School Culture and Climate - What finger do you have your pie in?

I teach at St Mary's Catholic School in Rotorua which is a State Integrated School which provides a faith-based education for its students. The school is a decile 6 formally a decile 5. It was reviewed by the Ministry of Education as a decile 7 but this was challenged and it was set at 6. 

The roll is capped at 450. We have many more enrolment applications than are possible to take. Many people are turned away. Although our school does not have an enrolment scheme, as such, families must meet the requirements of enrolment within a State Integrated Catholic School. We have a very diverse demographic as many immigrants from countries such as the Philippines come from a strong Catholic Faith. 

The school has a large amount of English Language Learners, which have a dedicated Teacher Aide and Teacher that are in charge of running withdrawal classes. 37% of students identify as either Asian, Other (Indian etc) or Pacific Peoples, further to this 20% of student identify as Maori. 

As children at our school are not necessarily drawn from within the area in which the school is situated there is a diverse socioeconomic range of families that attend our school. 

We have a very stable staff with little turn over, although more recently a slightly higher turn over. Most teaching staff and many support staff have worked at St Mary's for 10 years or more. 

Although Rotorua is considered low socioeconomic area in New Zealand it is difficult to determine the demographic of St Mary's School Community. Although many children come from immigrant families many of those families are skilled immigrants with a high socio-economic status, some are not. Children come from all over Rotorua, from the poorest of areas to the richest of areas. What is significant for this community is the support of the Church and Community in their children's learning and beyond. It is a community that cares about each other and that looks after one another in times of need. 

School Culture

Culture can be defined as "the way we do things around here". Although this seems a simple definition, it is anything but. It is actually quite a difficult thing to define when you are "living" that culture. 

The culture of our school firstly comes from our history. Our values and unique identity come from Mother Mary MacKillop, the founder of the Sisters of St Joseph. She arrived in Rotorua in 1902 and enjoyed spending time with the children and families at Ohinemutu Village. 

In 1903 the Sisters opened a primary Catholic School at the Rotorua Lakefront, behind the convent. St Michael's was the only parish in Rotorua at the time and the school was called St Michael's. St Mary's as it is now known, on the current site, was built in 1924. 

Our culture is deeply set in religion and in values which Christ taught. I see our community spirit from both internally (staff, support staff etc) and externally (parents, children, whanau) to be very strong. Classroom teachers have excellent support from parent help, where there is a need in the community, families rally to support with meals and other assistance. 

I found it difficult to fit my school into the four "teaching cultures" model (Hargreaves,1994) as we seem to have a bit in every pie. The same with "norms of improving schools", identified by Stoll and Fink, 1996, again we seem to have a small finger in every pie. As I was writing this, I began to think that, that is exactly the problem. We have too many fingers in too many pies! 

http://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/council-publications/historicaldocuments/MonitoringandStatistics/Documents/Wellbeing%20Part1%20NZDEP%20Index.pdf

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London.