Sense of pride in a school?

[jabed]

Just pondering following a discussion with friends today . (its the end of term and I have nothing much to do) . How do you nurture/ foster a sense of pride in a school? Or is that an outmoded concept these days?

DCs school have a student council as well, and thankfully they do seem to listen, as something DD suggested has been implemented.

bruffin I thought you were talking about my DD's school, but then when I looked at your profile, I saw you are many miles away
" It is mentioned on their ofsted how proud the children and the parents are of the school. This is a school that is one of the most improved in the country and was a sink school less than 10 years ago.
I put it down to the Headmaster. His pride in the school shines every time he gives a presentation. He has high expectations of behaviour and bullying is taken very seriously and sorted out quite quickly."

All true for DD's school. Also it is vibrant, enthusiastic, they know all the children, encourage everyone to do their best and enjoy all the school has to offer, etc.
The House system doesn't seem particularly important, but there is a real sense of community within the school.

I also know that there are very high expectations of the staff.

Not had time to read whole thread, OP, but one good way to foster sense of belonging, ownership and therefore pride: find a 'cause' - something the school needs, be it a new choir, a new playground, new sports equipment or something that the children and whole school community can engage with.
If the children are involved in choosing the cause, finding the solution/support needed to promote it, and then creating an event/series of actions....they will start to feel a sense of pride in improving things for themselves.
Sounds very simplistic put like that, but its honestly the thing I see working brilliantly at dds' school.

Hi jabed, I don't think that there was anything in particular we were unhappy with, which is why your posts seem so familiar. We just had a general feeling of discontent. We moaned to each other, were grumpy with the teachers and generally had a bad attitude. I think it particularly came from some of those girls who had been in the school since they were 5, but it was pretty wide spread. I am sure that if you had asked us we too would not have been able to point out anything in particular, and we certainly wouldn't have opened up to any of the teachers, because there was a very strong "us and them" feeling by then. Perhaps it was about power? We were fed up of being got at for stupid stuff that maybe it felt good to upset the staff a bit. I'm not sure - it was a long time ago now!

The vertical groups that my childrens school run are designed (among other things) to reduce bullying, but perhaps work better in a 5-13 age group?

I don't think it's an outmoded concept, far from it. I have a strong sense of pride in the school where I teach and we instil in the pupils pride in themselves and in the school. Staff, parents and children are proud of the school as they should be.

The DCs' American high school held 'spirit assemblies' from time to time where students who had achieved success in various inter-school competitions were honoured. Every effort was made to honour teams equally, so the sports teams and the maths team had the same fanfare. There was a big effort made to promote the ideal of achieving high grades, working hard in class, etc. Students who had managed to improve a whole grade across the board in a semester had their names and photos posted. There was a big effort to make the whole large school seem like a small village by having student mentors available for younger students to contact for guidance, plus a student mediation service where disputes could be brought for adjudication. There were no prefects (read 'cliques' or little 'elect' groups for most schools), but there was a student council whose job was to run dances in co-operation with the Student Activities Director (salaried person; one of her jobs was to do PR for the school with local newspapers -- a very important job in promoting a positive image of the school in the community).

I think the sense of pride came from the teachers though all those that I encountered were obviously enthusiastic about working there, very committed, very inspiring individuals. Pride is something that filters from the top down imo. Part of that pride and confidence they felt was there because they knew, when it came to discipline, the deans of discipline had their backs, making it possible to create and maintain a positive and safe teaching and learning environment for all. Part of it came from the school's embrace of technology teachers and parents could be in touch constantly through software the school bought where parents could log in and check daily homework assignments, current grades and comments by the teachers. Parents in turn were assured that any questions they had for the teachers would be answered within 24 hours via email or phone, No trudging to the school necessary.

