Jake Petterwood is the principal at Settlers Primary School. Jake was concerned about the NAPLAN results of his school. The results looked good at first glance, however a closer inspection found that the difference above the State mean were declining.
He resisted the urge to change numeracy and literacy programs to improve performance. Instead, he looked into the results of the National School Opinion Survey. (NSOS) What were the perceptions of the school at the corresponding time of the NAPLAN results? He then immersed himself into breaking down the results of both pieces of data and overlaid the NAPLAN results with the NSOS.
What he found backed up his theory that effort spent in culture will pay bigger dividends than changing curriculum programs. In Jake’s words,
“The obvious correlation between how the staff feel about the school and how the students perform in NAPLAN is inescapable. At a school level, what this means to us is that our commitment to ensuring that Settlers is a great place to work, is having a direct influence on the performance of our children.”
In 2023 I had the pleasure of working with a courageous principal and her courageous team leaders. Together we worked on school culture and school leadership. This entailed workshops with staff on culture, creating a moral purpose, expectation statements and discussion around Psychological Safety.
Over 8 sessions, I worked with the Team leaders empowering them with the skill set to move from cautious peers to courageous leaders who led proactive teams. At the end of the year, she presented me with the results from the PAT assessment.
Average Effective size Reading 0.63 across all year levels.
Average Effective size Maths 0.89 across all year levels.
When she handed me the Thank You card, I had tears. We made a difference, not by changing programs, but by changing people.
These two real life school examples are evidence that culture and leadership are where energy and resources should be focused before programs to improve student performance.
If would like to know the process of shifting your school culture, send me a message and we can start the conversation.
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