Scaffold or Cage? Rethinking Routines

What if the “strictest school in Britain” was also one of the happiest?

A school in North London once earned that exact headline. To some, it conjures images of rigidity, silence and compliance. But step inside, and the reality is noted to feel very different. Visitors often describe something unexpected: students who are calm, focused, and content. There is a quiet confidence in the way they move through the day. Nothing feels chaotic. Nothing feels uncertain.

The difference? Routine. Not routines as a checklist, but routines as culture, deeply embedded, consistently applied, and understood by everyone in the building.

This is where cognitive load theory offers a powerful lens. Working memory is limited. When students are forced to think about what to do next, where to go, or how to behave, they are spending cognitive energy on things that should be automatic. Every small uncertainty is a drain.

Routines remove that friction. When students know exactly how to enter a classroom, how to begin their work, and what is expected of them, those processes become automatic and almost invisible. And when that happens, something important is unlocked: thinking capacity. Attention shifts away from managing the environment and towards engaging with learning.

And here’s where it becomes even more powerful. Success in learning, especially with more complex tasks triggers dopamine. That sense of achievement, however small, creates a feeling of reward. Over time, this builds a positive feedback loop: success increases motivation, motivation increases effort, and effort leads to further success.

Now imagine that happening every day. What looks like “strictness” from the outside is, in reality, clarity. What looks like control is, in practice, consistency. And what grows from that consistency is something far more valuable: a culture where students feel secure, capable and successful. That is why they look happy.

However, there is an important tension here: one that school leaders must navigate carefully. Routines are powerful, but they are not without risk. When over-designed or over-applied, they can begin to crowd out something equally important: creativity. If every moment is prescribed, every action scripted, and every response anticipated, students may become efficient, but not necessarily independent. They may comply, but not create.

The goal, therefore, is not maximum routine, but purposeful routine. Strong schools are deliberate about where routines matter most, transitions, behaviour, and foundational learning habits, because these are the areas where reducing cognitive load has the greatest impact. But they are equally deliberate about where to create space: for discussion, for exploration, for thinking differently. In this sense, routines should act as a scaffold, not a cage.

For school leaders, this sharpens the question. Not do we have routines, but do our routines create freedom or restrict it? Are they enabling deeper thinking, or quietly replacing it?

Because when routines are thoughtfully designed and carefully balanced, they do more than organise a school day. They create the conditions in which students can both succeed and think.

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Harnessing the Power of Gossip

A school leader I once worked with understood something that many leaders overlook: culture doesn’t just live in policies, meetings, or mission statements—it lives in conversations.

Before formally releasing a new strategy, they would first quietly share the idea with two or three individuals known for being well connected within the informal social fabric of the school. These were people others spoke to. People others listened to. People through whom information naturally travelled. They would tell them the idea, and then wait.

Over the following week, the strategy would circulate informally. It would be discussed in corridors, mentioned in passing, and reflected upon in staffrooms. Staff would begin forming opinions—not because they had been instructed to, but because culture had carried the idea to them. This leader wasn’t just sharing information. They were listening to culture.

If the reaction was negative—if the idea created anxiety, frustration, or resistance—they would pause, reconsider, and often abandon the proposal entirely. If, however, the idea was accepted—or even quietly supported—they would formally introduce it. By that point, the ground had already been prepared. Staff had time to process it. It no longer felt sudden or imposed. Resistance was lower because the culture had already begun absorbing the change.

This approach reveals something fundamental: culture determines whether strategy succeeds or fails long before it is formally announced.

Schools operate on two parallel structures. There is the formal structure—the organisational charts, leadership teams, and official channels. But there is also the informal structure—the networks of trust, influence, and conversation that exist beneath the surface. It is this informal structure that often determines how change is received.

This is not to suggest leaders should manipulate culture. Trust, once broken, is difficult to rebuild. But it does highlight an important principle: effective leaders don’t impose change on culture—they work with it.

Change is not just a technical process. It is a cultural one. Dan Rockwell explores a related idea in his 2022 blog post, “How to Gossip Like a Leader,” where he describes the concept of reverse gossip, shared with him by Bob Burg. Instead of allowing informal conversations to default toward complaint or criticism, leaders can intentionally redirect them by asking staff to share something positive about someone who isn’t present.

