The School Improvement Plan (SIP) Guidebook is the Department of Education’s step-by-step manual for writing a school’s three-year improvement plan, its Annual Implementation Plans (AIPs) and its School Report Card (SRC). DepEd released this enhanced edition with DepEd Order No. 44, s. 2015, Guidelines on the Enhanced School Improvement Planning (SIP) Process and the School Report Card (SRC), which makes the order’s guidelines and the guidebook “the official reference in the preparation and implementation of the SIP and SRC.”
The download holds the guidebook as a 33-page PDF and its 16 annex files: the templates, checklists and guides the steps refer to, in Word, Excel and PDF. The ZIP file holds all 17.
Is the 2015 guidebook still current?
Yes. As of November 8, 2026, DO 44, s. 2015 is still in effect: no later DepEd order has replaced it, and DepEd Order No. 007, s. 2024 on the revised School-Based Management (SBM) system cites it. DepEd Memoranda No. 073, s. 2025 and No. 048, s. 2026 on the School Innovation and Improvement Fund still work through the SIP, the AIP and Priority Improvement Areas (PIAs).
Some parts rest on rules that have since changed:
- The SBM assessment. The SRC’s SBM level (item 11) follows DO 83, s. 2012, which DO 007, s. 2024 repealed. Schools now rate the revised SBM indicators; the SBM guide explains them.
- Annex 2B. The checklist tests compliance with DO 40, s. 2012, still in force, and DO 55, s. 2013, which the revised implementing rules of the Anti-Bullying Act repealed (DM 090, s. 2025). The child protection guide has the current rules.
- The NCBTS. The guidebook and Annex 1A refer to it; teachers are now held to the Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers, which DO 42, s. 2017 adopted and which is “built on NCBTS”.
- The School Governing Council. It is now set up under DO 26, s. 2022 as the School Governance Council.
What the guidebook covers
The SIP covers three consecutive school years and moves through three phases, Assess, Plan and Act, in eleven steps. The guidebook’s flowchart places them on the calendar: Steps 1 to 3 (preparation and Assess) from January to March, the Plan steps in April and May, and Act and the progress checks from June to January.
- Preparatory activities (Step 1). Gather school and community data, form the School-Community Planning Team (SPT), and convene it for orientation, vision sharing and scheduling.
- Assess (Steps 2 and 3). Identify the PIAs in access, quality and governance, then analyze each one: set general objectives, form project teams, listen to learners and other stakeholders, walk the school’s processes, select an area of focus, and find the root cause.
- Plan (Steps 4 to 8). Review the objectives and targets, formulate solutions, design the projects, write the SIP, and prepare the AIP. Every SPT member signs the SIP, and the school submits it to the Schools Division Office (SDO) once, at the start of the three-year cycle. Each year, by the second week of May, the school also sends the SDO that year’s AIP, the previous year’s Project Monitoring Report forms and its year-end SRC.
- Act (Steps 9 and 10). Test the solutions on a small scale, then roll out those that work.
- Back to Assess (Step 11). Check the AIP’s progress, and plan the next year’s AIP from what the monitoring shows.
- Communicating to stakeholders. Prepare the SRC, in three parts (school profile, performance indicators, and the status of school projects), and present it at least twice a school year, at the midyear and year-end general assemblies, as DO 44 requires.
The annexes and when you use them
| Annex | Used for | Step |
|---|---|---|
| 1A School-Community Data Template | Organizing data on access, quality and governance | 1 |
| 1B Child Mapping Tool | Finding school-age children in the community, during early registration, at least every three years | 1 |
| 2A Child-Friendly School Survey | Checking how child-friendly the school is; its result goes in the SRC | 1 |
| 2B Child Protection Policy Implementation Checklist | Checking the school’s child protection and anti-bullying measures | 1 |
| 2C Student-Led School Watching and Hazard Mapping | Learners mapping hazards in and around the school, under DO 23, s. 2015 | 1 |
| 3 Gap Analysis Template | Measuring the gap between the school’s data and the Division’s targets | 2 |
| 4 Identifying Priority Improvement Areas | Rating improvement areas by strategic importance, urgency, magnitude and feasibility | 2 |
| 5 Planning Worksheet | Recording PIAs, objectives and root causes | 2 to 4 |
| 6 Listening to the Voice of the Learners and Other Stakeholders | Interviews, surveys and focus group discussions | 3 |
| 7 Walk the Process Guidelines | Flowcharting a school process to see where it fails | 3 |
| 8 Root Cause Analysis Overview | Diagramming root causes (fishbone, why-why or problem tree) and prioritizing them | 3 |
| 9 Project Work Plan and Budget Matrix | Writing one project design per solution | 6 |
| 10 Annual Implementation Plan Template | Writing the year’s AIP | 8 |
| 11 SRC Summary of Information | The minimum information the SRC reports | SRC |
| 12A and 12B SRC Templates | A basic SRC, and an advanced one in booklet form | SRC |
Why it matters for aspiring school heads
School improvement planning sits in Domain 1 of the Philippine Professional Standards for School Heads (PPSSH, DO 24, s. 2020), Leading Strategically: strand 1.2 on school planning and implementation, 1.6 on learner voice, and 1.7 on monitoring and evaluation. The SPT and the SRC draw on Domain 5, Building Connections: communication (5.4) and community engagement (5.5). Working through the steps with the templates open shows what each phase produces and who produces it.
For the process explained step by step, with the SPT’s members, the PIA rubric and the SRC’s parts, read the DepEd School Improvement Plan guide. Root cause analysis for the SIP works through Step 3 with an example, and the SIP communication plan covers reporting to stakeholders.