Search helps Cambodia school with vision

The International School of Phnom Penh (ISPP), Cambodia, has praised Search Associates for its help in successfully articulating its vision.

ISPP’s director, Barry Sutherland, invited Search Associates to help his school community develop a vision statement that would serve as a shorter, sharper, more future-focused form of the school’s mission statement. He also wanted to update the school’s ‘Guiding Statements’ to meet the Council of International Schools (CIS) accreditation requirement for schools to have both mission and vision statements.

Barry enlisted the assistance of Senior Associate, John Ritter, for an on-site workshop of community members to recommend a vision statement to the School Board. John had previously assisted ISPP with strategic planning.

Barry and John met with some fifty participants representing all parts of the ISPP community: faculty, staff, administrators, students, parents, PTA members, and Board members. In a half-day session the group translated the school community’s vision into an eight word statement:

“Learning together. Growing together. Each making a difference.”

Following the workshop, Barry said:

“I am so proud of our community. John managed the pace perfectly and we got a great result. If you ask anyone in that room today, they would tell you it was a total group effort — and I am very happy with that.”

Barry also put the success of the day down to the time invested before the workshop. Preparation began in May with the distribution of a Vision Statement Survey to the entire ISPP community, which, he explained, gave time over the summer to digest and collate its results.

John added that he was also delighted with how the workshop had gone as well as the outcome:

“I was particularly impressed and delighted with the equality of participation by students, and the way that the adults worked with the students – it was really exceptional.”