This simple shift has profound cultural consequences. It surfaces the contributions of “unsung heroes”—those who quietly strengthen the school without recognition. It builds collective appreciation. It reinforces the behaviours leaders want to see more of. And perhaps most importantly, it reshapes the emotional tone of everyday conversation.

Because culture is not shaped in assemblies or PowerPoints. It is shaped in the quiet, repeated conversations between colleagues. What leaders tolerate in those conversations becomes culture. What leaders amplify in those conversations becomes culture faster.

Ultimately, gossip itself is neither good nor bad. It is simply evidence of culture at work. It reflects what people care about, what they fear, and what they value.

The question for school leaders is not whether informal conversations exist. They always will. The question is whether you are listening closely enough to understand what they are telling you about your culture.

Because culture does not spread through announcements. It spreads through people.

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When Leaders Become the Bottleneck

Philip Gift, a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, argues that leadership bottlenecks can be traced back to technological developments during the First World War. In his Military Leaders blog post, “The Leadership Bottleneck: What happens when managers and leaders cross lines,” he highlights how the telegram transformed decision-making. For the first time, kings, generals, and foreign ministers could issue instructions instantly from hundreds of miles away. Decisions no longer needed to be made by those closest to the situation. Instead, authority could be centralised—physically distant, yet operationally present.

On the surface, this represented progress. Communication became faster, coordination more efficient, and control more centralised. But it also introduced a hidden risk: the emergence of leadership bottlenecks.

When decisions flow upwards too easily, they often stop there. Responsibility concentrates in fewer hands. Those closest to the problem—the people with the clearest understanding of context—can become passive recipients of instruction rather than active decision-makers. Over time, this doesn’t just slow organisations down; it reshapes their culture.

Schools are not immune to this dynamic. Modern technology—email, messaging platforms, management systems—means school leaders can be involved in every decision, no matter how small. While this can create a sense of oversight, it can also unintentionally signal something deeper: that authority resides at the top, and initiative resides elsewhere.

Culture is shaped not just by what leaders say, but by what they allow others to do. When staff feel they must seek permission for routine decisions, a culture of dependency begins to form. Teachers stop acting autonomously. Middle leaders stop leading. Initiative is replaced by compliance. Over time, the organisation becomes slower, quieter, and more fragile—not because staff lack capability, but because culture has taught them not to act.

This is the modern leadership bottleneck. And like its First World War counterpart, it is enabled by technology—but sustained by culture. Philip Gift argues that breaking through these bottlenecks requires two things: face-to-face interaction and a clear organisational structure with defined roles and responsibilities. Both are fundamentally cultural acts.

Face-to-face interaction builds trust. Trust creates confidence. Confidence enables autonomy. Clear roles and responsibilities create clarity about who decides what. But more importantly, they signal belief. They communicate that leadership is not confined to titles—it is distributed through the organisation.

In schools with strong cultures, decisions do not accumulate at the top. They flow to the person best placed to make them. Senior leaders set direction, but they do not become a barrier. They create clarity, not dependency. This is not about relinquishing accountability. It is about creating capacity.

A school culture free from bottlenecks is one where:

• Teachers feel trusted to make professional decisions

• Middle leaders act, rather than wait

• Senior leaders focus on strategy, rather than control

• Responsibility is clear, visible, and lived

Ultimately, leadership bottlenecks are not just structural problems—they are cultural ones. They emerge when systems centralise authority, but they persist when culture reinforces it. The lesson from the telegram is not about technology. It is about proximity. The closer decisions are to the people who understand the work, the healthier the culture becomes.

Because strong school cultures are not built on control. They are built on clarity, trust, and the confidence to act.

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Better Isn't Always Better

In 1985, Coca-Cola made what would become one of the most infamous marketing mistakes in corporate history. In an effort to compete with Pepsi — who had been gaining ground through the famous “Pepsi Challenge” taste tests — Coca-Cola decided to radically reformulate their flagship drink.

CEO Roberto Goizueta took to the stage at a New York press conference and proudly announced a new recipe that was, in his words:

“Smoother, rounder, yet bolder — a more harmonious flavour.”

