My Professional Communities - School Culture

Week 26 - School Culture

The culture of Westbrook School is underpinned by the ‘Westbrook Way’.   The Westbrook way is made up of the following values; Excellence, Responsibility, Respect, Initiative, and Whanaungatanga. These values have been in place for a considerable number of years and are now embedded in our culture. Staff, students and their families 'walk the talk' about the Westbrook way. Stoll (1998) talks about culture that has been in place for some time being difficult to effect change in as the culture is hard to articulate.  I don’t believe that we are at this stage and that as a community we need to be mindful of this.  We work hard when new students and staff enter our community so that they are shown how the Westbrook Way is alive and breathing in our school.  It is often commented on by new staff in particular, how much of a strong impact the Westbrook Way has on our school and what it is.  I ensure that I model the Westbrook Way and that it is a part of my everyday practice to use the values in all that I say, do and in the way I act.  To continue to grow a positive school culture is important and if we wish to make changes to our culture they need to be planned and well thought out. Stoll (1998) talks about how structure and culture within a school are interdependent and changing one has an impact on the other.  In our community, we foster changes through strategic planning and professional learning at a senior leadership level this then unpacked with the whole staff to develop many of the 10 cultural norms that Stool and Fink (as cited in Stoll 1998) identify as influencing school improvement.

Currently, we are working on developing Innovative Learning Environments within our school.  This involves developing and strengthening the pedagogical practice of our teachers. Mark Wilson posed some very good questions to ask ourselves when looking at developing unity and empowerment that would be good for our stakeholders to answer.  They include

• “Who am I? What do I bring?
• What is it we wish to be and why?
• How do we become what we wish to be?” (Wilson 2013)

We have begun the process and are in the early stages of looking into future-focused learning and our next step going forward is 'what could this look like in our school?'  I believed that if we have a shared understanding of pedagogical change then as a staff we can support and further evolve our beliefs and priorities. Wilson (2013) talks about this as supporting a culture of success.  Our distributive model of leadership is integral to our success in driving change that does not drastically change the culture of our school.  Wilson (2013) talks about the principal as the keeper of beliefs.  I believe that this is the collective responsibility of the Senior Management Team who work as one. The changes in pedagogical practice will be gradual and time will be needed to reflect upon and evaluate the success and failures.  I look forward to the journey we are embarking on an know that the study I am completing for Mindlab will hold me in good stead going forward to participate in, lead and change pedagogical practice in our community.  

References:

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

TEdEd(2013, Jun 21). Building a culture of success- Mark Wilson. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_8Bjz-OCD8