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/
6 Responses
Building an effective culture has been a focus of mine, this has proven to be a mammoth task and quite a significant challenge in my leadership journey.
An area that is currently effective in our kura is inclusivity. Especially in terms of culturally responsive practice – Te Tiriti o Waitangi is reflected in all areas of the school throughout the say – starting with karakia in classes, incorporating tikanga and use of te reo Māori as drivers for classroom learning, use of the maramataka to decide on learning and to decide energy levels required each day within the classroom, right down to the pōwhiri held each term to welcome new whānau, students and staff. Diversity is also celebrated – when new cultures join the learning community the tamariki are tasked with learning tikanga or language relevant to those tamariki. This is largely driven by staff who strive to share their own cultural practices with the tamariki and have these evident in the kura.
The area that I would like to enhance and develop is positive relationships. Currently there are “pockets” of staff who have positive relationships with one another. There is a culture of distrust amongst the staff leading to ineffective communication, which then feeds down to the students and their whānau.
To foster this the change needs to occur through more than just “events”, a staff dinner isn’t going to unravel the levels of distrust within the staff. There needs to be a concentrated focus from management on modelling healthy discussions, role playing these in staff meetings, PD around building staff culture and the impact this has on a school. My role in this is to model and shut down unhealthy forms of communication. I will also need to be courageous and hold learning conversations with staff to keep them (and myself) accountable for the change moving forward.
A teams working agreement will also need to be established – where everyone has their say on what they believe positive relationships look like in our kura – this will help us all work cohesively towards a common goal, be a place to set goals from and also a way to hold each other accountable when things aren’t going well.
The heartbeat of our school culture is the enduring tuakana/teina relationship, a practice of older (tuakana) students mentoring and caring for their younger (teina) peers, which is visible in both our classrooms and playground interactions. We formally cement this sense of belonging with a mihi whakatau—a traditional welcome ceremony—for every new student, teacher, and learning assistant. This deep-seated reciprocal bond is structurally supported by our Whānau rooms, where Year 2-8 students mix during parts of the day. This age-integrated setup provides natural opportunities for older students to demonstrate and younger students to follow our core school values: Manaakitanga (respect and care), Turangawaewae (a place to stand/belonging), Kotahitanga (unity), and Rangatiratanga (leadership). Our commitment extends to our newest learners in the ‘Nest,’ where Year 6-8 tamariki volunteer to help the kaiako during Powerful Play and assist four-year-olds transitioning from the play centre. To complement this strong relational foundation, we are strategically enhancing the culture of responsibility and student agency by encouraging students to be accountable for their actions, manage their belongings, and submit their mahi on time. With full staff buy-in, we are implementing positive reinforcement and incentives to empower every child to take ownership of their learning and guardianship of the school environment.
One aspect of our school culture that I actively contribute to is fostering positive, respectful, and trusting relationships. In my role as Head of Primary, I prioritise modelling effective communication, active listening, and empathy in every interaction with staff, students, and whānau. For example, I hold regular team hui where staff can share successes, challenges, and innovative ideas in a supportive environment. I also make a point of recognising individual contributions through informal praise and structured acknowledgment, which encourages colleagues to take risks in their teaching and engage collaboratively in problem-solving. These practices strengthen team cohesion, build psychological safety, and foster innovation, ultimately enhancing student engagement and achievement.
An area I am intentionally seeking to enhance is inclusivity and cultural responsiveness. To address this, I plan to implement structured reflective sessions where my team evaluates lesson plans, teaching strategies, and school events through a cultural lens. I will facilitate discussions on embedding Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles, honouring diverse identities, and ensuring all learners feel valued. For example, I aim to integrate multicultural perspectives into curriculum planning and explore ways to celebrate diverse cultural events meaningfully. By leading these initiatives, I hope to foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and belonging, ensuring that all staff and students feel empowered and included in shaping our school’s future.
One aspect of school culture that is particularly strong and effective – Communication across the school.
I believe that communication at my school is a strength. Our community has high expectations and appreciates knowing what is happening in the school and having regular and up to date communication is a priority. School newsletters and notices ensure this. Effective and regular communication between management, teaching teams, and support staff is a priority. Communication often flows down through our communication tree so staff are aware of important events and issues. We provide regular communication to whanau at the class level – Seesaw updates, Term newsletter and other regular whole class emails. Concerns and successes are shared with parents as a part of what we do. We regularly reflect on communication methods and look at new ideas and platforms to ensure we have the most effective communication.
Area of school culture that could be enhanced and promoted: Whole school togetherness/schoolwide culture
Unfortunately due to safety regulations we are unable to have our whole school gather together in our Hall for assemblies and get togethers (apart from some fine days in summer for informal get togethers outside). Our school also operates as two large teams that run quite separately. We do have interaction between the teams (e.g. Buddy classes), however we see whole school activities and togetherness as an opportunity to foster the tuakana/teina relationship and develop school pride. As part of this we have embarked on a journey to develop school houses. These groups will be whanau groups with children of all ages in the four groups. To encourage participation and involvement by all we consulted the community and whanau on House names and the children have been involved in the set up through an integrated inquiry (Project Based Learning) unit where classes looked at a range of opportunities (chants, trophy design using 3D printers, emblems, event ideas etc). We are looking at holding our first event next term and evaluating its effectiveness after 6 months. We are also in our first year of PB4L and see there is great potential in including a house system in our incentives/positive behaviour plans across the school.
An aspect of our school’s culture that is particularly strong is the emphasis on building positive relationships. This is exemplified by our tuakana/teina model, this fosters a natural sense of collaboration across all year levels. Additionally, this collaborative spirit extends to our staff, with a strong focus on professional relationships and collaborative planning and assessment. Staff wellbeing initiatives create a supportive environment where staff feel connected and empowered to work together effectively.
The specific area within our school’s culture that I would like to enhance is inclusivity, with a particular focus on cultural and whānau inclusivity. While our school celebrates cultural diversity through events, we need to look at how we can cultivate a deeper level of understanding and empathy across our increasingly diverse community.
My proposed enhancement would be to implement a program designed to help staff develop their knowledge and gain a greater understanding of ethnicities within our school community, and provide opportunities and tools to celebrate cultural diversity.
Cultivating Culture in Our Kura
A particularly strong aspect of our kura’s culture is our deeply ingrained commitment to manaakitanga (care, hospitality, generosity), particularly evident in our approach to student welfare and learning support. This culture fosters collaboration by encouraging staff to proactively identify and collectively address student needs. It drives innovation as teachers feel supported to explore diverse strategies to meet individual learning and behavioural challenges, contributing directly to improved student performance and holistic well-being.
However, I’d like to enhance our culture around proactive internal knowledge sharing and innovation diffusion among teaching staff. While we collaborate on student needs, sharing successful pedagogical practices or new initiatives often happens informally.
To foster this, I’ll be implementing regular, short “Innovation Spotlight” sessions during staff meetings next term, starting with staff PD around neurodiversity. I’ll be consulting with a parent in our community who has significant knowledge and experience in this area to help plan these insightful sessions. Staff will also be encouraged to share their own successful strategies and learnings during these times.