Online Induction >> School Onboarding Program
Published 30/10/2021

School Onboarding Program

A school is made of different stakeholders, and integrating new members, learners, teachers, board members, or non-teaching staff, requires a process. The process is used to inform the new member of the culture, code of ethics, set goals, and measures to achieve the goals. An onboarding program is used when welcoming a new member into the school. Well, what is the school onboarding program?

It is the process of integrating a new member into the school community and familiarizing themselves with the school environment. Onboarding is intended to improve the engagement, performance, and readiness of every person joining the school.

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Importance of school onboarding program

- Time-saving strategy
When teachers are introduced to the school norms and culture, they find the school environment friendly, thus saving time. Assume a teacher is not trained on operating an automatic lesson plan, and he needs to attend to a particular lesson. The teacher will waste some minutes, and when the process is repeated for a month, the teacher will waste one day.

- Cost-saving strategy
Training new teachers is a cost-saving strategy in this way; when teachers are introduced to the school's mission, vision, and goals, they understand the processes faster, and the production rate increases within the next few months as opposed to when the teachers are not trained.

- Facilitate health and safety
Health and safety measures within a school are critical because incidents have no alarm or fixed time. The onboarding program provides health and measures to counter potential hazards that may happen within the school. Since the new members are aware of the potential hazards, they will evade practices that may result in hazards.

Components of school onboarding program

- Initial orientation
The management plans an orientation meeting where the new member (s) is introduced to the school. If the member is a learner, they are given the lesson program and route activities. If the member is a teacher, they are given lesson plans and assigned classes. Mentors are provided when possible.

- Training
Training provides an overview of the school structure and environment. The training creates awareness about how learning is conducted, academic and non-academic activities, rules and regulations, consequences for breaking the rules, procedures for achieving the goals, and how they should conduct with other stakeholders.

- Role classification sessions
The new member is induced to the school by the board. Role classification is carrying out discussions to clarify the expectations of both parties.

A learner is questioned on the expectations based argument on the school mission and vision. If the new member is a teacher, they discuss the priorities, deliverables, communication channels, and decisions. Role classification sessions are critical for achieving the set goals.

- Risks and hazards
New learners and teachers need to be aware of the risks and hazards within the institution and the measures for combating the hazards. The onboarding program details all incidents, near misses, potential hazards, and emergency evacuation measures.

Some of the potential hazards include; fires, landslides, falling objects from nearby land mines, and flooding. When such hazards occur, the new members need to be aware of the measures to take and who is responsible for providing emergency evacuation.

- Assessment
The training provided to new members needs to be assessed after a while to evaluate the progress of the new members. Assessment is a critical tool because the school can measure the progress and determine the possibility of achieving the mission, vision, and goals.

- Mission, vision, and goals
The mission outlines the achievements and measures for achieving the objectives, while the vision describes the desired future of the school. The new members must be aware of the school's mission, vision, and goals before joining the school community.

Learners and teachers onboarding is critical as it helps in acclimation. Learners find it easy to kick start learning in a new school when they are welcomed. Teachers also adapt to the new environment when onboarding is provided before beginning the official duty. Onboarding equips new members with knowledge about the new school, so it must be implemented in every school.

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