A school’s Mission is to create the conditions in which student progress and achievement is optimised. This is realised through the achievement of operational excellence in schools, recognising and securing the needs of all students, providing space for students to explore their interests and leveraging their potential as human beings.

A school is a live operating system, more like a living organism than a mechanical model. Each part is critical to the health of the system, and a problem in any one part detracts from the health of the whole. The five themes in the Indigo School Management System provide deep insights into the health of the system to identify the priorities for improvement. Our framework provides for educators to explore opportunities, identify priorities for action and act to transform the results achieved within a school. The goal is to create a school that better serves the needs, interests and potential of the learners and community it is accountable to.

The framework identifies how well a school does its job, what the priorities for improvement are, and reveals how these can be translated into systemic action. The framework accepts that a school is complex, dynamic and continuously evolving, and it focuses and aligns the school’s operational work on excellence now, and better next time.

The resources in the framework are designed to be relevant, comprehensive and easy to use, and democratise school improvement and transformation through a low-cost, platform-based learning model. The system is designed to bypass constraints and entrenched narratives, engage communities, and enables every member to adopt a mindset of continuous improvement. The tools and resources that derive from the framework are designed to mobilise stakeholders within schools and education systems globally.

The elements in the Indigo School’s Self-assessment System include five core themes: 

Theme 1: The six phases in the evolution of a school.

Theme 2: The five levels of problem-solving complexity that must align to optimise the health of its operating system.

Theme 3: The five critical questions that specify what must be done.

Theme 4: The seven operational dimensions shared by every responsible person and work team deployed in a school.

Theme 5: A Dynamic Work Cycle that aligns authorities and accountabilities in and across each level of work.