School culture

Creating and implementing a school Reconciliation Action Plan is a way to formalise your commitment to building and sustaining strong relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, embedding respect, and providing opportunities to improve outcomes for students and the wider community.

In their new book In Teachers We Trust: The Finnish Way to World-Class Schools, Pasi Sahlberg and Timothy D Walker suggest seven key principles for building a culture of trust in schools. This exclusive extract discussing the ‘three levels of trust’ is taken from a chapter on cultivating responsible learners.

A systematic review of research from the past two decades has investigated the link between leadership and learning to analyse how principals affect student learning and overall school culture. Here, we look at the skills displayed by principals that have emerged to have a positive effect on schools.

Our connections with others have an influence on our own behaviour. Social networks form in lots of different contexts, including at school and in the workplace. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is now offering insights into these important, but often invisible relationships.

At Auburn Girls High School in Auburn, New South Wales, students are supported to achieve the high expectations teachers hold for them. Here, Principal Anna Tsoutsa shares how the school has developed and sustained this culture of high expectations.

‘Being reflective by collaborating with colleagues, committing to improvement, building on current skills and knowledge and sharing with others is vital for all educators.’ Here, we speak to school leaders about the importance of and skills needed for reflection.

At Tulliallan Primary School in Melbourne, teachers and students have been working with local Indigenous groups to create an immersive Acknowledgement of Country. STEM teacher Nick Pattison shares the story from different perspectives.

Changing school practices means everyone working together – leaders, teachers, support staff, students, parents and the wider community – toward the goal of improving outcomes for students. In today’s podcast, we share some recent Teacher highlights on the topic of school improvement.

The yourstoryourjourney website has been created to help teachers and school leaders form relationships and partnerships with communities and parents to achieve better educational outcomes for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

‘Implementation is a process not an event’ became a cornerstone phrase for Liam Stakelum as he led change within Marist College Canberra. With co-authors Dr Tanya Vaughan and Susannah Schoeffel he discusses the vision for change, the move from evidence to practice and the implementation process.