The School Excellence Plan is a working document which details the steps schools take to improve student outcomes. They are collaboratively developed, context specific, and evidence informed. School Excellence Plans are publicly available on school websites.

The School Excellence Plan is underpinned by the School Excellence Framework and clearly reflects the department’s Plan for Public Education

The School Excellence Plan includes a school's:

• vision and unique context
• strategic directions for improvement (based on the School Excellence Framework)
• initiatives for achieving the strategic directions
• success criteria and improvement measures for monitoring progress.

The School Excellence Plan helps schools strategically allocate resources in their school budget to achieve the planned improvements.

All NSW public schools consult with their community and work with their Director, Educational Leadership to develop a School Excellence Plan that reflects the school's unique context. The School Excellence Framework and external validation (EV) process helps schools make decisions about what to prioritise in their School Excellence Plan.

As part of the 2024-2027 cycle, schools have a focus on some key improvement measures including attendance, reading, numeracy and pathways (if the school has senior secondary students). Schools are also able to set additional school-identified improvement measures aligned to the school excellence cycle, for example on wellbeing or writing, based on the needs of students. Schools also develop annual progress measures they feel will best lead to achievement of the improvement measure.

The School Excellence Plan is approved by the Director, Educational Leadership before publication on the school's website.