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Definition of Curriculum Review (CR) The curriculum review process provides an evidence-based means to answer questions we may have about our program. At the University of Calgary, curriculum review is defined as: a critical, evidence-based examination of academic programs for the purpose of optimizing student learning and student experience, led collaboratively by academic staff

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assessing

The process of conducting In Process Reviews (IPRs) and After Action Reviews (AARs). IPRs help to determine initial expectations, ascertain strengths and weakness of both employees and the organization, and identify key issues and organizations whose willing support is needed to accomplish the mission. AARs determine how
well the goals are being accomplished, usually by identifying areas to sustain and improve.

attributes

Characteristics, qualities, or properties that define a person or leader. Attributes of the leader fall into three categories: mental, physical, and emotional.
culture

The long-term complex phenomenon that can be affected by strategic leaders. Culture represents the shared expectations and self-image of the organization. The mature values that create "tradition", the play out of "climate" or "the feel of the organization" over time, and the deep, unwritten code that frames "how we do things around here" contribute to the culture. Organizational culture is a system of shared values, assumptions, beliefs, and norms that unite the members of the organization. Individual leaders cannot easily create or change culture. Differs from climate in that climate can be readily changed, whereas culture cannot be easily changed.

decision-making

The process of reaching logical conclusions, solving problems, analyzing factual information, and taking appropriate actions based on the conclusions.

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Upon thinking back on my time spent researching these various topics. There are a few areas that I will take with me and continue to improve on.

One area is planning. Before this point I did not realize how much time and effort goes into planning curriculum and all of the behind the scenes work that must occur. Another topic that consistently came up was collaboration. Whether it be with leadership or curriculum planning it seems no one does anything alone and collaboration is essesntail.

Having a plan seems to be at the core of every impactful intiative.

Sustaining change is difficult. Whether it is on the personal or profiessional level change is often difficult. Especially when talking about systemic and instituional change, there are key factors that make a person succesful.

One ability that is needed is the skill of coaching. You must be able to meet people where they are and get them to another level with skill and confidence. You also must be optimistic and ambitous. People who have a high Emotional intelligence tend to be able to lead through change more efficiently.In addition being resilent is a vital asset.

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This is not a perfected process. But due to the fact that review mechanisms have been put in place it will be easy to see what parts of the system are working and what is not. The constant review and evaluation of the process will lead to better results that can be universally implemented to other areas of curriculum and the school in general.

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According to this article " Leadership vision is the ability to concentrate on the most important aspects of self or business, such as what you want to achieve and what type of leader you aspire to be. Your vision can incorporate lessons from your past, present realities that must be addressed and your future aspirations."

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The implementation of a curriculum done carefully and overtime to create sustained change that will benefit our students. The idea is that this blueprint can be utlizied to evenutally evaluate all of our practices.

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- Build core values into the curriculum
-Involve stakeholders in decision making
- Create and preserve rituals and traditions
- Make everyone feelin heard

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When you've spent time at an organization where the people seem focused, enthused and energetic, you start to understand the importance of a positive, productive organizational culture.

Unfortunately, not every school culture is developed to the point where staff and students enjoy being there. In fact, one Gallup survey of U.S. students in grades five through 12 found that 29% consider themselves not engaged. The issue is similar among school staff. Gallup found, for example, that 51% of fifth- through eighth-grade school employees are not engaged at work. That disinterest may be creating a vicious cycle that affects students, since the engaged teachers are the ones who "give the discretionary effort needed to ensure their students are successful," according to Gallup.

So what's the answer? School administrators and teachers must take a hard look at their school cultures (or lack thereof) and form plans to build environments designed to generate more enthusiasm, school pride and overall productivity among students and staff. The good news? Those who are successful find the results a win-win for everyone. In many cases, everyone in a school community sees the need for a better culture - they just don't know how to make it happen.
What does a school with a positive culture look like?
Successful schools generate and maintain a sense of teamwork, order, productivity and shared goals that put both students and staff at ease. Problems still exist, of course, but there's a strong sense of optimism and hope for the future.

As Gallup puts it: "Engaged students are excited about what's happening at their school and about what they're learning. They contribute to the learning environment and are psychologically committed to their school. Engaged students feel safe at school, have strong relationships with teachers and other students, feel recognized on a regular basis and are learning important things that connect them to a positive future."

Similarly, Gallup reports, teachers who are engaged tend to be loyal, psychologically committed to their employers and trusting of their co-workers, while their principals are committed to recognizing their growth, coaching them and helping them learn and grow.

An article on Harvard.edu explains that organizational culture has much to do with how well core values are defined and communicated.

A positive school culture doesn't just happen. Consider these 12 suggestions on how to improve your school culture.
1. Address core values and your mission
Indifference or confusion can result when staff and students have no clear vision of the values they're supposed to strive for.

Your values will be statements that summarize expectations for student and staff behavior; they will clarify your educational and behavioral objectives and may be influenced by broader school district or community values. Your mission statement (also known as a vision statement) will be a public declaration that describes your school's overall purpose and major commitments.

Follow these steps to identify a mission and core values that are appropriate for your school:

Schedule a meeting with key stakeholders including district administrators, school staff, teachers, parent volunteers - you could even consider inviting student leaders.

Conduct a SWOT analysis to determine your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Using that analysis, prioritize your goals and what your school wants to accomplish.

Narrow that down to one sentence that incorporates your main objective, audience and differentiating value (that becomes your mission).

Write five to 10 values that support that mission, are inspiring to students and will last for many school years.

Review and finalize your mission and values with your key stakeholders.

2. Build values into the regular curriculum
Create grade-appropriate lesson plans that explain to students what their school will look and feel like if they uphold the core values and mission. The values should also be incorporated into school logos, songs, décor and other vehicles as a way of reminding everyone about their common goals.
3. Hold assemblies aimed at creating togetherness, teamwork and school pride
Bringing your entire staff and student body together for a common purpose can create positive energy and foster a strong sense of being part of a greater whole, whether the event involves entertainment, education, announcements, a celebration or other themes. "The best assemblies will ignite the school spirit, instill a sense of belonging and motivate the kids towards making the best of the opportunities the school has to offer," advises AcademicEntertainment.com.

This is a great opportunity to come together and launch your new values and mission.
4. Encourage older students to mentor younger students
Enlisting students in older grades to mentor younger kids can be a great way to break down student hierarchies, build friendships and empower students.

"To a child ... students just a little bit older offer a strong example, (with) a 'cool' factor that seems just outside their reach," notes Brian Gatens on a Concordia University website. "Turning older students into mentors is a great way to capitalize on this phenomenon, and a supportive, student-centered mentorship program will have cascading benefits on the entire school by ... connecting disparate groups of students." His suggestions for enabling such mentorships:

Assign younger students older "buddies" who can consistently mentor them on positive values and school pride.

Invite older students into younger students' classrooms to discuss school values in small groups or in all-class presentations.

Recognize and reward situations when older students are positively promoting school culture in front of younger students.

5. Regularly and publicly recognize student achievements and positive behavior
When you acknowledge youth for their accomplishments in front of their peers, you not only help them make the connection between effort and achievement but satisfy their need to be appreciated. Research supports that even small rewards can effectively boost motivation and serve as tools for behavioral change.

Student recognition can come in many forms, including:

All-school announcement

Certificates of achievement

Student work displayed in an area of honor

Tangible rewards such as donated gift cards, candy or inexpensive prize selections

Points accrued toward a bigger reward

Privileges such as lunch with the principal, extra playground time or (for high schoolers) special parking spots or passes for off-site lunch

Phone calls or emails of praise to parents

6. Support your staff with encouragement and recognition
The need to be appreciated extends across humanity, not just youth. In one study of U.S. employees cited in Psychology Today, 83% of respondents said recognition of their work is more fulfilling than rewards or gifts; 76% find peer praise motivating and 88% are motivated by praise from managers.

