Think about how it will work

Identify who will be involved and how

You need a plan for who will be involved and how. Think of the key roles that need to be filled first, then who might fill them. You don’t always need a big team. One person could take on several roles. But don’t plan to do everything yourself.

The key roles, and who often fills them, are listed below. You can see that roles can vary between the set-up of the initiative and when it is under way.

Use these descriptions to think of who will fill each role and note them down on the Template: Identify who will be involved in the initiative and how.

Role	What they do during set-up	What they do when the initiative is running	Who usually does this?
Project manager (either at school or organisation)	Ensure everyone is working towards the same goal and that progress is matching expectations	Ensure the initiative is running smoothly	Often a school leader or subject teacher / or an industry employee who is passionate about (or the ‘champion’ for) the initiative
Key partner representative	Working with project manager to develop initiative, expectations for their organisation or school	Organise their ongoing contribution to the initiative (whether that’s resources, volunteers, funding or other)	At a school, this role might be a subject teacher or head of department In larger organisations, this role might be a head of social responsibility or similar. In smaller organisations, this could be the employee who is the ‘champion’ for the initiative
Co-ordinator	Ensure those involved in developing and implementing the initiative are around the same table	Organises for those needed to run and take part in the initiative (e.g. the experts to run classes)	Project manager or another key senior teacher
Communicator	Ensure those involved in the initiative are on the same page about key design and implementation decisions Ensure those who will be participating in the initiative (students and their teachers / parents) know about the plans for the initiative	Keep the following groups up to date with details on when the initiative will run and what they need to do: Students Parents Staff	Project manager (or school administration)
Initiative ‘staff’	Show they are interested in taking part in the initiative and willing to do training if required, or talk with partner to understand their perspective	Contribute their time and resources to taking part in the initiative (e.g. taking classes, doing demonstrations, participating in professional learning)	Teachers or volunteers who want to be involved in the initiative

Consider key implementation issues and identify your next steps

There are a huge range of potential initiatives you may want to run (everything from a museum visit to establishing a camp or residential program).

For ideas on how to implement your idea, look for tips on how to run certain ‘types’ of initiative (e.g. gamification or residential programs) by searching for the type of initiative you are running.

In general there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to how to implement. But there are some key questions that help clarify what your next steps are around:

Figuring out who will be affected and what resources you need to make this happen.
Working with partners.
Who needs to be kept in the loop.

Figuring out who will be affected and what resources you need to make this happen

These questions help figure out how many people will need to be involved, so you can calculate the resources needed:

How many students would the initiative include?
How many classes or teachers would the initiative include?
Who needs to be involved to make the initiative happen?
- How many teachers?
- Is a partner organisation involved? How many staff will be taking part in the initiative?
- How many additional staff (e.g. experts, volunteers etc)?

Next steps: Once you know how many people will be involved, identify how much time they need to spend involved and the cost, as well as the costs of any resources.

Working with partners

Working in partnerships — especially between businesses and schools — has many benefits. There are common principles for how to work well in partnerships.

When you think about partnerships you should be aware that:

Schools and industries work in very different worlds. What might your partner not know about your day-to-day working environment? Businesses may not know about the importance of initiatives supporting the curriculum, while schools may not know what businesses can offer them.
There are some practical considerations when partners have worked with schools before, including needing formal approval to work with children. These vary from state to state, but an overview of working with children is available on the Care for Kids website.

Next steps: Sit down with your partner and make sure you are on the same page about what the initiative is aiming to achieve, how it will run, what their obligations are and how you will keep each other in the loop.

Communicating with those who need to be kept in the loop

These questions help figure out what information is needed for the people involved in the initiative, and the people who aren’t involved but need to stay informed:

What do the people involved need to know?
- When will the initiative happen?
- What is the initiative is about?
- What will they need to do?
Those who might not be involved, but could be affected?
- How might parents be affected?
- How might other teachers be affected? If students go on a day-long excursion, other teachers or subjects could be affected by the disruption.
- What do the people who are affected need to know or do? Do they need to sign consent forms?

Next steps: Develop a plan for how and when you share information about the initiative with these groups.