Step
1: Identify
the socioeconomic status of the community, organisational culture and
professional environments. Use the following questions to guide your thoughts:
- Is there any statistical data that indicates the socioeconomic
status of your school’s community? What does it tell you about the
characteristics of the community?
Randell, G. (2012, July 17). Paparoa Street School - 17/07/2012.
Retrieved February 11, 2017, from
http://www.ero.govt.nz/review-reports/paparoa-street-school-17-07-2012/
This extract from our last ERO review shows some of the information
about my school's socio-economic status. We are a decile ten, large,
contributing primary school in urban Christchurch. The ERO report also shows
the ethnicity make-up of the school. The majority of students identify as NZ
European/Pāhekā. This combines to show the school is in an affluent area of
town. According to Ministry of Education (2016) "decile 1 schools
are the 10% of schools with the highest proportion of students from low socio-economic
communities, whereas decile 10 schools are the 10% of schools with the lowest
proportion of these students." The website also states that deciles are
calculated based on Census data including household income and occupation.
Therefore, a decile 10 rating shows that most adult members of our school
community are employed in 'professional' jobs.
This
information tells me that the children and parents in our community generally
are from affluent backgrounds. The children live in comfortable, uncrowded
homes with professional parents. As highly-educated parents, our parental
community expects a high quality education for their children and are proactive
in ensuring they receive it. The school is generally well supported by parents
and the wider community.
- What is the culture that the school is striving for? How is it
manifested?
In Academy for
SELinSchools' video (2015) Trushiem argues that if not actively developed
school culture will occur by default. He states that a positive school culture
occurs when a leader (usually the principal) along with key followers actively
steer the school towards a certain kind of culture. In the same video
Dunkelblau states the importance of staff in building a positive school
culture. He states that children and families cycle through schools however
staff are generally the consistent entity. I think this is particularly true in
my school as we have had a high turnover of staff and leadership recently
however the present staff and leadership are committed to building a positive
school culture for children and teachers.
As
a large primary school we pride ourselves on our family-based culture. Staff
are encouraged to work with a range of children in the school through
collaboration, mixed groupings, house events and social events. This enables
staff to get to know many of the children in the school not just those they
teach. This is also manifested through a wide range of whole-school activities
e.g. assemblies, house day, sports events, reading groups and extra-curricular
clubs.
As
a staff we have embraced a collaborative, open culture and now all work in
fully collaborative environments. While this has come with challenges I think
overall our school culture reflects many of Stoll's
(1998) Norms of Improving Schools.
1.
Shared goals— “we know where we’re going” - As a school and wider community we
have mapped where we want our children to go with their learning by the time
they leave our school.
2.
Responsibility for success— “we must succeed”- A collaborative teaching culture
has meant that we feel jointly responsible for helping our children succeed in
their learning.
3.
Collegiality— “we’re working on this together” - By working in collaborative
groups or pairings there is a stronger sense of team in the school and a
feeling of having someone 'in it' with you.
4.
Continuous improvement— “we can get better” - The culture of the staff and
students is one of continuous improvement. While we celebrate success we always
look at our next steps.
5.
Lifelong learning— “learning is for everyone” - This phrase is in our school
motto! A pathway for lifelong learners.
6.
Risk taking— “we learn by trying something new” - Through our COPs groups we
have been encouraged to try new things. This message is now filtering through
our community to our parents and therefore becoming part of our culture.
- How would you describe the professional environment in your school?
The
professional environment of my school is well-supported. We are encouraged to
increase our professional knowledge by networking with other teachers and schools
as well as undertaking further research. As a staff we have worked hard to
promote an open professional environment through the introduction of
collaborative classrooms. We also use community of practice groups to share our
professional successes and concerns.
Step
2: Analyse
the issues around the socioeconomic status of the community, the school culture
and professional environments. Use these following questions to guide your
thoughts:
- What issues arose from the socio-economic status of your school’s
community? How is it similar or different from those of similar
socio-economic status? How have the issues been addressed?
Recently
our biggest issue that has arisen from our socio-economic status is around the
concept of collaborative teaching. Two years ago we introduced collaborative
teaching teams which was met with some resistance from our community. This was
largely due to an idea that Martin & Terblanche (2003) identify as organisational
culture.
“Organisational
culture is manifested in the typical characteristics of the organisation. It
therefore refers to a set of basic assumptions that worked so well in the past
that they are accepted as valid assumptions within the organisation…. The
components of routine behaviour, norms, values, philosophy, rules of the game
and feelings all form part of organisational culture”.
Many
of our parents are highly educated themselves and hold a certain view on how
education should look based on their own experiences. Talking to other high
decile schools they have faced similar challenges when introducing
collaboration. Lower decile schools seem to have had less resistance as there
seems to be a feeling of 'the experts' i.e. teachers' know what they are doing
in these communities. A trait of high decile communities is expecting the best
and questioning changes. Our highly educated parents feel more empowered to
question the decisions of other highly-educated professionals. However, this
also worked to help build a solution as our community has the resources and
willingness to access research and further information through experts to
understand the reasons behind collaboration.
- What issues arose from the professional environments in your
school? How these issues impact on your practice? How have the issues been
addressed?
Personally
I have not had any issues with the professional environment in my school. I
think through our developing open culture issues are often discussed and
reworked to best suit everyone.
References:
Academy for
SELinSchools. (2015, Apr 28). What is school culture and climate? [video
file].Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-_NvhlcusQ
Martins,
E.C. & Terblanche, F. (2003). Building organisational culture that
stimulates creativity and innovation. European Journal of Innovation Management,
6(1), 64 - 74.
Ministry of Education (2016, November 29). School deciles. Retrieved
February 11, 2017, from
http://www.education.govt.nz/school/running-a-school/resourcing/operational-funding/school-decile-ratings/
Randell, G. (2012, July 17). Paparoa Street School - 17/07/2012.
Retrieved February 11, 2017, from
http://www.ero.govt.nz/review-reports/paparoa-street-school-17-07-2012/
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
No comments:
Post a Comment