No uniforms except for gym and sports teams. They weren't supposed to wear 'revealing' clothes, no bare midriffs or insulting phrases or symbols on clothing, and no baseball caps (yarmulkas and muslim headscarves allowed but no full face covering). A gym T-shirt would be given to any offenders to wear over whatever offending item they had turned up in that morning.

when I reached the sixth form at school some of the teachers, not all, started to treat us as young adults. We were told that we were expected to set an example for the rest of the school. Those teachers that treated us as young adults with opinions that were worth listening to were appreciated and respected, the others generally weren't. Your pupils are telling you that teachers don't listen enough. This doesn't have to be to something specific. Any and every time they talk to you they need to say you care about what they say and that their opions are important. If you don't then sixth form pupils stop respecting you. Girls will pick up on subtle cues in body language.

It does sound as if something has gone seriously wrong in your school. You don't have to have uniform but young people shouldn't be allowed to dress how they please. Discrete make-up should be ignored, anything too blatant should mean they are told to remove all of it. It might be better to reintroduce uniform for the 6th form, certainly to threaten it unless standards pick up.

Successful schools do not assume everyone knows what they do, they make sure they get publicity for it.

Successful schools do not assume everyone knows what they do, they make sure they get publicity for it.

I agree prosopon, last week we had visitors from New Zealand who had seen how we work (on their version of Teachers TV) and arranged to come to see for themselves.

I think uniforms create a 'them and us atmosphere' in schools, and can actually end up distracting from the creation of a positive school environment. Uniform regulation takes up teacher time and uniform infractions are too easy for students to use as attention seeking or anti authority behaviour. The students are stuck in the schoolchild rut and the teachers are stuck in the 'enforcer' mode -- a culture of antagonism can develop around uniforms, where a more positive one might flourish without them. I think it's possible the sixth form issues as described are the result of the 6th formers getting their first taste of freedom and taking it too far.

OTOH, another (private) high school in the US that I passed regularly had different uniforms for both boys and girls each year. This left parents with the cost of four different sets of skirts and blouses for each year, ditto trousers, shirts and ties. I think the aim was to create an esprit de corps in each year. I have no idea if it was successful. It certainly would be expensive. The students seemed to have put a lot of effort into 'personalisation' of their uniforms as far as I could see.

from a parent's perspective I love school uniform it saves so much time getting dressed on a morning, is cheaper than the latest label and doesn't identify rich and poor.

I just think the competition gets passed on to areas like accessories, hairstyles, gym shoes, permissiveness of parents, clothes worn outside of school. My DCs wore a school uniform in their elementary years but not in high school. Getting dressed in the morning took a while during the first week of hs, but thereafter wasn't a problem.

In my experience (limited) uniform rules work best when the teachers also have a high standard of dress. But I don't think it is that important to school spirit, it is a side issue.

Just a side issue; but it struck me today that the reason maybe that none of my kids have ever been part of the "choosen" crowd (the ones who go on special trips and have a special relationship with the headteacher) at their junior school, is because they question authority. So where as the head likes jeans, my kids refused to wear them even on "jeans friday" and one actually proposed introducing a school blazer. So although a school may have a school council, does the school really want to hear what the pupils say? Teenagers can be very perceptive about this.

The sixth form is the key. Get that right and it will filter down to the rest of the school.

I think that schools ought to have an alumni day. Pupils can be quite insular and only see what is in front of them. If they can speak to ex-pupils who have been out into the big,wide world and explain that, actually, the old school isn't that bad after all, then it might be helpful. Students can help current sixth formers with University choices or tell teachers about best practice they have heard of at other schools. Other ex-pupils can talk about career choices and maybe offer work experience places, whilst networking amongst themselves.

If you can do a Blue Peter stylee "... and here's one we made earlier" and show them the finished (sucessful) product then pupils might understand the point of it all and have more pride.

I agree about the alumni day -- this was a feature of my DCs' HS in the US. Distinguished alumni were asked to speak every year and presented with an award, usually a mix of areas where they had excelled. In addition, there was a wall in the main (cavernous) entryway devoted to framed photos of distinguished alumni, from a Miss America to senior judges and an astronaut or two and lots in between. All sports teams had their own wall of fame too, with display cases for trophies, photos of teams past and present.