Rethinking Strategy in Independent Schools: Highlights from the Periscope Series
- johnddmurphie
- Nov 27, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 28, 2025
If you work in an independent school, you’ll know that “strategy” can easily end up as a smart-looking document that gathers dust between governor meetings. In the first episode of the Periscope Series podcast, former bursar and sector stalwart John Murphie and strategist Elise Tonnard, together with host Leo, unpack what it really looks like to do strategy well in today’s schools – and how to make it feel useful rather than theoretical.
What’s the Periscope Series all about?
Periscope is a short, practical podcast for people running and governing independent schools. Each episode takes a familiar problem – strategy, risk, data, people – and asks: how do we actually make this work in a real school, with limited time and budget?
In this opening episode, John Murphie and Elise Tonnard draw on their experience in school management and the corporate world to talk about strategy you can actually use on a wet Wednesday in November, not just in a glossy away-day pack.
Strategy is no longer a five-year document
John makes a simple but important point: the classic five-year strategic plan is struggling to keep up with reality.
Instead of thinking of strategy as something you write once a year and “sign off”, he argues for treating it as a live, ongoing conversation – with short, regular check-ins (monthly or even more often), where leadership teams ask:
What’s changed since we last met?
What does that mean for our pupils, parents, staff and finances?
What do we need to do differently now?
This shift from static plan to continuous review is what allows schools to respond quickly to fee pressure, staffing shortages, regulatory changes and shifting parental expectations.
From corporate corridors to school corridors
Elise talks about the culture shock of moving from corporate strategy to school life. In the corporate world, everything can feel very formal – slide decks, strict processes, endless approvals. Schools, by contrast, are full of people, history and emotion.
Her big message: keep the professionalism, lose the unnecessary formality.
Strategy in schools works best when:
People feel able to speak honestly about what isn’t working.
There’s enough structure to make decisions, but not so much that creativity is stifled.
Leaders can connect strategy directly to day-to-day realities: affordability, operational pressure and recruiting and retaining great staff.
Three lenses to look at your strategy
Together, John and Elise offer a simple way to stress-test any school strategy using three lenses:
Purpose – Why do we exist?
Are we clear about who we are serving and what we stand for?
Would parents, pupils and staff give the same answer?
Performance – How are we doing right now?
Educational outcomes, finances, staff wellbeing, roll, estates – are we actually measuring what matters?
Potential – Where could we go next?
What’s changing in our local area, in the sector, in parental expectations?
Where do we have room to grow or need to rethink?
Instead of a static plan, they suggest thinking in terms of dashboards and live indicators – so governors and leaders can see, at a glance, whether the school is on track or drifting.
Practical moves for more agile strategy
Elise shares a few practical steps schools can take without a huge project or consultancy budget:
Run short “strategy pulse” sessions
Replace the epic away-day with 30–45 minute check-ins for the senior team:
What’s new on the horizon?
What’s surprising us in the data?
What needs a decision before next term?
Upgrade your risk register into a risk dashboard
Most schools have a risk register because they have to. Elise suggests going further:
Highlight the handful of risks that really matter this term.
Give each a simple RAG (red–amber–green) status.
Link each risk to a named owner and a concrete action.
Revisit your purpose with parents in mind
Strategy only works if it matches what families now expect:
Are you still attracting the families your mission is written for?
Have expectations shifted on things like wraparound care, SEND support, digital learning or enrichment?
Do your messages and your reality still match?
Strategy, agility and getting better with data
The episode wraps up with a clear challenge: independent schools need to be more agile, more comfortable with data, and clearer in their decision-making.
That doesn’t mean turning into a corporate machine. It means:
Using a few key numbers well, rather than drowning in reports.
Being honest about trade-offs: if we invest here, what do we slow down or stop?
Making it obvious to staff and governors how decisions link back to purpose.
In this first Periscope episode, John Murphie and Elise Tonnard invite school leaders to rethink strategy as a living, breathing part of running a school – not a once-a-year exercise. Future episodes will dig into board conversations, risk, data and the practical tools that help leaders and governors see clearly what’s coming next.
If you’re involved in running an independent school, this is a gentle nudge to pull your strategic plan off the shelf, give it a shake, and start turning it into something your team actually uses week by week.
