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Strategic planning

Ensuring strategy drives board business

A strategy should be more than a document. This blog explores how boards can put strategy at the heart of its business, using effective monitoring, assurance and challenge to keep strategic priorities on track.

Blog

24/09/2026

By this point in the academic year, most schools and trusts will have spent considerable time thinking about their priorities for the year ahead. Plans will have been reviewed, objectives agreed and, in many cases, a strategy will be in place setting out the organisation’s longer-term direction but having a strategy is only part of the job.

The real test is whether that strategy is influencing what the board does, the questions it asks and the evidence it expects to see.

In our work carrying out external reviews of governance, we regularly see boards with well-intentioned and carefully developed strategic plans that are not yet fully connected to the business of the board. Strategic priorities may be clear on paper, but meeting agendas can become dominated by operational updates, compliance and immediate issues, leaving too little time to consider whether the organisation is actually making progress towards its longer-term objectives.

That distinction matters. A board cannot provide effective strategic oversight simply by approving a strategy. It needs to understand how progress will be measured, what assurance it will receive and what it will do when things are not going to plan.
As boards across the country finalise their plans and meeting schedules for this academic year, there is a useful opportunity to step back and ask whether the strategy is really driving board business.

Two questions worth asking

These are two questions we regularly ask as part of an external review of governance:

Q1. Does your school or trust have a SMART strategy that defines its direction of travel for the next three to five years?

Q2. Does the strategy drive the business of the board?

The first question is about the quality and clarity of the strategy itself. The second is about what happens next.

A strong strategy should provide a clear sense of direction, identify the priorities that matter most and set out what success will look like. But it should also become part of the board's ongoing cycle of governance.
That means strategic objectives should not simply be revisited when the strategy is refreshed. They should feature throughout the year in board discussions, reporting, challenge and assurance.

Start with what ‘being strategic’ really means

Being strategic is one of the board’s core responsibilities, but it is not always easy to translate into day-to-day governance.

NGA’s guidance on being strategic supports boards and leaders through the process, from understanding their role in strategy to developing and monitoring strategic priorities.

A useful starting point is to consider what makes a strategy genuinely SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

This matters because strategic objectives need to give the board something it can actually monitor.

Consider a priority around improving attendance. An objective such as ‘improve attendance’ may be a useful ambition, but it does not, on its own, tell the board what improvement means, by when it should happen, or how it will know whether action is making a difference.

A more useful approach establishes a clear baseline, a target, and a timeframe, supported by specific measures of success.

Once those measures are established, the board can then ask the important question: are we on track?

Strategy assurance: how will the board know?

A SMART strategy should provide the foundations for effective strategy assurance.

Success criteria and key performance indicators might relate to pupils, staff, curriculum, finance, estates, safeguarding or any other area that forms part of the organisation’s strategic priorities.

For example, if improving attendance is a strategic objective, the board could monitor overall attendance and persistent absence against agreed targets. It could look at whether previously poorly attending cohorts are improving and whether the gap between different pupil groups is changing.

The board might then receive this information termly, allowing it to track the trend across the academic year rather than simply receiving a one-off update.

But assurance should go beyond asking whether a number has moved in the right direction.

When strategy is genuinely driving board business, meetings should create space to explore why progress is or is not happening, whether the approach being taken is effective, what risks could prevent success and whether further action is needed.

That is where the board’s strategic role becomes particularly important.

"That distinction matters. A board cannot provide effective strategic oversight simply by approving a strategy. It needs to understand how progress will be measured, what assurance it will receive and what it will do when things are not going to plan."

Three principles for effective strategy assurance

Triangulate your evidence

Boards should not rely on the executive’s report as their only source of evidence.

Executive reporting is essential, but effective assurance means testing what the board is being told against other evidence where appropriate.

That could include data, stakeholder feedback, governor visits, discussions with relevant staff, benchmarking, external reviews or other forms of independent evidence.

Triangulation helps the board develop a more complete picture and ask better questions.

Plan assurance activities

Assurance works best when it is planned rather than reactive.

A monitoring plan or assurance framework can help the board establish what evidence it needs for each strategic objective, when it should receive it and how it will assess progress.

It is also worth considering in advance who the board could speak to, what evidence it could look at and whether any external verification would add value.

This makes assurance more consistent and reduces the risk of strategic objectives disappearing from view between major reviews.

Plan meeting agendas around the strategy

An agenda planner can help make sure strategic priorities are brought back to the board at the right time.

It should be clear when progress will be reviewed, what information will be available and where deeper discussion or challenge may be needed.

This is particularly important because boards have a huge amount to cover. Without deliberate planning, strategic discussion can easily be squeezed out by immediate operational matters.

A strategy-driven board does not necessarily spend more time in meetings. It spends its time differently, making sure its attention is focused where it can add the greatest governance value.

What does this look like in practice?

The answer will vary depending on the school or trust and its governance structure.

In a MAT, for example, the trust board might use local governors to gather additional evidence by meeting with an attendance lead at an individual school and reporting back.

The board might compare attendance trends across schools and explore what those with stronger performance are doing differently. It could then ask how effective practice is being shared across the trust, whether additional support or training is needed, and whether interventions are producing the intended results.

A board might also agree more detailed reporting on absence by cohort or pupil group, particularly where there are significant differences or concerns.

The important point is not the particular mechanism used. It is whether the board has deliberately established how it will assure itself that the strategy is being delivered.

"This is particularly important because boards have a huge amount to cover. Without deliberate planning, strategic discussion can easily be squeezed out by immediate operational matters."

An external view can help test whether strategy is really driving governance

This is one of the areas where an external review of governance can be particularly valuable.

It is relatively easy for a board to establish that it has a strategy. It is harder to step back and objectively assess how effectively that strategy is shaping governance in practice.

An external review can provide that independent perspective.

As part of an external review, we can look beyond the strategy document itself and explore how strategic priorities are reflected in board agendas, reporting, questioning, committee structures and assurance activity.

We can help boards consider questions such as:

Is the board spending enough time on its strategic priorities?

Does the information it receives allow it to understand whether the strategy is on track?

Are strategic objectives being translated into meaningful measures of success?

Is the board getting enough assurance from different sources, rather than relying solely on executive reporting?

When progress is off track, is the board able to provide effective challenge and ensure appropriate action follows?

This can be particularly useful where a board feels that it has a strategy but is not sure whether it is genuinely embedded in the organisation’s governance.

An external review should not simply identify gaps. It should give the board practical recommendations it can act on, helping strengthen the connection between strategic intent and the reality of board business.

From strategy document to strategic governance

Setting a strategy does not assure its success.

The board needs to make a conscious decision to monitor progress, seek evidence, challenge performance and understand whether the actions being taken are actually delivering the intended outcomes.

The strongest boards use their strategy as a thread running through their governance throughout the year. It helps them decide what to focus on, what questions to ask and where further assurance is needed.

So, as you look ahead to the year’s board meetings, it is worth asking those two questions again:

Does your school or trust have a SMART strategy that clearly defines its direction of travel?

And, more importantly, does that strategy drive the business of the board?

If the answer to the second question is less clear, an external review of governance can provide an independent assessment of where the connection is working well, where it could be stronger and the practical steps that can help put strategy at the heart of board business.

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External reviews of governance

An independent, expert review of your board’s governance, identifying strengths and areas for development, with practical recommendations to support improvement.