Further, working with youth can feel like a thankless job at times. While many teachers find their work rewarding, they may also find it challenging to remain motivated and enthused over time.

That's why teachers at your school are bound to respond positively to positive reinforcement. To remain committed to their jobs, they often need the support and encouragement of school leaders, students and community members.

School leaders can set the tone by actively listening and paying close attention to staff feedback, and showing support for staff when issues arise.

"If teachers are aware of the positive influence they have on their students and colleagues, they might have higher levels of resilience and work satisfaction," advises educator Vaughan Cruickshank on TheConversation.com. "They might then be better positioned to withstand the many challenges they encounter and continue in the teaching profession."

That appreciation for their work will trickle down to others within the school.
7. Teach staff specific language and actions to use
Habits and routines can be difficult to change, and staff may not inherently know what to do or say to promote an improved school culture. Hold staff workshops and write out a guidebook that details the core values, answers FAQs and provides concrete, real-life tips on how to lead the transition to a better, more value-focused school environment. "The process of overhauling values, mission, and vision is healing in and of itself," education consultant Robyn Jackson once said. "When you shape your work around these things, you will change your culture - and leave no room for toxicity to grow."
8. Maintain zero tolerance for bullying
The safer students feel at your school - and the more comfortable they feel being themselves, without fear of harassment - the more relaxed the atmosphere will be. To make that happen, you must establish clear guidelines and instructions for eliminating bullying. "When adults respond quickly and consistently to bullying behavior, they send the message it is not acceptable," states Stopbullying.gov. "Research shows this can stop bullying behavior over time. School staff can help prevent bullying by establishing and enforcing rules and policies that clearly describe how students are expected to treat each other." Recommended tactics include involving staff in development of the anti-bullying program, training them in what constitutes bullying and ensuring they understand school rules and how they should be enforced.

When bullying is not directly addressed, students may think it is acceptable. Addressing the problem head-on will show it is a priority.

Stopbullying.gov offers the following tips for teaching students about bullying:

Assign research projects in which they must identify types of bullying, how to prevent it and how kids should respond.

Stage all-school presentations and/or classroom discussions about bullying.

Assign creative writing projects (i.e. poetry, skits or visual art) on the topic of bullying prevention.

9. Follow through on discipline so students feel secure
Few educators enjoy the part of their job that involves enforcing discipline, but to create a positive school culture - and preserve everyone's right to learn - the rules must be uniformly observed by all. If students perceive that your system is unpredictable or haphazardly enforced, your school culture will suffer. The Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association provides the following tips on how to fairly enforce discipline:

Be consistent in rules and consequences without playing favorites.

Let everyone involved in a transgression tell their side of the story.

Account for mitigating circumstances when making decisions.

Don't indiscriminately share information about student misdeeds.

Apologize if a student is treated unjustly.

Ensure punishments are commensurate with misbehavior and the reason for the consequence is clear.

10. Address any source of toxicity
In Psychology Today, professor of leadership Ronald E. Riggio defines a toxic workplace as one in which bullies run the show, progress seems impossible and people learn not to make mistakes, criticize or make suggestions for fear of being attacked or punished. Employees aren't valued for their contributions, motivation is minimal and getting things accomplished seems impossible.

The same can be said of a school environment that makes students and staff feel disrespected or otherwise dissuades them from fully contributing. It's important to do everything possible to identify and remediate the primary issue or issues dragging down the spirits of your students and staff. According to Alexa Epitropoulos on ASCD.com, other signs of toxicity at your school might include:

A lack of clear purpose, vision, mission or values

A lack of honest dialogue and/or avoidance of difficult conversations

More punishment (negative reinforcement) than recognition (positive reinforcement)

An emphasis on rules over people or mission

Hostile relations among staff, students and parents

Back channels of communication instead of more formal, transparent channels

Small groups that control the conversation

More self-preservation than collaboration

11. Acknowledge different learning styles and create an inclusive environment
When measured in 2017 one in five children in the U.S. was dealing with learning and attention issues, reports the National Center for Learning Disabilities. That number alone is a good reason for savvy educators to quickly identify such disabilities, create learning plans that align and eradicate any student or staff biases that may result. "Children with learning and attention issues are as smart as their peers, and with the right support can achieve at high levels," advises NCLD President Mimi Corcoran. "But a lack of early or effective interventions leads too many kids on a downward spiral."
12. Enlist parents' support
Most educators are already aware of the copious research linking family involvement with academic achievement. Students whose parents are actively engaged in their schooling typically benefit from the following, according to research cited by the National Education Association:

Higher grades

Higher test scores

Greater social skills

Better reported behavior

Easier adaptation to school

Greater likelihood of continuing into post-graduate education

You may be able to recruit parents for roles such as classroom volunteer, bus or hallway patrolman or field trip chaperone. "Teachers who focus on parent engagement often see a profound change in their classrooms," notes an article on Waterford.org.

At Lifetouch, we pride ourselves on being more than a photography partner. We understand the importance of strong, positive, safe schools and our role in contributing to that environment. We've developed a range of products and services intended to help schools develop positive environments that promote pride among staff, students, parents and community members. Some of our offerings:

Customizable awards

Our Reward and Recognition program offers a variety of award certificates that can be personalized with your student names and achievements, commemorating everything from high grades to stellar attendance to staff birthdays to acts of kindness. Also available are stickers, wristbands, bookmarks and postcards that can be sent home to alert families of the honors being bestowed.

School branding

Our PrintShop program lets you create visual displays reflecting the specific values, accomplishments and messages you wish to share with the school and community. Possibilities for customized items include murals, banners, posters, display graphics, magnets, bumper stickers, decals, stationary and more. Spread the word about your school's core values and remind students, staff and teachers of exactly what they're trying to accomplish on a day-to-day basis.

Presentation possibilities

Lifetouch is proud to partner with J.C. Pohl, nationally recognized speaker, certified counselor and author of the e-book " Building School Culture From the Inside Out." He produced the groundbreaking program TEEN TRUTH™ focused on student leadership, social-emotional skills, critical issues facing teens and the importance of giving students a voice. J.C. Pohl partners with Lifetouch schools across the country to host student rallies unifying schools.

We can help you promote positive school values and encourage a safe learning environment for all students and staff. Contact us or call 1-800-736-4761.

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12 Tips for Building an Exceptional School Culture - Lifetouch

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When you've spent time at an organization where the people seem focused, enthused and energetic, you start to understand the importance of a positive, productive organizational culture. Unfortunately, not every school culture is developed to the point where staff and students enjoy being there. In fact, one Gallup survey of U.S.

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The vision is to have a duruable school culture that makes students, faculty, and other stakeholders buy in. In order for a school culutre to be effieicent it is vital that it is well communicated and lucid for all to understand. Clear expectations and priorites must be set in order build an excellent school culture.

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Credit: Elite Academic

There is something impalpable and inexplicable about the school we attend or work in - a permeating feeling that we take with us and remember most profoundly about it. Such a pervasive - and highly elusive - feeling is what we may describe as school culture.

How a school makes its students, teachers, leaders, and everyone else in its broader community feel is an instrumental - yet often disregarded - feature that is in close correlation with its success as an educational institution. The school culture is what influences everything that goes on inside a school - how students feel about attending their classes and how much they learn, the staff's attitude toward their work and career development, how the leaders and the community work together to make the school an even better place for future generations of learners.

A high school is more than just brick-and-mortar walls - it is an amalgamation of its students, its leaders, and the local community. There are innumerable elements that make up the school culture - all relevant in their own right - but ultimately, everything revolves around the people that keep the school rolling.

Education is currently the central civil rights issue in America, and for a change to take place in the high school system in our country, everyone must assume their roles and contribute to the cause. Shaping school culture is an ideal starting point for rethinking American education.

What Is School Culture

Credit: Clevelend

School culture encompasses the norms, rules, beliefs, traditions, values, standards, and rituals that the school has adopted over the course of its existence by collaborating, confronting issues, and solving problems. It is a set of understood expectations of all stakeholders, which shapes the way they behave in the school, as well as how they think and feel about it.

