Best Practice

Top 10 tips for... Successful staff meetings

The staff meeting is a vital opportunity to demonstrate your leadership and ensure your school retains a sense of community. But we must avoid laboured events that send out the wrong messages and waste valuable staff time. Suzanne O’Connell offers 10 ideas for effective meetings

1, Short and sweet

A routine staff meeting should last for no more than 90 minutes – some would say that 60 minutes is the maximum length of time people can concentrate and contribute profitably. Start on time and finish on time and people will thank you for it. Be ruthless with your agenda:

A smaller group may be a better discussion forum, allowing those who are new or a little more timid to share their views.

 

2, No A.O.B

You might think that the A.O.B section of a meeting is a way of ensuring shared ownership of the agenda. But is it? Quite often you get to the end of the formal meeting only for A.O.B. to be hijacked by a member of staff with an issue, just as everyone else is longing to get away.

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