What is it about those schools that have continued to thrive despite everything that the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown at them? What are the factors that enable teachers to flourish?

In every leadership course, words like “culture” are bandied about with confidence. But when you look a little closer at these terms, when trying to turn them into concrete plans and actions, you are often left with vague notions and little clarity about what to do next.

Many teachers and school leaders are understandably sceptical about abstract constructs, such as “school culture”, that are devised far from the realities of the classroom.

And yet, if we dig into the research evidence around this particular construct, we can learn a great deal about cultivating and sustaining a successful school culture. And during particularly rocky times, like those we are in now, such insights may offer ballast and a renewed sense of direction.

So, what does the research have to say? In a model of organisational culture proposed by Edgar Schein, a US expert in leadership and management, he usefully breaks down what we really mean by “school culture”. He proposes that there are three levels to organisational cultures:

• Artefacts and behaviours: those objects, such as policies or dress codes, that are the visible aspects of a school.
• Espoused values: the shared values we state and reiterate in mission statements, school improvement plans and assemblies.
• Assumptions: the subtle, often unconscious behaviours that are enacted daily, such as how school leaders talk to colleagues, how teachers share ideas and so on.

By breaking down the fuzzy notion of school culture into objects and artefacts, along with values and assumed behaviours, we can get closer to defining culture which, in turn, takes us one step closer towards cultivating a thriving one.

Of course, we need to do more than just talk about school culture. As the saying goes, the school policy must be lived, not laminated.

In school-specific research, again from the US, researchers Matthew Kraft and John Papay explored the question of whether a more “professional” environment in schools can promote teacher development.

Although this research was undertaken before the pandemic, its findings were hugely positive. It found that teachers in schools that were positively rated for having a “professional environment” - that is to say schools with a culture focused on supporting teacher learning - improved significantly more over 10 years than colleagues in schools that were rated as having a less professional environment.

Although school culture might seem like a woolly concept, research suggests that it can really make a difference, at least where teacher development is concerned.

Schools are currently facing enormous challenges, so a focus on culture may not be at the top of many leaders’ to-do lists at the moment. But it is worth considering and reconsidering the small details of our cultures over the coming months. As schools look to thrive and recover, tending to our school culture, and even rewriting it anew, may prove to be vital, positive work.

Alex Quigley is a former teacher who now works for an educational charity supporting schools and disadvantaged pupils. He is the author of the bestselling book Closing the Reading Gap

This article originally appeared in the 26 March 2021 issue under the headline “Why you should join the culture club”