Educational Leaders

Culture

A school’s culture consists of the customs, rituals, and stories that are evident and valued throughout the whole school. An effective school culture fosters success for all.

Leading cultural change

Leading cultural change involves an understanding of leadership skills and an appreciation of the development of cultures in a school setting.

Understanding school cultures

School cultures focus on learning, teaching, and gaining an understanding of 'what we value around here'.

Developing leaders

The principal has a key role in guiding and supporting others to step up as leaders. This is achieved by recognising and developing the leadership potential of teachers. Building leadership capacity in a school increases the opportunities for improving learning outcomes for all students.

Sharing leadership

Leadership based on shared vision, goals, and commitment to quality teaching and learning is essential in the complex contexts of New Zealand schools.

Leading staff

Effective principals actively lead staff by challenging and supporting staff.

Attitudes, values, and ethics

Effective leaders have a central belief system that is focussed on student learning and well-being. They set clear goals, and pursue them to ensure success for all.

Building and Maintaining Positive School Culture

https://www.williamdparker.com/2019/03/06/pmp144-building-and-maintaining-positive-school-culture/ PMP:144 Building and Maintaining Positive School Culture Leave a reply Audio Player 08:59 28:39 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS Cultivating a positive school culture is a lot like tending a garden. Photo by Gabriel Jimenez – Creative Commons No known copyright restrictions https://unsplash.com/@gabrielj_photography?utm_source=haikudeck&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit When you have tilled the soil, pulled the weeds, and watered your plants, your work is not finished. You will need to take the same steps again soon in order to keep a healthy environment for growth. School culture requires the same care. In order to build and maintain a positive school culture, you must identify challenges and promote positives. In the book, You’re the Principal, Now What? Strategies and Solutions for New School Leaders, author Jen Schwanke shares three kinds of school cultures to keep in mind: two negatives to combat and one positive to promote: A Culture of Isolation A Culture of Distrust A Culture of Confidence, Understanding, and Teamwork This week, Jen Schwanke joins Principal Matters Podcast to co-host a new series on Strategies and Solutions for New School Leaders. During this episode, we discuss the following strategies: 1. Gauging the past: This includes researching your school’s history and staying impartial when gathering information. 2. Building from the ground up: This requires establishing trust, showing appreciation, staying positive, leading by example, asking the right questions, taking one step at a time, and not expecting perfection. 3. Keeping momentum: Throughout the year, you must relentlessly take stock, be visible, make a goal of “every kid, every teacher, every day”, get personal, and be personable. Let’s Wrap This Up No matter what time of the year, cultivating positive school culture involves promoting work within and outside the classroom, gathering people together, seeking ideas and input from others, building teams, and rewarding evidence of positive culture. As you do the consistent work of building a culture of confidence, understanding, and teamwork, you promote a healthy environment for student growth. Listen-in to this week’s podcast conversation to learn more! Now It’s Your Turn What is one step you can take today to engage “every student and every teacher” in a positive school experience? Whether you increasing visibility or sharing out student happenings on social media, keep cultivating the “good soil” of your school culture this week. Sign-Up For Free Updates and Ebook When you enter your email address below, you will automatically receive my newest posts and a free Ebook, 8 Hats: Essential Roles for School Leaders. Let’s keep learning together!

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51746/what-makes-a-good-school-culture

What Makes a Good School Culture?

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Most principals have an instinctive awareness that organizational culture is a key element of school success. They might say their school has a “good culture” when teachers are expressing a shared vision and students are succeeding — or that they need to “work on school culture” when several teachers resign or student discipline rates rise.
But like many organizational leaders, principals may get stymied when they actually try to describe the elements that create a positive culture. It's tricky to define, and parsing its components can be challenging. Amid the push for tangible outcomes like higher test scores and graduation rates, it can be tempting to think that school culture is just too vague or “soft” to prioritize.
That would be a mistake, according to Ebony Bridwell-Mitchell, an expert in education leadership and management. As she explains, researchers who have studied culture have tracked and demonstrated a strong and significant correlation between organizational culture and an organization’s performance. Once principals understand what constitutes culture — once they learn to see it not as a hazy mass of intangibles, but as something that can be pinpointed and designed — they can start to execute a cultural vision.

At a recent session of the National Institute for Urban School Leaders at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Bridwell-Mitchell took a deep dive into “culture,” describing the building blocks of an organization’s character and fundamentally how it feels to work there.
Culture Is Connections
A culture will be strong or weak depending on the interactions between the people in the organization, she said. In a strong culture, there are many, overlapping, and cohesive interactions among all members of the organization.  As a result, knowledge about the organization’s distinctive character — and what it takes to thrive in it — is widely spread and reinforced. In a weak culture, sparse interactions make it difficult for people to learn the organization’s culture, so its character is barely noticeable and the commitment to it is scarce or sporadic.

• Beliefs, values, and actions will spread the farthest and be tightly reinforced when everyone is communicating with everyone else. In a strong school culture, leaders communicate directly with teachers, administrators, counselors, and families, who also all communicate directly with each other.
• A culture is weaker when communications are limited and there are fewer connections. For example, if certain teachers never hear directly from their principal, an administrator is continually excluded from communications, or any groups of staff members are operating in isolation from others, it will be difficult for messages about shared beliefs and commitments to spread.

Culture Is Core Beliefs and Behaviors
Within that weak or strong structure, what exactly people believe and how they act depends on the messages — both direct and indirect — that the leaders and others in the organization send. A good culture arises from messages that promote traits like collaboration, honesty and hard work.
Culture is shaped by five interwoven elements, each of which principals have the power to influence: 

1. Fundamental beliefs and assumptions, or the things that people at your school consider to be true. For example: “All students have the potential to succeed,” or “Teaching is a team sport.”
2. Shared values, or the judgments people at your school make about those belief and assumptions — whether they are right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust. For example: “It’s wrong that some of our kindergarteners may not receive the same opportunity to graduate from a four-year college,” or “The right thing is for our teachers to be collaborating with colleagues every step of the way.”
3. Norms, or how members believe they should act and behave, or what they think is expected of them. For example: “We should talk often and early to parents of young students about what it will take for their children to attend college.” “We all should be present and engaged at our weekly grade-level meetings.”
4. Patterns and behaviors, or the way people actually act and behave in your school. For example: There are regularly-scheduled parent engagement nights around college; there is active participation at weekly team curriculum meetings. (But in a weak culture, these patterns and behaviors can be different than the norms.)
5. Tangible evidence, or the physical, visual, auditory, or other sensory signs that demonstrate the behaviors of the people in your school. For example: Prominently displayed posters showcasing the district’s college enrollment, or a full parking lot an hour before school begins on the mornings when curriculum teams meet.

Each of these components influences and drives the others, forming a circle of reinforcing beliefs and actions, Bridwell-Mitchell says; strong connections among every member of the school community reinforce the circle at every point.

Leah Shafer is a staff writer for Usable Knowledge, which translates education research and well-tested practices so they're accessible to practitioners, policymakers, and parents. Usable Knowledge is based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.