Culture determines how the pupils and staff are expected to behave and dress, influences the relationships that exist among the teachers and learners, and affects the attitudes the students have toward learning and education. It affects the orderliness of the school's facilities and establishes the school's standpoint on the cultural, social, linguistic, ethnic, and racial diversity.

Every school has its unique climate and culture that are identified, shaped, and nurtured by everyone involved in the school's organization, from the students and parents to educators and the principal.

Broadly speaking, a school's culture can be described as positive and negative. In that sense, it determines how successfully (or unsuccessfully) the school will perform.

The positive school culture promotes professional development and work satisfaction, improves morale, and is conducive to and assumes responsibility for student learning. In contrast, you will recognize the negative school culture by the lack of motivation and ambition for both teaching and learning, the shortage of peer collaboration, and a general unacceptance of change and innovation.

Recognizes and rewards the individual achievements of students and staff members

Nurtures open and respectful relationships across the school's organizational levels

Aids collegial and collaborative staff relationships

Inspires school leaders to model proper behavior and attitude

Creates learning opportunities instead of focusing on student mistakes and shortcomings

Accentuates equity among students, taking into consideration their social, financial, racial, or ethnic backgrounds

Promotes high academic standards and expectations that a majority of students can meet

Inspires the students and the community to contribute to the school's goals and make it a better place

Lacks the sense of unity and a shared vision among its members

Causes the staff to become inert, passive, complacent, resigned to old practices, and entrenched in their methods

Puts responsibility on the students and "blames" them for their unsatisfactory academic results

Discourages staff collaboration

Is not conducive to life-long learning and development

Breeds hostility and competitiveness among the staff

Creates an environment resilient to change that makes a mockery of the teachers who are interested in the students' progress and who strive to bring innovative ideas and teaching methods to the table

Creates disinterested students who see high school as an unnecessary evil and are more likely to drop out

The Importance of School Culture

Nurturing a healthy school culture is the foundation of any school's progress and success. If a high school has a positive culture, the teachers will perform their jobs gladly and dutifully, the students will thrive academically and as individuals, and the community will be that much richer by knowing that its youth is getting a proper start at adult life.
Maintaining a positive school culture is essential for several other reasons:

1. Culture improves morale and fosters compliance. If your school's staff are supported by the school's management and work in a pleasant environment, alongside colleagues they get along with, they are more likely to pour their hearts into their work and help take the school to the next level. The same can be said of the students - if they enjoy coming to school and feel satisfied by their improvement, they will exhibit fewer disciplinary issues and will adopt a healthier attitude to education on the whole.

2. Culture promotes better academic outcomes. In line with the point above, the students who are motivated to come to school because they feel at ease being there are more likely to participate in classes, give and receive feedback, demonstrate an interest in and a better understanding of the subject matter, and ultimately, achieve better academic results.

3. Culture focuses on educational design and goal-setting. School leaders who share the same vision and core values will work in unison on setting and achieving the school's educational goals. They will also successfully shape the instructional framework of the school, devising an effective curriculum that serves to better prepare students for college, career, and life.

4. Culture motivates instructors and improves teaching methods. Teachers who work in a healthy school environment are more open to developing in their roles and implementing innovative teaching methods to aid the students' learning.

5. Culture inspires a sense of unity and a shared purpose. Faculty members who are unified by a shared goal will effectively work together to challenge difficulties, address critical issues, and make decisions for the benefit of the school and its learners.

The Elements of School Culture

Credit: ICEF monitor

Deal and Peterson, in their book " Shaping School Culture," explain that "school culture fosters improvement, collaborative decision-making, professional development, and staff and student learning."

School culture is undoubtedly vital for teacher motivation, student performance, and school success on multiple other levels. Nevertheless, it is a concept that is difficult to explain and define. Due to its intangible nature, it often happens that shaping school culture gets disregarded as a lesser priority in comparison to achieving more concrete goals, such as graduation exam results and other academic test scores.

However, the school's culture and its performance - including and most importantly, student outcomes - are closely linked together and highly dependent on one another. To better understand the intricacies of the school culture, we need to check the elements it consists of:

Connections and interactions

Core beliefs and behaviors

School vision and mission

Actions and cultural changes

History and symbols

Connections and Interactions

Communication within an organization reinforces its members' understanding of the goals set, the tools and resources available, and the methods intended to achieve those goals. If all stakeholders in a school collaborate, they will be aligned to the same purpose and have a similar attitude to problem-solving. A strong culture sees school leaders communicating directly with other school members, including instructors, administration, students, and parents, all of whom also communicate with each other.

Core Beliefs and Behaviors

School leaders, counselors, administration, and instructors have to communicate clearly what the core values of the institution are and how all members are expected to foster them. The staff, students, their families, and the entire community need to be familiar with and share those core beliefs in order to act in accordance with them.

School Vision and Mission

The school's mission and vision declarations are two essential elements of its culture. It often happens that leaders set their own goals and ideas for the school and try to impose them on other members with little success. Instead, all levels within the school's organization - including the staff and the local community - should be involved in crafting the school mission and vision statements. That way, all stakeholders will be personally invested in making the school's goals a reality, thus creating a strong, positive, and collaborative school culture.

Actions and Cultural Changes

Individuals on all levels of the organization must be encouraged to not only implement cultural changes proposed by the leadership but to take actions and initiate changes themselves. In a weak school culture, the members do not collaborate to learn new skills or extend on the old ones through peer review. As a result, they are unfamiliar with the organizational goals and are unlikely to take action and achieve them.

History and Symbols

The more the school members collaborate, the more history they will have among them. And the more results they achieve, the more tradition they will make. The role of the school leaders doesn't end with inspiring and facilitating change - they are responsible for showcasing and emphasizing achievements and the symbols that represent them. Regardless of what the symbols are - awards, plaques, sports trophies, the school's new logo, or a brand new uniform design - they are bound to instill a sense of a positive, communal culture within the school's microcosm.

The Steps to Shaping a Positive School Culture

Credit: In Perspective

You may grasp the meaning and relevance of the positive school culture to perfection but are not quite sure how to foster it in your school's community. Here are some of the steps that we identified as instrumental for creating welcoming and rewarding atmosphere in schools:

1. Realizing the twofold role of the school's principal

2. Crafting the vision and mission statements

3. Inspiring a positive attitude to progress

4. Establishing rituals and traditions

The Role of the Principal

One of the key elements for promoting a positive school culture is realizing the influence the principal harbors - they are the person everyone looks to for instruction, model, and assessment. In essence, the principal needs to play a "bifocal role" - to take care of day-to-day school management and assume a symbolic leadership stance.

Headmasters are the so-called "change agents" - their focus should be on defining, instilling, and implementing the school's values by example. If they succeed in being role models as well as organizational figures, they will give a deeper structure to the overall system of the school, ultimately resulting in better student outcomes, according to this research.

Writing the Vision and Mission Statements

We've already identified the school's vision and mission as instrumental to its overall culture. These are the public declarations that set forth the institution's long-term goals and the steps the school is taking to achieve those goals.

The crafting of these documents is a laborious and time-consuming task. They need to be concise enough to be memorable but detailed enough to include all the core values the school stands to promote. Most importantly, the mission and vision have to be accurate in reflecting the needs and aspirations of the community on the whole.

The entire community should be involved in drafting the school's mission and vision. Various members of the community will provide different feedback to help improve the message that is to be delivered. The community will, in turn, be more invested in the school's goal-achieving since they were an instrumental part in setting them.

A Positive Attitude to Progress

Another powerful tool for nurturing a positive school culture is giving credit where it is due. It is up to the school leaders to recognize the individual achievements of the staff and the students, to give public praise, and set up a reward system for exceptional accomplishments.

