Nathaniel Atherton, Primary Principal
24 November 2023
As the academic year soldiers on, so does our work creating ICS Zurich’s next strategic plan, 'Zum Mond Fliegen.' Our approach to strategic planning is inspired by the ideas of German philosopher Friedrich Hegel and his Hegelian Dialectics theory. In our context, this method involves three separate stages:
- THESIS – This phase focuses on community engagement and gathering input.
- ANTI-THESIS – This phase involves understanding the broader world outside of our school, ICS.
- SYNTHESIS – In this final stage, we combine the ideas and insights from both the thesis and antithesis stages to formulate the strategic plan.
THESIS
Through the months of September and October, the school ran nine workshops: one alumni session, six community-facing sessions, and two student-focused sessions. During the course of the workshops, we engaged with nearly 250 students, staff, parents, school leaders, and Trustees.
Through a process of portraiture, these workshops helped us explore the future skills of our ICS graduates of 2030 and beyond. Throughout the sessions, staff explored resources and artefacts from our past and present while looking toward future needs by exploring documentation from the World Economic Forum’s Future Jobs Report, the McKinsey Deltas, and the Inner Development Goals.
Through rich dialogue, our community identified attributes, skills, competencies, and mindsets important for future success as well as brainstormed alterations to ICS to support these attributes better. The data has been collated and trends have emerged that will help us better understand the construction of our roadmap moving forward.
ANTI-THESIS
The month of November has seen the school deeply engaged with the external phase of our strategic planning. Over the course of the month, student and staff representatives are interviewing approximately 20 individuals representing various industries from higher education to big business to government and non-governmental organisations.
Our interviews have looked to uncover what is transforming the world of work and how the school might better prepare our learners for the world beyond ICS. In our conversations, we have explored topics like adaptability and lifelong learning, remote and flexible work, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), technology and digital transformation, globalisation and cross-cultural competence, environmental and social responsibility, leadership and problem solving, and wellbeing. These interviews have given fascinating insights that will act as a great counterpoint to the thoughts collated in the thesis stage.
SYNTHESIS
The new year will see the school begin the synthesis phase where we bring together the insights gained in the previous two phases to develop ICS Zurich’s next strategic plan. The goal is to have the plan ready for launch towards the spring of this academic year.
Given the input we have garnered thus far, we are excited about the strategic direction of the school and how it will impact learning at ICS. We are looking forward to sharing more with you in the spring.