The Mission for a Mission Statement

A new school generally comes with nothing.  When I say nothing, I don’t mean absolutely nothing; it comes with classrooms, toilets and sometimes an office or two.  After that, it’s up to the manager and principal, (sometimes there’s no Board in a brand new school) to fill it with things like books, furniture, computers, etc.  The principal generally has a vision, or at least they should have.  However, in the midst of all this, it’s important that a school should have a Mission Statement.
I was given a task of finding out what a Mission Statement is.  I was fairly confused between a Vision and a Mission Statement and whether there was any difference between them at all.  Most schools I ever taught in had a kind of generic Mission Statement about learning through the teachings of Jesus Christ and a holistic something-or-other way of teaching.  The main problems I would have of simply copying this mission statement and ticking the “done” box was that, firstly,  I’m not in a school where we worship any particular god and, secondly, the Mission Statement does not represent our school in particular.  I feel I need to empower all members of the school community in order to get a good Mission Statement that we all believe in.
So what do I understand by a Mission Statement?  As far as I can see, a Mission Statement should tell everyone who we are, what we do around here, what we believe in and how we make sure we do it.   In other words, if a new member of staff joined the school, by looking at the Mission Statement, he/she could see what we stand for and (hopefully) buy into it.
One part of my task was to read Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, in particular the chapter dedicated to creating a personal Mission Statement.  The first question Covey asks is to picture your own funeral and ask the question: what would “X” say about me?  He lists 4 types of people in one’s life – friends, family, work associates and club/church associates.  I had a think about this and thought about the funeral of my school.
So, what would people be saying about my school in a few years time?  This, I believe, is the Mission Statement.