Valuing and promoting progress will show that the school has a healthy support system. That sort of a positive culture is an incredible driving force not only for the students and their further academic achievements but also for the school personnel as it has shown to increase their retention rates.

Rituals and Traditions

To better enforce your school's cultural vision, you need to associate it with something tangible. Invite the students and the staff to come up with ways to make the school's vision evident inside the school walls and beyond. Think in terms of:

Mottos

Symbolic school memorabilia

Special traditions and festivities

The interior decor

A monthly school newsletter or a blog

Recognizing a Toxic School Culture

While every school leader strives to promote a positive school environment, sometimes, toxic elements may appear where one least expects them. Here are some of the hallmarks of a toxic school culture that are usually among the first to arise:

1. Fragmented, disconnected staff without a sense of community

2. The lack of collaboration and progress on the school employee level

3. The disagreement between instructors and parents

4. Emphasis placed on the student's inability to learn rather than the teacher's inability to teach

5. Staff conflicts

6. Prevalence of negative statements, with a strong emphasis on failures instead of on achievements

7. Most of the conversation between school members happens during leisure time outside of work instead of in faculty meetings

To correct a toxic culture and hinder its further implications, the school leaders must first identify the key areas in need of improvement. While those are being addressed, a strong emphasis must be put on the steps for inspiring a positive, healthy school culture detailed above.

Leaders must also use all available resources that could help in improving the problematic attitudes. Here are some that can be used to get a better grasp of the issues that can lead to the toxic school culture and how to improve it.
It is high time American high schools were reimagined into more productive, inspiring, and innovative institutions that can help their students prosper in high school, college, career, and beyond. That change starts with a positive school culture that promotes innovation and a forward-looking approach to education.
Rethinking High School Education

High schools across the U.S. remained pretty much the same for the last 100 years, while the career choices and the demands of the global employment market transformed many times over during the same period. Adolescence has been shown to be a critical phase for cognitive development, the age at which students are at their most creative - when they take special interests in the world around them and present constructive ideas on how to improve it.

Do you have some high school culture wisdom to impart?

Join our cause and help us #RethinkHighSchool together. Share the story of your school's culture with us by writing an informative piece on the subject. Tell us what it is that makes your school a stellar success, and we will publish your story on our blog.

Inspire others to take your lead and change the face of the American educational system with us!

Become a contributor.

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Shaping School Culture: How to Build Positive School Culture | UnifyHighSchools

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Credit: Elite Academic There is something impalpable and inexplicable about the school we attend or work in - a permeating feeling that we take with us and remember most profoundly about it. Such a pervasive - and highly elusive - feeling is what we may describe as school culture.

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The goal of this curriculum audit is to review what aspects of our k-12 health curriculum is working and what needs improvements. It is also important to view the curriculum and see how it can be more consitently implemented across various schools utlizing various accesss to technology.

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1. Not articulating the need for change. Your faculty and staff need to understand the reason behind the change.

2. Not giving a clear vision of the future. What's the future going to look like after you implement the change? This is why it is pivotal to start with a mission and vision!

3. Not giving employees the tools or capacity to change.

4. Not having an action plan.

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4 common change management mistakes to avoid - Insperity

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Change is inevitable. Want to make your change initiative stick and ensure a smooth transition? Avoid these four common change management mistakes.

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Identify projects for change

Develop an effective communication plan

Eliminate implementation barriers

Develop the change plan

Invovle Stakeholders in every step of the process

Have tools in place to measure growth

Utlize SMART GOALS and other ways to measure progress

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Examples of SMART Goals for Sales Reps to Dominate 2021 [with TEMPLATE] - Part 1

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Now, it’s time to get down to business and dominate your sales goals in 2020. We’ve provided top examples of SMART goals for sales reps with a downloadable template.

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_ Communication
_ Know your people
_Know yourself
- Diplomacy/Collaboration
- Seek Feedback

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Whether you're an established CEO or just reaching for your first management position, it's never a bad time to brush up on the basic elements of leadership. Just having the authority to tell people what to do is not the same as leadership. Without the right leadership skills, you won't be able to motivate, engage and guide your team. If you want to be the best leader you can be, we suggest you take some time to assess yourself on the 5 fundamentals below so you can lead your team to greatness. After all, their success is your success!
1. Communication
Leadership starts with communication. Effective communication is clear, transparent and customized to the recipient. A good leader will take the time to find out which communication style and method (text, e-mail, phone or in-person) work best for each team member. By communicating with your team, you build trust, rapport and a culture of shared accountability. Communicate-often, clearly and honestly.
2. Knowing Your People
A good leader knows his or her team better than anyone else-their strengths, their weaknesses, what makes them tick and what motivates them. Take the time to get to know your team and you'll know how to talk to them-and how to get things done.
3. Knowing Yourself
It's not only important to know your team; it's important to know yourself. Is this just a job to you, or do you truly want to be a leader?-Do you want to motivate, inspire and lead people? If you're just in it for the money or the prestige, you're not a true leader. Your team most likely won't be happy or engaged, and neither will you.
4. Diplomacy
If you're simply telling people what to do, you're not going to have engaged workers, and your results will probably suffer, too. Sure, sometimes you have to make a tough call and push through an unpopular agenda item, but for the most part you should try to show your team that they do have choices. Listen to their needs, take suggestions and implement the democratic process when it comes to projects. Of course, every company, department and project are different, but, for the most part, giving people the autonomy they crave will result in a more engaged workforce and better results. Gently encouraging a collaborative, democratic work environment will be more effective than forcing roles and expectations on people.
5. Seeking Out Feedback
It's hard to do an honest self-assessment so regularly ask for feedback-not only from your team, but other managers, mentors and other colleagues as well. Feedback helps you to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are and how to use them to your advantage. When you grow, your team grows!
How can you improve?
A title might make a manager, but it doesn't make a leader. If you want to truly inspire and motivate and guide your team to greatness, putting these tips into practice can put you on your way to leadership status. Even the best leaders are constantly looking for ways to improve themselves. If you'd like some extra help improving your leadership skills, or even improving your entire leadership team, get in touch with our Human Resources Advisory team today! Our team of career experts offer a bevy of executive development and career coaching services that are proven to inspire and elevate leaders at every level of experience.

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Whether you're an established CEO or just reaching for your first management position, it's never a bad time to brush up on the basic elements of leadership. Just having the authority to tell people what to do is not the same as leadership.

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Positive and Collaborative Leadership that will make positive change last

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Positive and Collaborative Leadership that will make positive change last

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The ability to lead will be more essential as our society becomes more intergrated with technology. Although it has probally always been true that the only constant is change, the Covid-19 pandemic and the constant technological advancements have truly magnified this reality.

Due to these advances and the need to have all stakeholders invested in systemic change, it is only logical that the time of leadership not being collaborative is coming to an end. In educaiton the more stakeholders and commuity members that are invested in a cause, the more likely it will be successfull.