On paper, everything looked perfect. In blind taste tests, the new product scored overwhelmingly positive reactions. It even beat Pepsi. Executives were convinced they’d cracked the code. But then reality hit. People Didn’t Just Dislike New Coke…They were furious.

The company received over 8,000 complaints a day. Customers hoarded the original Coke. Protests formed. Hotlines collapsed under the volume of angry calls. Coca-Cola had misunderstood what consumers valued. Sure, they liked the flavour — but they loved what the drink represented: Heritage. Familiarity. Identity. Nostalgia.

Coca-Cola had lost sight of something simple:

• People don’t just buy products.
• They buy what those products mean to them.

Within 79 days, “New Coke” was quietly removed. The original recipe returned triumphantly as Coca-Cola Classic — and the world exhaled.

What Schools Can Learn From New Coke

When making cultural or strategic changes, especially in education, taste-tests aren’t enough. You can have:

✔ Data
✔ Evidence
✔ A clearly superior model

…and still trigger resistance if:

✘ People feel the change is happening to them, not with them
✘ You remove something loved without acknowledging its value
✘ The symbolic meaning of the old way gets ignored

The Leadership Takeaway

Before launching a change:

• Try to create opportunities to involve your community in testing the idea
• Understand what people are emotionally attached to
• Understand the history of what came before
• Communicate not just what is changing, but why

Because sometimes…Improving something isn’t the same as making it better.

Culture is built on meaning. Meaning cannot simply be reformulated.

Why “Better” Fails

New Coke wasn’t a failure of flavour — it was a failure of cultural intelligence.

Coca-Cola fixated on the product and forgot about the people. They understood preferences, but not identity. They measured the sip, but not the story.

Change loses its way when leaders assume that improvement is purely technical — a smarter system, a refined idea, a new model. But culture change isn’t a flavour swap. It’s a shift in meaning, belonging, and what people believe the organisation stands for.

Schools can forget this too. We replace behaviour frameworks, curriculums, or pastoral structures with “better” ones — but can overlook how much comfort and pride staff and students draw from what already exists.

A Simple Culture Check for Leaders

Before changing something that seems inferior, ask:

✅ What purpose has this served — even if imperfectly?
✅ What identities are wrapped up in the current way of doing things?
✅ Who might feel a sense of loss if we remove it?
✅ How can we honour the old as we introduce the new?

If we can answer those honestly, we build change that strengthens rather than fractures community.

A Final Thought

The lesson of New Coke isn’t “don’t change.” It’s this:

Change that ignores meaning will always taste wrong — no matter how good it looks in the data.

Better isn’t always better. But belonging always is.

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The Values Monolith

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the monolith appears as a sleek, imposing object — perfectly smooth, mysterious, and seemingly full of higher purpose. It’s a symbol of evolution and intelligence… or at least, it should be.

But imagine if the astronauts never understood why it was there. Imagine if they just walked past it every morning on their way to the mess hall.

That’s what many school values displays become: a silent object, worshipped for its form but not understood for its purpose.

When Values Become Wallpaper

Every school wants to present itself as driven by strong, positive values. But sometimes, the way those values are chosen and displayed can completely undermine their impact.

I once visited a school that proudly showcased a “values monolith” in its reception area — a towering display of more than twenty worthy words wrapped around the school logo. Every staff member passed it each morning. It was impossible to miss.

And yet… it made almost no difference to the culture of the school.

Why? Because no one in the school had actually chosen those values. Staff and students alike had been left out of the process entirely. Without ownership, those values held little meaning. They were decorative — not lived.

Worse still, the sheer number of words created value overload. Many were effectively synonyms that blurred into each other until the entire display became background noise. In trying to stand for everything, the school ended up standing for nothing.

What Makes Values Actually Work?

In most schools, three to five carefully selected values are enough to shape culture meaningfully — but only if:

• They are chosen with genuine staff and student involvement
• Everyone understands what they look like in practice
• They are revisited frequently, not left to gather dust
• They are visually represented in a way that reinforces memory and pride

Values should translate into observable behaviours:

• How we greet each other.
• How we respond to setbacks.
• How we celebrate success.

If you can’t see a value happening in corridors, classrooms, and conversations, it’s not a value — it’s wallpaper.

