Module 10: Building an Effective Culture
“He waka eke noa.”
“A canoe we are all in together.”
Module Objectives:
Upon completion of this module, middle leaders will be able to:
- Define the characteristics of a positive, inclusive, and high-performing school culture in the New Zealand context.
- Identify their role in shaping and maintaining school culture within their team and across the kura.
- Apply strategies to foster psychological safety and open communication, encouraging collaboration and innovation.
- Promote culturally responsive practices that ensure all learners and staff feel valued, included, and empowered.
- Contribute to a culture that champions continuous improvement and professional growth.
- Evaluate current team or departmental culture and propose practical steps for enhancement.
School culture is often described as “the way we do things around here.” It’s the unwritten rules, shared values, beliefs, and practices that shape daily interactions and the overall feel of a school. As a middle leader, you are a crucial architect of this culture within your teams, influencing everything from staff well-being to student outcomes. A positive, inclusive, and high-performing culture is foundational to a thriving learning environment.
Understanding School Culture:
School culture impacts every aspect of school life, from how decisions are made, to how conflicts are resolved, and how success is celebrated. It influences staff morale, student engagement, and ultimately, learning outcomes. A truly effective culture fosters a sense of belonging for everyone, encourages risk-taking and innovation, and prioritises continuous improvement.
Key Elements of an Effective School Culture:
- Positive Relationships: Building strong, respectful, and trusting relationships among staff, students, and whānau is the bedrock. This involves genuine care, empathy, and effective communication.
- Inclusivity and Equity: Ensuring that every individual feels valued, respected, and has a sense of belonging, regardless of their background, identity, or needs. This includes actively embedding Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles and culturally responsive practices.
- Collaboration and Teamwork: Encouraging staff to work together, share ideas, support each other, and collectively solve problems. This breaks down silos and strengthens collective efficacy.
- Innovation and Growth Mindset: Fostering an environment where experimentation is encouraged, learning from mistakes is embraced, and there’s a collective commitment to continuous improvement and new approaches to teaching and learning.
- High Expectations and High Support: Setting ambitious goals for both student achievement and professional practice, while providing the necessary support, feedback, and resources for individuals to meet those expectations.
- Psychological Safety: Creating an environment where individuals feel safe to speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, and offer ideas without fear of negative consequences. This is crucial for innovation and honest feedback.
Your Role as an AP or DP in Shaping Culture:
As a school leader, you have significant influence over the micro-cultures within your team or part of the school you have responsibility for. Your actions, decisions, and communication style contribute directly to the “way things are done.” You can foster an effective culture by:
- Modelling desired behaviours and values.
- Actively listening to your team members and addressing their concerns.
- Creating opportunities for collaborative decision-making and problem-solving.
- Championing inclusivity and celebrating diversity.
- Providing constructive feedback and opportunities for professional development.
- Recognising and celebrating efforts and successes.
Task:
Cultivating Culture in Your Kura:Reflection on the forum: describe one aspect of your current school’s culture that you believe is particularly strong or effective. How does it contribute to collaboration, innovation, or performance. Also identify a specific area within your school’s culture that you would like to enhance to promote greater collaboration, innovation, or inclusivity. Identify one concrete strategy you could implement to begin fostering this change.
Post your collaborative response on the forum (max. 150 words).
Assessment:
- Forum Post: Your response outlining a positive aspect of your school’s culture and a strategy for culture enhancement and its rationale.
Resources:
- Understanding School Culture:
- Educational Leaders – School Culture: https://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/ (explore sub-sections like “Leading cultural change” and “School culture”)
- Fostering Inclusive Culture:
- Inclusive Education (TKI): https://inclusive.tki.org.nz/ (explore sections like “Developing an inclusive classroom culture” and “Inclusive teaching practice guidance”)
- Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand – Tātaiako: https://teachingcouncil.nz/content/tataiako
- https://www.edutopia.org/article/creating-positive-school-culture/
9 Responses
One particularly strong and effective aspect of our kura’s culture is the deeply ingrained manaakitanga (hospitality, kindness) extended to all new staff and students. This genuine warmth and support foster an immediate sense of belonging, which is crucial. It directly contributes to collaboration by making individuals feel safe and valued enough to share ideas and ask for help, thus boosting overall performance as everyone feels connected to our shared goals.