Keys for Success

- Communication
- Knowledge of your People
-Know Yourself
- Diplomacy/ Collaboration
-Seeking out Feedback

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Whether you're an established CEO or just reaching for your first management position, it's never a bad time to brush up on the basic elements of leadership. Just having the authority to tell people what to do is not the same as leadership. Without the right leadership skills, you won't be able to motivate, engage and guide your team. If you want to be the best leader you can be, we suggest you take some time to assess yourself on the 5 fundamentals below so you can lead your team to greatness. After all, their success is your success!
1. Communication
Leadership starts with communication. Effective communication is clear, transparent and customized to the recipient. A good leader will take the time to find out which communication style and method (text, e-mail, phone or in-person) work best for each team member. By communicating with your team, you build trust, rapport and a culture of shared accountability. Communicate-often, clearly and honestly.
2. Knowing Your People
A good leader knows his or her team better than anyone else-their strengths, their weaknesses, what makes them tick and what motivates them. Take the time to get to know your team and you'll know how to talk to them-and how to get things done.
3. Knowing Yourself
It's not only important to know your team; it's important to know yourself. Is this just a job to you, or do you truly want to be a leader?-Do you want to motivate, inspire and lead people? If you're just in it for the money or the prestige, you're not a true leader. Your team most likely won't be happy or engaged, and neither will you.
4. Diplomacy
If you're simply telling people what to do, you're not going to have engaged workers, and your results will probably suffer, too. Sure, sometimes you have to make a tough call and push through an unpopular agenda item, but for the most part you should try to show your team that they do have choices. Listen to their needs, take suggestions and implement the democratic process when it comes to projects. Of course, every company, department and project are different, but, for the most part, giving people the autonomy they crave will result in a more engaged workforce and better results. Gently encouraging a collaborative, democratic work environment will be more effective than forcing roles and expectations on people.
5. Seeking Out Feedback
It's hard to do an honest self-assessment so regularly ask for feedback-not only from your team, but other managers, mentors and other colleagues as well. Feedback helps you to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are and how to use them to your advantage. When you grow, your team grows!
How can you improve?
A title might make a manager, but it doesn't make a leader. If you want to truly inspire and motivate and guide your team to greatness, putting these tips into practice can put you on your way to leadership status. Even the best leaders are constantly looking for ways to improve themselves. If you'd like some extra help improving your leadership skills, or even improving your entire leadership team, get in touch with our Human Resources Advisory team today! Our team of career experts offer a bevy of executive development and career coaching services that are proven to inspire and elevate leaders at every level of experience.

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Whether you're an established CEO or just reaching for your first management position, it's never a bad time to brush up on the basic elements of leadership. Just having the authority to tell people what to do is not the same as leadership.

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How to write SMART goals (with examples)

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5-second summary Meet Jane. She's a product manager at a mid-sized tech company - let's call it Techfirm, Inc. Jane has been tasked with increasing usage of Techfirm's mobile app. She knows she'll need all hands on deck to make this happen, but there's a problem.

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Schools are crucial to student growth in addition to being functional. Therefore, this implies that a learner's ability to adjust to the educational environment may depend on the school context and how the person interacts. Learners obtain skills more effectively in a setting that encourages decreased dropout rates and enhances student well-being. The institution's leadership could find innovative ways to incorporate the climate and culture of the institution to establish such an atmosphere. By defining participants’ perceptions of leadership and managing the school climate, the leadership could create, foster, and sustain a competitive climate and culture by impacting relationships between learners and instructors. It will help the school environment create a conducive learning climate.

Furthermore, leaders who emphasize the moral principles and rules that govern the everyday operations and conduct within a learning organization put more effort into improving the institution's culture and efficacy. Thus, these factors must be considered when deciding how to establish, cultivate, and maintain teacher efficacy in addition to a professional learning culture and climate. Moreover, comprehending both the climate and the culture can highlight elements essential to the operation and success of the firm.

When evaluating the educational environment, it is evident that the school's staff, learners, and faculty value culture and climate, which are the main driving forces underlying successful schools. The atmosphere of the educational establishment also affects the results of the students. Therefore, this happens because a student's path is shaped by various ideas, such as safety precautions, dignity, discipline, interpersonal relationships, confidence, and academics.

Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the school leader to influence how individuals interact inside the institution, particularly their attitudes, institutional cultures, and even their actions by the school's plan. Therefore, it is better if the growth includes reaping the most significant advantage from an institution's culture and climate. Therefore, this implies that creating sustainable change must be everyone's obligation. Hence, the institution's culture will be characterized by traditions or principles that direct the relationships developed inside an institutional setting.

Furthermore, educational leaders must have a good understanding of how they will schedule their development, evaluate the progress of the growth strategy, create the schedule, and properly implement it in their institutions if they are to be productive in the developmental transformation of learning institutions. As a result, it is essential to create an environment and culture where students can feel safe and trusted. Therefore, this can be done by aligning the curriculum with national standards of education and enhancing personnel and faculty professional development. This might guarantee that the plan possesses the key traits to make it a respectable professional learning and growth plan.

Lastly, the institution's administration must create a setting that encourages solitary and collaborative learning. As a result, the professional learning program must be integrated into the instructors' everyday tasks, incorporating team exercises that evaluate and identify the requirements of particular students. If instructors are obliged to work in a setting that separates them and regards them as people, there will never be professional development or learning. Therefore, it highlights the necessity for developing techniques to refocus the current professional development requirements on more student-centered and internally motivated professional changes.

Of the three change theories, Kotter's Model of Change resonates so well with me. Precisely, this is because school administrators must deal with change management issues in their institutions, such as fostering a culture of competent learning and teaching that will promote student success and satisfaction. Furthermore, school administrators who want to improve their chances of achieving success must consider the institution's unique culture to ensure that the change process is in line with how things function there. What's more, Kotter's 8-step model is a relatively straightforward theory that offers precise guidance and description of the whole process of change, and its not as complicated to implement.

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John Kotter (1996), a Harvard Business School Professor and a renowned change expert, in his book "Leading Change", introduced 8 Step Model of Change which he developed on the basis of research of 100 organizations which were going through a process of change.

The 8 steps in the process of change include: creating a sense of urgency, forming powerful guiding coalitions, developing a vision and a strategy, communicating the vision, removing obstacles and empowering employees for action, creating short-term wins, consolidating gains and strengthening change by anchoring change in the culture. Kotter's 8 step model can be explained with the help of the illustration given below:

(Source: Adapted from Kotter 1996)

1. Creating an Urgency: This can be done in the following ways:

Identifying and highlighting the potential threats and the repercussions which might crop up in the future.

Examining the opportunities which can be tapped through effective interventions.

Initiate honest dialogues and discussions to make people think over the prevalent issues and give convincing reasons to them.

Request the involvement and support of the industry people, key stakeholders and customers on the issue of change.

2. Forming Powerful Guiding Coalitions

This can be achieved in the following ways:

3. Developing a Vision and a Strategy

This can be achieved by:

Determining the core values, defining the ultimate vision and the strategies for realizing a change in an organization.

Ensure that the change leaders can describe the vision effectively and in a manner that people can easily understand and follow.

4. Communicating the Vision

Communicate the change in the vision very often powerfully and convincingly. Connect the vision with all the crucial aspects like performance reviews, training, etc.

Handle the concerns and issues of people honestly and with involvement.

5. Removing Obstacles

6. Creating Short-Term Wins

7. Consolidating Gains

Achieve continuous improvement by analysing the success stories individually and improving from those individual experiences.

8. Anchoring Change in the Corporate Culture

Advantages of Kotter's Model

It is an easy step by step model which provides a clear description and guidance on the entire process of change and is relatively easy for being implemented.

Emphasis is on the involvement and acceptability of the employees for the success in the overall process.

Major emphasis is on preparing and building acceptability for change instead of the actual change process.

Disadvantages of Kotter's Model

Since it is a step by step model, skipping even a single step might result in serious problems.

The process is quite time consuming (Rose 2002).

The model is essentially top-down and discourages any scope for participation or co-creation.

Can build frustration and dissatisfaction among the employees if the individual requirements are given due attention.

Authorship/Referencing - About the Author(s)

The article is Written By "Prachi Juneja" and Reviewed By Management Study Guide Content Team. MSG Content Team comprises experienced Faculty Member, Professionals and Subject Matter Experts. We are a ISO 2001:2015 Certified Education Provider. To Know more, click on About Us. The use of this material is free for learning and education purpose. Please reference authorship of content used, including link(s) to ManagementStudyGuide.com and the content page url.

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This article briefly attempts to discuss about the salient features of Kotter's 8 step model of Change. It examines the applicability or relevance of this model in the present scenario along with the strengths and limitations of this model.

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Keys to a positive school culture/enviorment

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Keys to a positive school culture/enviorment

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Our Community Vision
We all belong. We are all significant. As we work, learn and play, we come together with compassion and respect.
Village School was founded in 1995 on the premise that a positive school environment provides the best learning experience for our children. Twenty years later, this concept still holds true. As Principal David has said: "This community of learners works tirelessly to create a learning environment that engages children, placing an emphasis on more than just academic achievement. Village School is a learning community that values the whole child, developing life-long habits of mind, both academically and socially-emotionally."