Performative Culture vs. Lived Culture

Displays and branding have their place. Professional design and smart placement can offer visual cues that reinforce behaviour — but only if the values themselves carry authentic weight.

Otherwise, they risk becoming performative — a glossy façade attempting to mask deeper cultural cracks.

When people feel part of creating the culture, they feel part of the community.

A Simple Values Audit

A helpful test for any school leader:

• Do staff and students use the values language naturally?
• Could a visitor identify our values simply by observing interactions?
• Do our systems — praise, behaviour, curriculum, recruitment — align with what we claim to value?

If the answer is no to any of these, the work isn’t finished.

Summary

Values aren’t a poster. They are what people live — and live together. Culture isn’t what we say on the wall — it’s what we tolerate in the hall. If we want values to matter, they must be owned, understood, and embedded… not just displayed.

HAL 9000 might say:

“I’m afraid I can’t let you ignore those values, Dave.”

And he’d be right.

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Capsized by Good Intentions

A stark and sobering warning about unintended consequences comes from historian Edward Tenner in his 2011 TED Talk, “Unintended Consequences.” In it, he recounts the tragedy of the SS Eastland, a passenger ship that capsized in the Chicago River in 1915. In the wake of the Titanic disaster just three years earlier, new safety regulations had mandated that ships carry more lifeboats. The Eastland complied. But the additional weight on the upper decks made the ship top-heavy and unstable. As passengers boarded, the ship rolled, capsized, and sank—all while still moored at the dock—killing 841 people.

The tragic irony? A safety measure intended to prevent loss of life led directly to one of the deadliest maritime disasters in American history.

This historical anecdote is more than just a cautionary tale—it’s a powerful metaphor for leadership. It reminds us that even well-intentioned decisions can have damaging effects if the wider system is not understood or the impact not fully thought through.

In schools, too, change implemented without due consideration of culture—the shared beliefs, habits, and emotional climate of the organisation—can destabilise the very things we’re trying to improve. School culture is a delicate ecosystem. Decisions that ignore it, however practical they seem on the surface, can result in imbalance, resistance, or confusion.

For school leaders, this is especially relevant. The unintended consequences of leadership don’t always come from major strategic decisions—they can emerge from the smallest actions. A throwaway comment in a corridor might be interpreted as an official directive. A policy designed to raise standards might instead create fear or resentment. A reorganisation intended to streamline communication might fracture relationships instead.

Leadership doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Every word, tone, and gesture is filtered through the perception of those receiving it—and magnified by the positional power of the person speaking. And those perceptions are rooted in the existing culture of the school.

This is why school leaders must be mindful not just of what they say and do, but of how it will land—with staff, students, families, and the wider community. This includes:

• Being intentional with language, especially in mixed or informal settings

• Clarifying when something is an idea, a thought, or a directive

• Anticipating how different people might interpret your words or decisions

• Encouraging a culture where staff feel safe to ask for clarity rather than assume

In complex systems like schools, unintended consequences are not a sign of bad leadership—but unexamined ones often are. The Eastland disaster didn’t stem from recklessness. It stemmed from failing to ask: What else might happen if we do this?

Leadership, at its core, is the constant balancing act between action and reflection. The more we pause to consider potential ripples—especially within the cultural fabric of our schools—the better equipped we are to lead with wisdom, not just intention.

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School Buildings or Shopping Centres?

When we think about school improvement, we often focus on curriculum, leadership, or pedagogy. Yet, the physical architecture of a school is a silent but powerful force shaping its culture. A building is more than bricks and mortar—it communicates values, priorities, and aspirations. Sometimes it does this intentionally, but too often, it sends mixed signals or even undermines the very culture we want to build.

Consider the case of one academy in Peterborough, funded by the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Programme and completed in 2007. Its design was bold and futuristic: a cloud-shaped structure with curved, glass-fronted classrooms and a sweeping glass-and-steel roof that cascaded over a large central atrium. The architectural firm behind it was better known for designing corporate headquarters for multinational giants, not schools. With an estimated cost of nearly £50 million, this academy was reported to be one of the most expensive schools ever built in Britain.

