Forbairt culture

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Leading School Culture

Picture

• Learn how to read the culture of the school• Understand how to build and maintain a

positive culture • An awareness of negative culture

Key Messages

Why study School Culture?

"It can be argued that

the only thing of real importance that leaders do is create and manage cultures;

the unique talent of leaders is their ability to understand and work with culture;

it is an ultimate act of leadership to destroy culture when it is viewed as dysfunctional." (Schein, 2004)

ieWhen someone walks into your school

they might notice…

PDST is funded by the Teacher Education Section (TES) of the Department of Education and Skills (DES) The service is managed by Dublin West Education Centre

Tangible manifestations of Culture

Values

Artefacts

Basic Assumptions

Ethical statements of

rightness

Unconscious & taken for granted ways of seeing the

How Culture Evolves

Practice

Belief

Shared Tacit Assumption

Taken for granted!

Problem / Need

Solution Continued Success

Culture

A definition of Culture• A pattern of basic assumptions – invented,

discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with problems…...that has worked well enough to be considered valid and , therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems” (Schein, 1985)

The role of leadership

External Internal

Positive & Negative Cultures

“We had a Whole School Evaluation two years ago and we found out beforehand from St. Martin’s what the inspector did there .... in 2nd and 3rd he did this .... in 4th and 5th he did that .... in 5th and 6th he did this.... so our minds were sort of geared to what the inspector would do.... and sure enough.... I had a bundle of questions.... and I went over these topics with the children.... and it was like.... the hands were going up.... they knew the questions.... and what not.... he didn't mention.... computers at all....”

What leadership behaviour influenced the practice of this teacher?

Mary is supervising the playground. An incident occurs and Mary wrongly accuses Martin, a boy from 6th class, of having caused the problem. He defends himself adamantly and eventually uses foul language on Mary. She becomes upset and sends for the principal.

Why is the principal’s handling of this incident important (apart from legal considerations)?

Anytown N.S. developed a new training pitch at the back of the school at a cost of €100,000 which was cheap considering the cost of land and development. The school put in a huge fund raising effort. This development has left the school short on funds for library facilities for the moment. They intend to focus on this next year.

If you were a new teacher coming to this school what message (rightly or wrongly) might you pick up? What does this tell us about how a leader might build and maintain a particular culture?

Pessimistic storytellers

Negaholic MartyrSpace Cadets

Prima Donnas

“Keepers of the nightmare”

Hero is antiheroicDeadwood

Saboteur

Deal & Peterson, 1999

NegativeCultures

Building &

MaintainingCulture

How leaders

react to critical incidents

and organisational crises

What leaders pay

attention to

How leaders allocate

resources

How leaders recruit, select, promote,

and ‘excommunicate’

How leaders allocate rewards

and status

Deliberate role modelling,

teaching, and coaching

Reflection

What have I learned?

What does this mean for my practice?

Timeframe

“In the best of schools, with the best resources and the most skilled leadership, the timeframe for transforming culture, structure, belief and practice is years!”

(Evans, 2001)