In 2014, the California School Boards Association defined eight state priorities, one of which was "School Climate." As a result, School Climate has very recently become a focus item for all of our public state schools. Santa Clara County of Education hosted it's 2nd annual School Climate Symposium in April this year (click here to view the workshops and some of the presentations). Campbell Union School District includes as one of it's Strategic Goals for 2015-2018: "address the academic, social and emotional needs of all students" (click here for more info).

At Village, the term "Positive School Climate" was introduced last year and it embraces all of the tools we have used since our founding and some new tools that we have added in recent years to create a positive environment for our students, staff and families. All of these tools have a specific purpose but their use is intertwined and each tool builds on facets of another tool. In addition, Village is a Positive Discipline school and therefore we look at all of our Positive School Climate tools through this Positive Discipline lens.

Last year, Village submitted a 4 page essay on our Positive School Climate as part of our application for a California Distinguished School Award (click here to read the essay). Our success in achieving this award is a testament to the importance of having a Positive School Climate.

A graphic depicting Village's Positive School Climate tools is shown below.

Role of the Positive School Climate Chair

The Position of Positive School Climate Chair was created this school year to provide support for those teams that did not have a representative on the Board, in particular, Positive Discipline, No Bully, Project Cornerstone and PBIS. We expanded the role to also include growing our Community Outreach program so that it becomes an integral part of our school, and supporting our parent, staff and student relationships.

Positive School Climate Tools at Village

Positive Discipline

What does Positive Discipline mean exactly? The Positive Discipline approach, authored by Dr. Jane Nelsen, and based on the research of Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs, teaches the importance of belonging and significance, respect for all people, encouragement, strategies for addressing behavior challenges, and the development of problem solving and communication skills. This is done experientially and in a manner that is respectful to both adults and children.

Positive Discipline...

Helps children feel a sense of connection. (Belonging and significance.)

Is mutually respectful and encouraging. (Kind and firm at the same time.)

Is effective long-term. (Considers what the child is thinking, feeling, learning, and deciding about himself and his world - and what to do in the future to survive or to thrive.)

Teaches important social and life skills. (Respect, concern for others, problem solving, and cooperation as well as the skills to contribute to the home, school or larger community.)

Invites children to discover how capable they are. (Encourages the constructive use of personal power and autonomy.)

At Village School, you will find...

Children engaged in problem-solving discussions during class meetings and on the playground.

Children referring to our Wheel Of Choice when needed.

Children taking responsibility for their actions, helping one another, and working things out together.

Adults speaking firmly but kindly when kids make mistakes and need redirection.

Happy children who know they are loved, they are capable, and they matter.

Our administration and our PTA fully support the training of our staff and our parents in Positive Discipline. This way, we will all speak the same language. Our teachers have each taken a 2-day Positive Discipline workshop during their time at Village. Teachers Michele and Aline just completed their workshop in late April! All of our staff will take a 1-day Positive Discipline refresher workshop during their first in-service day at the start of the next school year. Positive Discipline classes are offered for free to all of our parents several times during the school year and all of our parents commit to taking these classes during their first 3 years at Village. At the beginning of each school year, all new parents take a Positive Discipline class and all returning parents take a refresher class. The trainers for all of these parent classes are themselves Village parents who have invested many hours learning to be a trainer and then sharing their knowledge with our community. We are extremely grateful for their commitment!

Project Cornerstone

Project Cornerstone was founded in 1999 after a survey showed that most youth in Santa Clara County are missing the positive relationships, opportunities, values, and skills- known collectively as "developmental assets"-that provide the foundation for a healthy, successful future. In general, the more developmental assets that young people possess, the more likely they are to avoid risky behaviors and engage in positive, healthy activities. The Project Cornerstone School Partnerships program empowers all members of the school community to reduce bullying, promote achievement and help all students feel valued and respected. Adults have been actively building assets in Village students since its inception through the following programs:

Cornerstone Workshop
How do we ensure our kids will thrive? How can you show your support for your child's efforts & dreams? How can you know what's most important in helping your child succeed academically and in life? Are there enough positive adults in your child's life? This highly impactful "Take It Personally" six-session class gives parents tips and tools to keep up with the fast changing growth of our children, tweens and teens. Each week, the class explores new ways to build stronger kids, stronger families and stronger neighborhoods. This is a wonderful class that is facilitated by our Parent Ed team and is offered for free to all of our parents (who make a commitment to take this class some time during 3rd-5th grade).

Asset Building Champions (ABC) Program
Our ABC Reading Program delivers specific asset building and anti-bullying curriculum to our children. Once a month, parent volunteers read specific books geared to each age group and follow up the reading with a discussion and activity that engages the kids and reinforces the points made in the book.. Click here to read about our ABC readers this year and click here to learn more about this wonderful program.

Cornerstone Kids
Cornerstone Kids offers our 4th and 5th grade students extra leadership opportunities by modeling positive behavior and helping the younger ones in problem-solving on the playground during recess times. All 4th and 5th graders participate in Expect Respect bullying prevention workshops.

No Bully

The No Bully System® is a step-by-step process and set of interventions to prevent and stop bullying in schools. It guides school leaders and staff through a series of interventions for responding to bullying and harassment, depending on the severity of the incident. When severe or persistent bullying occurs, teachers facilitate Solution Teams®, where the target's peer group and the bully come together to stop the bullying. In line with our Positive Discipline philosophy, this system provides a way of responding to bullying at school in a caring and compassionate way. "This evidence-based approach leverages the empathy and kindness inherent in all of us." (No Bully). To learn more about No Bully, visit their website at http://www.nobully.com/. The No Bully organization has created a video highlighting the success and impact the No Bully program has had on our Village Community. Click here to view this fantastic video.

To learn more about No Bully at Village, click here, here and here.
We all belong. We are all significant.
As we work, learn and play, we come together with compassion and respect.
Our Community Vision Statement also came about because of the No Bully Program:

PBIS

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is an evidence-based approach for establishing a positive social culture in schools. It is a data driven program that focuses on improving a school's ability to teach and support positive behavior for all students. PBIS has been adopted by Santa Clara County of Education (click here to learn more) and, subsequently, by all schools in Campbell Union School District. Our Positive School Climate Team, made up of parents, teachers, staff and administrators, has been trained in PBIS and many components of this tool have been integrated into our Positive Discipline model. There are three groups within this team and they meet regularly as appropriate for the different needs (Tier 1: School-Wide Prevention Practices; Tier 2: Targeted Group Interventions; Tier 3: Individual, Intensive Intervention).

PBIS has three core values - Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Safe. In alignment with these we created our "Village Values" (our M&MS):

These values permeate all of our children's learning and are reinforced every month with a school-wide rally (hosted by a different grade each month). This year, the theme of each rally is tied in to the ABC Reader book for that month. As you walk though our campus, you will see PBIS Expectations posters in our courtyard and in the classrooms. These posters define expected behaviors and voice levels. Our Fuzzy Grams, which have been in place at Village for many years, are used by adults and children to acknowledge each other and show our appreciation.

Community Service at Village

One of my goals as Positive School Climate Chair is to highlight the Community Service efforts we already have in place at Village and also to grow our program further so that it becomes an integral part of our school. Here are some of the Community Service projects that have taken place this year...

In the Classroom

Sea Otter Conservation Project (1st grade) - click here to read more

100 Acts of Kindness (4th Grade)

Loaves & Fishes Field Trip and Food Drive (2nd Grade)

School-wide

Toy Drive & Holiday Cards for foster children - click here to read more

Pennies For Patients

Jump Rope For Heart

Color Our Week With Kindness

In Conclusion
Listed above are just some of the ways that we build a Positive School Climate at Village. Every day we all strive to create a positive environment for our students, teachers and parents. Thank you to each and every one of you for being a part of this!

