It is a Year 1 - 8 Primary School, which opened in 2015 after a very difficult merge process, following the Christchurch earthquakes. Two very different school communities, with longstanding traditions and history, were forced to become a new, future-focused school with a vision to empower students to explore, collaborate and be innovative life-long learners. This was a shift in thinking for many of the students, staff and whānau in the pre-merge school communities.
Establishing a positive, welcoming and future-focused school culture has been no mean feat during the turmoil of merging the two communities, with one of these communities fighting against the merge right to the end. "Thrupp (1997) argues that the social mix of the school plays a major role in how it functions, largely because of the cumulative effect of how the pupils relate to each other as a group." Stoll and Fink (cited in Stoll, 1998) p. 9-10 1
From these shaky beginnings, we have aimed to build a positive school culture and climate where every student, staff member, and whānau feel they are an integral part of the school, with an important contribution to make. We aimed to build a culture of success and belonging.
School culture is dependent on the beliefs and actions of the people in our school community, and for this to be positive the leadership team needed to have a clear and purposeful vision about why we do what we do and how we do it. We needed to ensure that our school vision was a shared vision, developed through consultation, empowering the school community to have a voice in shaping it.
The school now has a welcoming and warm 'feel' (climate), a comment often made by visitors to the school, and I believe for this to develop, the establishment Board and leadership team needed to create and foster a sense of belonging and worth.
The socioeconomic status of our school community reflects the collective background of the students and their whānau. We have a large percentage of our families living in poverty and uncertainty, exacerbated by the effects of the 2011 earthquake, with housing at a premium.
Canterbury University school of health sciences associate professor Dr Kathleen Liberty2 says "a study of 5-year-olds starting primary school in east and south Christchurch is finding that as many as one in five now exhibit the classic symptoms of post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)". We have certainly found this to be true at our school, not only for our students, but also for many of the parents.
These factors have contributed to both the climate and culture of our school and has had a significant impact on why we do what we do and how we do it. Gargiulo (2014, p.7-8)3, considered six strategies to reduce the impact of poverty in his school, a South Auckland secondary school.
Our school community has also undertaken similar strategies, such as providing lunches and breakfasts, engaging students and whānau in 3-Way Conferences to look at student achievement, shared goal-setting and next steps with well over 90% engagement and participation in this aspect of student learning, staff PLD in the Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) programme, providing authentic learning opportunities that are future-focused and encourage a growth mindset for all stakeholders (students, staff, and whānau), providing mentoring programmes and support for students, staff and whānau in terms of their pastoral care and personal well-being.
In essence, our developing school culture continues be an interpretation of what people bring to the educational initiatives we undertake, and how we work to develop shared meanings about the norms, or culture, that will provide sustainable and future-focused school improvement for our kura.
This must be led by the Senior Leadership Team, yet be owned by all stakeholders. We endeavour to empower students, staff and whānau within each of our unique teams, while trying to ensure that the growth in the size of our kura does not lead to Balkanisation. We need to ensure there is frequent opportunity to reflect on our practices and our values, and that we have a shared understanding of what our kura really stands for.
1. Stoll, L. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network's Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London.
2. Liberty, Dr. K. (2014) www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch.../Quake-stress-hurting-our-young
3. Gargiulo, S. (2014). Principal sabbatical report.
4. Video - Building a Culture of Success - Mark Wilson - TEdEd. (2013, Jun 21).
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