Perspective helps schools create, manage and maintain impactful School Development Plans in a clear, structured and efficient way. Plans can be built quickly using existing targets and objectives already created elsewhere in Perspective, such as SEF, performance review objectives or previous development plans, reducing duplication and saving valuable time. You can also use TILDA, our AI-powered assistant, to help generate and refine new targets, supporting leaders in developing clear, purposeful and actionable improvement priorities.
Quick Steps
- Navigate to Planning.
- From the Planning panel on the right, select School.
- Click Create.
- Add targets to your plan. (You can create a new target, use TILDA to help generate one), or add an existing target.
- Set any plan options.
- Select the format you would like to use.
- Add your introduction/conclusion.
- Publish.
Need More Detailed Help?
To create/edit the school development plan, you must be a member of the SLT.
To start your Development Plan, click on the Planning option on your main toolbar in Perspective.
Next, select the School plan from the drop-down within the Development Plans section on the right-hand side of the page, then click Create. If the option here says 'Edit', your development plan has already been created. See the Quick Edit section of this guide for more information on how to edit.
When you click Create, you will be taken to the plan page. From here, you can add targets to your School Development Plan by creating a new target, using TILDA to help generate a new target, or adding an existing target that has already been created in Perspective.
Adding New Targets to the Plan
To create a new target on your plan, click Add Targets > Create a new target.
From here, you can create the target using TILDA to help generate a draft target. TILDA can create a title, description and strategy based on the prompt you enter. The 'Generate Success Criteria & Actions for me' option is switched on by default, so TILDA can also suggest success criteria and actions for the target.
The more detail you include in your prompt, the more useful the generated target is likely to be. Try to include what you want to improve, who the target is for, and any key outcomes you want to achieve.
You can review and edit TILDA’s suggestions before adding the target to your plan.
If you navigate back to the main Planning page, you should see confirmation that your plan has been created, along with your newly created targets currently linked to it.
Adding Existing Targets to the Plan
If you already have targets in the system, click Add Targets > Add an existing targets to be taken to a list of team targets in your account.
Apply any relevant filters, and place a tick in the boxes next to any targets you want to add to your new plan, then click Add Selected Targets. Your development plan will then be created with the targets you selected linked to it.
If you navigate back to the main Planning page, you should see confirmation that your plan has been created, along with the number of targets currently linked to it.
Plan Dashboard
Once you have created a plan, it will display all targets currently on your live version. We also display a clever message at the top of the page, which changes depending on your plan status and when it was last edited. This helps you to ensure you're regularly publishing and don't miss any tweaks that may have been made.
You will see several options here.
Add Targets contains two sub-options and allows you to add brand-new targets with TILDA assistance, or load existing targets within Perspective.
Publish will publish your development plan and make it available to all staff. You can then download the published PDF via the Planning page. See the Publishing your Plan section of this guide for more information.
Options allow you to format your development plan; this is explained more in the Formatting your Plan section below.
Download allows you to download a live view of your plan or the last published version.
Quickly Editing Plan Targets
You can set a target's RAG rating, deadline and status directly from your plan page by clicking on the relevant item. This saves you from opening the full target for those quick changes every time! You can also reorder targets by dragging them up or down the list using the Reorder handle.
If you click Edit alongside a target, you will see the following Quick Edit pop-up:
In this pop-up, you can amend the title, RAG rating, start date, deadline, status and priority. You can also complete any success criteria you might have entered against the target.
To see the entire target editing page, click See Full View from the quick edit pop-up, or click on the target name on the main development plan page.
If the target was created using TILDA, you can still edit it in the same way as any other target. TILDA simply helps create the first draft; the target can still be amended, updated and managed as normal once it has been added to the plan.
Add a Target to the Plan from within the Target
You can also add targets to your plan from within the target itself. To do this, open the target you want to add to your plan. On the right-hand side, you will notice a Development Plans section; click the plan you want to add this target and click Add To Plan on the resulting prompt.
The page will reload, and the team will be highlighted, as shown above.
Formatting Your Development Plan
You can format your development plan to change how it looks and include/exclude certain pieces of information, including an introduction and evaluation.
To make changes to the layout and format of your plan, navigate to Planning and select the appropriate plan from the Development Plans panel before clicking Edit.
On the next page, click Options.
This page allows you to set up the format of your plan. You can choose between a three or seven-column table view or a custom one.
Choosing a Custom plan will allow you to add additional content to your plan, such as target evaluations, sub-actions and success criteria. To add or remove these, tick or untick the boxes under the Target Options section.
Any changes you make on this page will be auto-saved.
Further down the page, you can add an introduction and conclusion to your plan. Both of these sections are optional, and you can control whether they appear on your plan by the include in plan tick box alongside them.
Publishing Your Plan
Please note: Only the headteacher can publish the SLT development plan.
To publish the contents of your development plan, navigate to Planning and select the appropriate plan from the Development Plans panel before clicking Edit. You can then use the Publish button here.
The below confirmation box will appear.
Once you click Publish Now. Once the plan is published, a green confirmation message similar to the one below will appear.
Once published, a development plan will be accessible to all staff with a Perspective login via the Plans page. If your Organisation subscribes to our Observatory system, then it will be visible to users with the relevant permissions in Observatory as well.
Viewing/Printing Your Development Plan
Once you have added at least one target to your development plan and published it, you can download it as a PDF.
To print your plan, navigate to Planning, select the relevant plan from the development plan dropdown and click Edit. Then click the Download button within the Edit Plan area. You can choose whether to download the current live plan or the last published version.
Once clicked, the version you chose will download as a PDF. Depending on your internet browser, this may appear as a pop-up or show in your downloads toolbar at the bottom of the screen, like below.
There you have it! Your new development plan has been created, and you have a PDF version that you can save, ready for presenting to Governors or other key staff.
Did you know? If you prefer to have a Word copy of your plan, In a new Word document, click File > Open and select your PDF plan. Word will convert it into an editable document for you.