The conscious construction of an effective whole-school culture

Tara McVey, Vice Principal, Towers School, UK In supportive schools, teachers not only tend to stay and be more effective, they also improve at a much greater rate over time (Kraft and Papay, 2014). For a school like ours, that is a game-changer. In our school, the one-stop solution for improving recruitment and retention, and thus school improvement as a whole, was to consciously create a whole-school culture that staff would buy into – one that allows staff to stay and improve. This culture is built on competent leadership, community and belonging, clarity and care. Competent leadership Megan Tschannen-Moran (Tschannen-Moran and Gareis, 2015) has found that trust is strongly correlated with the overall performance of a school. She is clear about the behaviours that generate trust. She talks about benevolence, genuine care, openness and honesty, anchored in moral principles where our actions match our words. She also discusses reliability and competence in terms of the need to