An area I’d like to enhance is promoting greater student innovation in curriculum design. While student voice exists, it could be more deeply integrated into developing learning experiences. A concrete strategy could be implementing “Student-Led Design Sprints” once a term. In these sprints, students would work in groups, supported by kaiako, to propose and plan a project-based learning unit on a chosen topic, presenting their ideas for potential integration. This would empower them and cultivate a culture of active, creative contribution.
Our school values are mana and aroha. These values are demonstrated daily in the interactions between staff and students around school grounds and in extra-curricular activities. I feel the result of this is our students tend to be kind, empathetic and personable young people. There’s a real feel of community within the kura, as opposed to an ‘us vs them’ sort of feeling I’ve seen in other schools.
Another example of this is the positive conversations had by many staff around the school in various departments around how to continue growing and improving our school, rather than staying stagnant.
We also have a good health and safety culture, but there is some frustration around a new EOTC software we’ve employed. As a result there have been some frank and open discussions, with staff outlining their frustrations. I personally don’t see this as a bad thing and appreciate the feedback as it allows me to answer the questions and work to try and make the system more user friendly. I’ve also tried to push a culture of ensuring we do everything we can to maximise the safety of our students. Although I’m keen to streamline the process and make it as user friendly as possible, the priority remains student well being.
As a result, the culture around health and safety and EOTC is a constant work on and we’re keen to get it to a point where all staff are confident and efficient with the system.
One of the strongest aspects of our school’s culture is the inclusive care and safety we provide for staff, students, and whānau. We begin each day with devotions, which focuses us in prayer, reflection, and purpose. Our parent support system is incredible, providing care packages for staff and families during challenges, heavy workloads, or times of transition, helping people feel valued and supported. Our classes are places where tamariki feel safe to make mistakes, and our student culture has shifted towards greater responsibility and stronger parent support. When students and staff feel their worldview and cultural identity are understood, valued, and celebrated, they feel safe enough to be vulnerable, participate fully, and try harder. This openness encourages sharing of ideas, resources, and expertise, creating rich zones of in-house collaboration, innovation, and performance.
A next step is to grow parent engagement across all cultures. While some parents may not take part in camps, they enjoy cultural celebration days. We could invite parents to share food, stories, or traditions connected to classroom learning, or offer flexible roles that fit work commitments, widening involvement, strengthening collaboration, and making our kura even more inclusive. I believe thinking through how to engage our great communities will allow us to garner incredible innovations in how to authentically connect and involve people from other diverse backgrounds. I hope that it will simply feed naturally from our belief that it is so important to love thy neighbour.
I believe one of our greatest strengths is whanaungatanga. Although we are an Auckland school, being on a peninsula gives us that smaller community feel. We are welcoming (relievers and visitors often comment on this), and we place real value on trusting and supporting one another. Collaboration is encouraged through our culture of working alongside each other rather than operating in a ‘top down’ way.
An area I would like to see us enhance is inclusivity, ensuring that all voices are heard and valued in decision-making, as at times some voices can be more dominant. While we run a high-trust model, we also need to maintain clear professional standards. One example is communication with parents. Recent interactions have prompted us to reflect on whether we should introduce a guideline such as responding to parent emails within 48 hours to ensure consistency and uphold our values.
Kia ora,
My school’s culture is rooted in a profound sense of care and aroha. This isn’t just a mission statement; it’s a living practice that shapes our daily interactions. For teachers and leaders, it means a deep, unwavering commitment to each other’s well-being. We understand that our best work for students can only happen when we feel supported and valued ourselves. This culture manifests in big and small ways. We celebrate each other’s successes, offer a listening ear during tough times, or just sharing resources. Mentorship is a two-way street, where experienced and new teachers learn from one another. We’ve built a professional environment where vulnerability is seen as a strength, and asking for help is a sign of trust, not weakness. This collective care creates a resilient, collaborative team that can navigate any challenge together.
A cultural change needed at my school is around teaching and learning with regards to literacy. Literacy is seen as the domain of the English department (secondary school) It is the responsibility of every teacher. So my strategy: Cross-Curricular Literacy Spotlights. Instead of adding more meetings, I will embed this new focus into my existing schedule. The strategy involves dedicating a 5-10 minute segment at the beginning of regular meetings to a specific, high-leverage literacy strategy. For example, the science department meeting might start with a brief discussion on how to effectively teach students to interpret complex data tables, while the social studies department might focus on teaching students to analyse primary source documents for bias.