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Our Community Vision We all belong. We are all significant. As we work, learn and play, we come together with compassion and respect. Village School was founded in 1995 on the premise that a positive school environment provides the best learning experience for our children. Twenty years later, this concept still holds true.

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Charter School of Educational Excellence

Memorandum

To: CSEE Health and Physical Education Staff

From: Brendan Kitson

RE: Health Curriculum

I sincerely hope your year is off to a productive and healthful start. As I am sure you are all aware, our school district has made it a priority moving forward to focus on the revision and overhaul of our Physical Education and Health curriculum. As a result, I have been tasked with reviewing our current curriculum and suggesting possible areas for improvement.

Through my analysis it became clear that the Charter School of Educational Excellence Health Curriculum has different focus areas depending on grade level. During the grades K-3 the focus is healthy habits while incorporating movement to subsidize the lack of physical activity our students receive due to gymnasium limitations.  During the years 4-12 the curriculum shifts toward student lead projects.

After discussing the current curriculum with current students, parents, and other stakeholders there are some areas in need of positive change including.

·    More academically rigorous work for grades k-3

·    Greater differentiation at all grade levels

·    More options and opportunities for students to explore careers in the health field outside of the classroom 9-12

It is my intention to make this a collaborative effort that will enhance all of our instruction. As result I am asking that at our next meeting everyone comes prepared to discuss and detail ways that we can accomplish the above goals. Together we can focus on the future of the Health department.

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Tweets by HealthSmartK12

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Over the past few weeks, various health education curriculums have been examined. When looking at these different programs, many different variables were taken into consideration. In addition to personal experience from the last five years in the district, much time was spent talking to and learning from the other health educators, taking into consideration limitations of various schools, and the needs of our learners.

The first curriculum explored was the Health Smart curriculum. One the most appealing aspect of the curriculum is that it is geared toward K-12. This is beneficial because our district has K-12 health class. In addition, the curriculum is designed to be flexible and can be done via chrome book or paper and pencil. This is another desirable quality because while many of our teachers have access to Chrome books and other technology, others do not. As a result, each teacher would have the flexibility to implement to curriculum in the best way possible given their unique circumstances.

In addition to the wide range of grades offered as a part of the Health Smart Curriculum, and the flexibility, the curriculum has also recently been updated to reflect the standards of the CDC. It is also aligned with state and national standards. The curriculum was designed based on the theory of Planned Behavior. This theory is based on three principles. The first is adopt healthy attitudes, the second is establishing healthy norms, and the third is the development of confidence to live a healthy life- style.

The second curriculum I vetted in my search for a new health education curriculum was the Byrnes Health Education curriculum. Byrnes Health is a non for-profit organization that prides itself on offering health education that is science based. There mission is “To educate and inspire people of all ages to make healthy choices.” According to their website there programs and curriculum are regularly reviewed by health education professionals. In addition they are aligned to meet state and national standards.

Based on my exploration of the Byrnes Health website, there does not seem to be a lot of digital options with the curriculum. This might make it more difficult for our teachers who have access to laptops and other technology to really engage in the curriculum.

The third curriculum I researched is the Healthy Lifestyle Choices program developed by SPARK. Similar to the Health Smart Curriculum, this program has been developed based on a behavioral model. HLC Behavioral-Health Curriculum (Grades K-5) is designed to be implemented one time a week over a 45 minute period. This is a perfect scenario because that is the current amount of time our elementary school students are in class. The program is designed for new teachers or teachers who are not certified in health the successfully implement. This is a positive because we currently have a few new members of our staff.

One of the most glaring limitations of the curriculum is that is does not offer any resources for grades 9-12. As a result if we choose this option we would have to supplement it with another curriculum. Also, many of the activities seemed to be movement based in part. Although this is a great idea, it could become an issue when teaching in classrooms as we do.

It is difficult to choose just one curriculum. Each one of these programs has there positive aspects aswell as there negative qualities. If I were to reccomened on curriculum for our school based on my research it would be the Health Smart curriculum.

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Working Definitions of Crucial Terms- Do Not be afraid to readress them.

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Working Definitions of Crucial Terms- Do Not be afraid to readress them.

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Curriculum- The various subjects a  teacher exposes there students to throughout the year and how they do it ie ( Digital, textbook)

Teaching- The act of educating one or more people on a specific topic.

Learning- The aquistion of facts, knowledge, know how, or the ability to problem solve through education, real life expereinces, or other forms of self growth.

Assessment- The evaluation of ones acquistiion of knowledge

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This weeks topic and readings reminds me of a somewhat famous quote from a former NY Jets quarterback named Joe Namath. He ounce said  "To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn't know where he is going." I find this statement to be true and feel the resources from this weeks lesson reinforce this notion.

I think that Simon Sinek did a great presentation, on why it is important to start with why. Using Apple as a case study was a very smart idea in addition to Martin Luther King. The general question why do certain people over acheive is genrally a great question to ask when you are a leader.

The concept of the Golden Circle is extremely interesting. I know at the vast majority of places I have been employed I never consdiered my companies/schools values or the why.

The idea that  "without a vision, people perish" is true in my opinion. I know sometimes I loose cite of my goals and what it is I find important as a person both in my career and in my personal life.  Not ony is it important to start with a vision but I think it's equally important to constantly remind youreself why you are doing the things your are.

My schools mission Statement:

The Charter School of Educational Excellence's mission is to develop students who are critical thinkers, motivated leaders, and lifelong learners. We are committed to a strong partnership with our teachers, parents, community and alumni.

Our vision is to create a school that has high expectations for every child and challenge each child to surpass the CCLS. In order for our vision to be realized, we believe philosophically that every child must be provided first with a strong foundation in reading, writing, and mathematics. Once the basics have been mastered, the child will have a strong foundation from which to tackle higher order skills, and to achieve at high levels. Ultimately, we expect to see children engaged in challenging work, such as conducting experiments for deep understanding, exploring cultures and histories using primary documents, engaging in debates of classical literature, analyzing great works of art, and appreciating musical compositions, among others. Our goal is for every child to become a critical thinker and life-long learner.

In my personal opinion, our school could do a better job implementing our school misssion into our curriculum and school culutrue. There are not a ton of leadership opportunties and the curriculum in most classes is based on teacher lead activities and there are not many activies where the kids get to take the lead. I think our school gives each teacher alot of flexibility with curriculum which is good, but that makes it difficult to ensure your mission is being followed.

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Learning Objectives

1. Be able to define mission and vision.

2. See how values are important for mission and vision.

3. Understand the roles of vision, mission, and values in the P-O-L-C framework.

Mission, Vision, and Values

Mission and vision both relate to an organization's purpose and are typically communicated in some written form. Mission and vision are statements from the organization that answer questions about who we are, what do we value, and where we're going. A study by the consulting firm Bain and Company reports that 90% of the 500 firms surveyed issue some form of mission and vision statements (Bart & Baetz, 1998). Moreover, firms with clearly communicated, widely understood, and collectively shared mission and vision have been shown to perform better than those without them, with the caveat that they related to effectiveness only when strategy and goals and objectives were aligned with them as well (Bart, et. al., 2001).

A mission statement communicates the organization's reason for being, and how it aims to serve its key stakeholders. Customers, employees, and investors are the stakeholders most often emphasized, but other stakeholders like government or communities (i.e., in the form of social or environmental impact) can also be discussed. Mission statements are often longer than vision statements. Sometimes mission statements also include a summation of the firm's values. are the beliefs of an individual or group, and in this case the organization, in which they are emotionally invested. The Starbucks mission statement describes six guiding principles that, as you can see, also communicate the organization's values:

1. Provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity.

2. Embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business.

3. Apply the highest standards of excellence to the purchasing, roasting and fresh delivery of our coffee.

4. Develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time.

5. Contribute positively to our communities and our environment.

6. Recognize that profitability is essential to our future success (Starbucks, 2008).

Similarly, Toyota declares its global corporate principles to be:

1. Honor the language and spirit of the law of every nation and undertake open and fair corporate activities to be a good corporate citizen of the world.

