchandise for students and staff.

Strategic Objective #4: Improve Operational Effectiveness and Enhance Financial Health and Transparency

Initiatives:

Develop and implement internal practices to establish:
1. Functioning school wide calendar planning.
2. Clear and effective policy development, storage, and communication protocols.
3. Effective school-wide budgeting practices.
Ensure digital systems are efficient and effective, and that redundancies are minimised.
1. Explore the implementation of a single school-wide learning platform.
2. Collaboratively determine which cloud productivity suite (G Suite or Office 365) best serves school-wide needs.
Evaluate and refine admission and tuition fee structures and practices to provide sufficient revenues to provide programmatic excellence, fairness and clarity for applying families, and an ongoing commitment to the international identity of the school.
Move to digital systems for families applying to the school, leading to improved applicant experiences, more efficient application review processes, and increased data insight for enrolment management.
Execute market and regulatory research, then develop the school’s strategic goals and plans for its Pre-School programme.
To expand opportunities for students, investigate feasibility of revenue streams in addition to tuition fees, including:
1. Rental income
2. Institutional advancement, fundraising, and sponsorship
Explore real estate and facility opportunities and scenarios to best meet the school’s long-term needs.
Review and optimise all financial relationships.
Ensure school-wide compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Economic Area (EEA).
Establish a mindset where learning from other schools, professional networks, and organisations is a regular element of reflection and improvement processes.