A positive aspect of our school culture is the relational aspect of our staff, students and community that has been worked on over time. I remember starting here and it having a really awesome feeling around the students and staff that I couldn’t put my finger on. As time went on I learnt there had been deliberate steps and measures put in place prior to me starting that had created this. It has also continued and gone from strength to strength. Nothing is perfect but the respect and aroha that flows through our school community is awesome and often something visiting teachers and relievers talk to. Because of this staff are willing to try new things with their students and our students feel connected to this place often coming back years after they have finished just to check in and see how the place is going.
I think an area of growth for our school sits around ensuring high standards and expectations from all our staff are more consistently delivered. We have the vast majority of staff who give incredible time energy effort and passion to our kids and school. This shines through in their teaching and learning alongside their own curiosity and growth. However it is finding a supportive way to support those who are not yet at that place to recognise the aspects of our jobs as teachers that need to be worked on. Empowering them and giving them tools to feel supported in developing these areas. Recently we have started conversation around how we look to approach this by including in our professional development workshops targeted sessions around our standards. We have also started looking at the conversations we are having in our mahi tahi cycle of teacher observations.
I believe our school’s greatest strength lies in the strong, respectful, and trusting relationships we build among staff, students, and whānau. This sense of belonging, which people often comment on when they walk through our doors, is central to our culture. It’s what makes our kura a welcoming and supportive place. At the heart of everything we do is the learner. Staff are proactive in fostering individual relationships with students and their families, creating a positive environment that enhances learning. The strong relational trust among our staff ensures open communication and a culture where it’s safe to make mistakes and ask questions without judgment. Over the last few years we have begun planning collaboratively, drawing on everyone’s strengths and ensuring cohesiveness.
While our leadership effectively identifies and nurtures staff strengths, a key area for growth is empowering our quieter teachers to share their innovative ideas with confidence. We are actively working on this by structuring leadership in a way that encourages all voices to contribute, ensuring everyone feels valued and heard. I feel a continued focus on this will mean that each individual will feel valued and respected and further contribute to our school culture.
The main area of strength within our school culture is building relationships. Relationships with our students, their whanau, within class teams, working with therapists and medical professionals are absolutely key for learning for our students. Because all of the staff that work with our young people have their best interests at heart, we are able to form multidisciplinary teams that can creatively and collaboratively solve problems and come up with solutions and ways forward for their learning. This impacts directly on students’ engagement with school, their attendance, whanau attitudes and engagement with school as well as student learning outcomes.
The areas we are working on improving are psychological safety and High expectations and standards, especially around professional standards. A couple of steps I have taken within the teaching team I lead are to develop a meeting ‘norms and values’ document which was created in collaboration with all teachers within the group. This will be reveiewed at the end of the year and we plan to create a visual design so we can display it and use it to carry it forward into next year. This has already helped to set a level of expectation and also guidance for psychological safety for all. From a whole school standpoint, I openly own my mistakes or ‘shortcomings’ to lead with authenticity and vulnerability, demonstrating that this is OK for the staff also. School wide as a leadership team we are reviewing HR practices and what we do when teachers or teacher aides are not meeting the expected standards to fulfil their job role. As part of this, I have taken over 2 support staff appraisals to work on a guidance and support plan for them to grow and develop their practice. This is all still in the early stages so I look forward to seeing the impact these actions can have.
Kia ora,
I believe that an area we are working really hard on is collaboration and teamwork. We are a small school and have struggled with planning collaboratively as it was a silo approach previously. We have just started with our schoolwide Inquiry planning. It was great at our last planning hui, we all sat around the table planning because we could share ideas, we could see progression over the year groups, and give feedback and feed forward for our kaiako/plans. It helped to build the culture of working together as a collective room of intelligence. An area that I would like to improve further is setting ambitious goals for student achievement. The concrete strategy I would use is a mixture of providing constructive feedback as well as celebrating success. I want to use this mixture as we are still learning the new curriculum and structured literacy approach, and I need to make sure we are continuing to grow in this implementation. I also want to celebrate success when we see progress for our tamariki so that we can see that it is working. It also helps to ‘fill our cup’ when we focus on the positives.