Class Culture - Motivation

As I approach the final term of my first year in teaching I keep thinking about culture.

Regular mentor meetings have spent time on routine, behaviour and teaching. While their many goals ensured that my practice has improved, I cannot help but feel that I've not spent enough time thinking about how it all fits together. What do I want my classroom to feel like? And how do I get it there?

This is not to say that the culture in my class is all bad. It tries to emphasise positives, welcome mistakes and prioritise thinking over an unjustified answer. But at the end of the year it still feels too influenced by the classes previous culture or their mood on a given day instead of my own efforts.

It is possible that this is me being blind to our progress, or that this is always the way with teaching. But regardless, I need a clearer vision and evidence base for the culture of my classroom.

Changing an established culture takes time, but with the start of a new academic year comes a rare opportunity for a reset. I aim to create a plan for my classroom culture in time for the start of the new school year. One that goes beyond a few slides in a welcome back lesson and is grounded in some, ideally evidenced, principles.

Motivating questions:

• What is my vision for culture? and what is it grounded in?
• How do you develop culture in a secondary classroom?
• How do you develop culture in a team of adults? and how does it differ with a class?
• What do primary schools do to establish culture? and can we use this in secondary schools?
• How do you work with your department, other departments and wider school to build and maintain culture?