And every headteacher, principal, and Vice-Chancellor wants to help their students achieve more.

At the same time, anyone who runs an educational establishment is also managing a complex organisation. Constantly prioritising objectives, balancing budgets, managing people and aiming for excellence.

If you’re looking to improve the performance of your school, the EFQM-Hamdan Education Model can help.

It takes the same principles which have made the EFQM Model an international success story, and tailors them specifically to school improvement.

It prompts leaders to identify what they really want to achieve, and then it guides them to do so.
The EFQM-Hamdan Education Model provides a framework for achieving outstanding performance in Educational Institutions, and for recognising high performance.
The strategic nature of the EFQM-Hamdan Educational Model, combined with its focus on both strategic and operational performance, make it an ideal framework for testing the alignment of school’s ambitions for the future with its current practices and its ability to respond to challenges.

Using this model provides the opportunity to see the whole, to take the holistic perspective and appreciate the complexity of a school context while acknowledging the need for a systemic and organized intent. Just like in most of the contemporary world at large, a school should not be seen in a linear, mechanical and predictable manner. Rather, it is far better understood as a complex adaptive system made up of interdependent elements and individuals operating in a dynamic living world. Any School using the EFQM-Hamdan Education Model:

• Recognises that it does not operate in a vacuum. It understands that it is part of a larger and complex ecosystem in which other players, whether known or unknown, can help or hinder its progress and that it is in its own interest to be engaged with and maximise the opportunity to learn and grow from others within its ecosystem.
• Accepts the opportunity to act as a Leader in its sphere of influence, behaves as an inspiration to others and demonstrates what can be achieved for the benefit of others as well as itself.
• Understands that it will face ever-increasing speeds and volumes of change, and it must be prepared to anticipate, address, respond appropriately, embrace managing challenges of today, and at the same time, predict the future and make sure that it is well-prepared for it.

The Education Model structure is based on the simple but powerful logic of asking three questions:

• “Why” does this School exist? What Purpose does it fulfil? Why is this particular Strategy? (Direction)
• “How” does it intend to deliver its Purpose and Strategy? (Execution)
• “What” has it already achieved? “What” does it intend to achieve tomorrow? (Results)

Central to the rationale of the EFQM Model, the “red thread”, is the connection between the Purpose and Strategy of the school and how that is used to help create Sustainable Value for its most important *Stakeholders and deliver outstanding results.

The model addresses the definition and engagement framework of all its stakeholders and recognizes partners in the development of the school purpose and strategy and the planning and execution of its strategies. In particular, the student is not only at the heart of the school, but she/he is an important factor in the development and the execution of the strategy.

The model introduces the performance measurement as the essence of improvement and a guide to the sustained pursuit of the school ambitions. The measurement builds on the traditional academic outcome-driven assessment to expand to both perceptions and outcomes of all aspects of the school strategy development and execution, and all interactions with the stakeholders and the ecosystem.