2. Respect the culture and customs of every nation and contribute to economic and social development through corporate activities in the communities.

3. Dedicate ourselves to providing clean and safe products and to enhancing the quality of life everywhere through all our activities.

4. Create and develop advanced technologies and provide outstanding products and services that fulfill the needs of customers worldwide.

5. Foster a corporate culture that enhances individual creativity and teamwork value, while honoring mutual trust and respect between labor and management.

6. Pursue growth in harmony with the global community through innovative management.

7. Work with business partners in research and creation to achieve stable, long-term growth and mutual benefits, while keeping ourselves open to new partnerships (Toyota, 2008).

A vision statement , in contrast, is a future-oriented declaration of the organization's purpose and aspirations. In many ways, you can say that the mission statement lays out the organization's "purpose for being," and the vision statement then says, "based on that purpose, this is what we want to become." The strategy should flow directly from the vision, since the strategy is intended to achieve the vision and thus satisfy the organization's mission. Typically, vision statements are relatively brief, as in the case of Starbuck's vision statement, which reads: "Establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles as we grow (Starbucks, 2008)." Or ad firm Ogilvy & Mather, which states their vision as "an agency defined by its devotion to brands (Ogilvy, 2008)." Sometimes the vision statement is also captured in a short tag line, such as Toyota's "moving forward" statement that appears in most communications to customers, suppliers, and employees (Toyota, 2008). Similarly, Wal-Mart's tag-line version of its vision statement is "Save money. Live better (Walmart, 2008)."

Any casual tour of business or organization Web sites will expose you to the range of forms that mission and vision statements can take. To reiterate, mission statements are longer than vision statements, often because they convey the organizations core values. Mission statements answer the questions of "Who are we?" and "What does our organization value?" Vision statements typically take the form of relatively brief, future-oriented statements-vision statements answer the question "Where is this organization going?" Increasingly, organizations also add a values statement which either reaffirms or states outright the organization's values that might not be evident in the mission or vision statements.

Roles Played by Mission and Vision

Mission and vision statements play three critical roles: (1) communicate the purpose of the organization to stakeholders, (2) inform strategy development, and (3) develop the measurable goals and objectives by which to gauge the success of the organization's strategy. These interdependent, cascading roles, and the relationships among them, are summarized in the figure.

First, mission and vision provide a vehicle for communicating an organization's purpose and values to all key stakeholders. Stakeholders are those key parties who have some influence over the organization or stake in its future. You will learn more about stakeholders and stakeholder analysis later in this chapter; however, for now, suffice it to say that some key stakeholders are employees, customers, investors, suppliers, and institutions such as governments. Typically, these statements would be widely circulated and discussed often so that their meaning is widely understood, shared, and internalized. The better employees understand an organization's purpose, through its mission and vision, the better able they will be to understand the strategy and its implementation.

Second, mission and vision create a target for strategy development. That is, one criterion of a good strategy is how well it helps the firm achieve its mission and vision. To better understand the relationship among mission, vision, and strategy, it is sometimes helpful to visualize them collectively as a funnel. At the broadest part of the funnel, you find the inputs into the mission statement. Toward the narrower part of the funnel, you find the vision statement, which has distilled down the mission in a way that it can guide the development of the strategy. In the narrowest part of the funnel you find the strategy -it is clear and explicit about what the firm will do, and not do, to achieve the vision. Vision statements also provide a bridge between the mission and the strategy. In that sense the best vision statements create a tension and restlessness with regard to the status quo-that is, they should foster a spirit of continuous innovation and improvement. For instance, in the case of Toyota, its "moving forward" vision urges managers to find newer and more environmentally friendly ways of delighting the purchaser of their cars. London Business School professors Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad describe this tense relationship between vision and strategy as stretch and ambition. Indeed, in a study of such able competitors as CNN, British Airways, and Sony, they found that these firms displaced competitors with stronger reputations and deeper pockets through their ambition to stretch their organizations in more innovative ways (Hamel & Prahalad, 1993).

Third, mission and vision provide a high-level guide, and the strategy provides a specific guide, to the goals and objectives showing success or failure of the strategy and satisfaction of the larger set of objectives stated in the mission. In the cases of both Starbucks and Toyota, you would expect to see profitability goals, in addition to metrics on customer and employee satisfaction, and social and environmental responsibility.

Key Takeaway

Mission and vision both relate to an organization's purpose and aspirations, and are typically communicated in some form of brief written statements. A mission statement communicates the organization's reason for being and how it aspires to serve its key stakeholders. The vision statement is a narrower, future-oriented declaration of the organization's purpose and aspirations. Together, mission and vision guide strategy development, help communicate the organization's purpose to stakeholders, and inform the goals and objectives set to determine whether the strategy is on track.

Exercises

1. What is a mission statement?

2. What is a vision statement?

3. How are values important to the content of mission and vision statements?

4. Where does the purpose of mission and vision overlap?

5. How do mission and vision relate to a firm's strategy?

6. Why are mission and vision important for organizational goals and objectives?

References

Bart, C. K., & Baetz, M. C. (1998). The relationship between mission statements and firm performance: An exploratory study. Journal of Management Studies, 35, 823-853.

Bart, C. K., Bontis, N., & Taggar, S. (2001). A model of the impact of mission statements on firm performance. Management Decision, 39(1), 19-35.

Hamel, G., & Prahalad, C. K. (1993, March-April). Strategy as stretch and leverage. Harvard Business Review, 75-84.

Ogilvy, Retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://www.ogilvy.com/o_mather.

Starbucks, retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus

Toyota, retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/vision/philosophy.

Toyota, retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://www.toyota.com/about/our_values/index.html.

Walmart, retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://www.walmart.com.

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4.3 The Roles of Mission, Vision, and Values

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Be able to define mission and vision. See how values are important for mission and vision. Understand the roles of vision, mission, and values in the P-O-L-C framework. Mission and vision both relate to an organization's purpose and are typically communicated in some written form.

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This past term we've begun looking closely at Rosenshine's principles of instruction (download below). Rosenshine suggests effective classroom practice involves much of the following (Sherrington, 2019*):

1. Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning
2. Present new material in small steps with student practice after each step
3. Limit the amount of material students receive at one time
4. Give clear and detailed instructions and explanations
5. Ask a large number of questions and check for understanding
6. Provide a high level of active practice for all students
7. Guide students as they begin to practice
8. Think aloud and model steps
9. Ask students to explain what they have learned
10. Check the responses of all students
11. Provide systematic feedback and corrections
12. Use more time to provide explanations
13. Provide many examples
14. Re-teach material when necessary
15. Prepare students for and monitor independent practice

As many commentators have written, the beauty of Rosenshine's classroom principles lies in their simplicity and air of common sense. For many of us they sum up what we typically think of as 'good teaching'. Perhaps most importantly however, is the 'clear bridge they provide between research and straightforward classroom practice' (Sherrington, 2019). Next year our lesson drop-ins will be focused on these principles. Our feedback to each other will be focused on these points (download below). All our nanos next year will be Rosenshine-focused too.

*Rosenshine's Principles In Action, Tom Sherrington (2019)

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Rosenshine's Teaching & Learning Principles

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This past term we've begun looking closely at Rosenshine's principles of instruction (download below). Rosenshine suggests effective classroom practice involves much of the following (Sherrington, 2019*): Rosenshines Principles of InstructionDownload 1. Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning2. Present new material in small steps with student practice after each step3.

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School Vision and Mission as Influenced by Ronsenshine

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School Vision and Mission as Influenced by Ronsenshine

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Now that a curriculum has been chosen the best practice for installing and implementing the curriculum must be designed and rolled out. This will be a multi step process.