Walking into such a building is undeniably impressive, but it raises a fundamental question: What is the purpose of such architecture? Is it to inspire students? To showcase success and innovation? Or does it risk being more about branding the school than building a culture that supports teaching and learning?

The Shopping Centre Effect
During my visits to several BSF schools, I noticed a recurring theme: many were trying to make a grand architectural statement. In one particular school, the open-plan upper-level classrooms were visible from the ground floor, creating an environment that felt eerily similar to a shopping mall. While visually striking, the acoustics were less so. The open design amplified sound to such an extent that lesson changeovers felt like arriving at Euston Station during rush hour.

While the school managed the environment well, architecture in this case became an obstacle rather than an asset. It looked good on a prospectus, but it made the day-to-day experience of teaching and learning more challenging.

The Windowless Office Problem
Another school I visited had administrative offices with no external windows—small, enclosed, and claustrophobic. Staff commented on the lack of natural light and how it made the space feel disconnected from the life of the school. What message does this kind of design send? 

What Architecture Says About Culture
Every physical space communicates something. In the best cases, architecture can inspire a sense of belonging, pride, and curiosity. It can reflect values like openness, creativity, and community. In the worst cases, it can alienate staff and students, prioritising aesthetics or cost over functionality and comfort.

The point is not that schools should aim for grand, expensive architecture. Indeed, many school leaders find themselves with buildings in need of significant refurbishment or even a new build entirely. It’s that every design choice—whether for a £50m building or a £50 classroom refurbishment—should start with the question: What culture are we trying to build?

Culture Without Construction
You don’t need to build a new school to create a positive cultural environment. Small but thoughtful design choices can make a huge difference:

• Classroom layouts that promote collaboration rather than isolation.

• Staffroom locations that encourage connection between departments.

• Student-facing spaces that feel welcoming, rather than sterile or intimidating.

Even something as simple as where staff offices are placed can impact communication and culture. A leadership team hidden in a remote corridor communicates something very different from one located at the heart of the school.

The Lesson for Leaders
As leaders, we must ask ourselves:

• What does the environment of our school say about our values?

• Are we creating spaces that promote calmness, respect, and curiosity, or are we inadvertently designing for chaos and hierarchy?

The architecture of a school is not just a backdrop—it’s a living part of the culture. If we want to create better schools, we need to start paying closer attention to the messages our spaces are sending.

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The Politics of Parking in Schools

At first glance, school parking may seem trivial—something outside the serious business of school improvement or leadership. But scratch the surface, and it becomes a surprisingly rich symbol of power, priorities, and culture. In my recent discussion on Teachers Talk Radio, I explored how something as mundane as a car park can reveal deeper truths about school
leadership and values.

At the leadership level, parking can operate as a symbolic act. The location of the headteacher’s car is not just a logistical decision—it can reflect and reinforce their perceived role within the school community. This is not necessarily a criticism—there may be perfectly legitimate reasons for such an arrangement; indeed, many schools have limited parking space. However it is important to acknowledge that it carries symbolic connotations.

I once worked in a school where the head parked daily in the disabled bay, despite not having any physical need to do so. The rationale was convenience—it was the closest spot to the school building. But the unintended symbolism was far more powerful. It conveyed a message—perhaps subconsciously—that their own time, convenience, and position outweighed consideration for others. The car park became an unspoken expression of hierarchy and entitlement.

Contrast this with the teacher or leader who reverses into a space each morning. While this might seem efficient or even responsible, it can also carry cultural implications. Reversing into a space—ready to drive straight out—may suggest a mindset already anticipating departure. It can subtly imply a transactional approach to the school day: arrive, deliver, leave. This is not to criticise the act itself (many do it for safety), but to illustrate how these unconscious habits can carry symbolic meaning.

Parking politics aren't limited to school leaders, of course. As Lindsay Mason, an Advanced Skills Teacher, pointed out in a 2013 blog post on @TeacherToolkit, occupying someone else’s self-designated parking spot can be as provocative as using their favourite coffee mug in the staffroom. It's not really about the parking space or the mug—it's about territory, identity, and belonging. In tight-knit school cultures, these small acts can trigger disproportionate emotional responses because they represent something more.

In sociological terms, this is the realm of symbolic interactionism—where meaning is created through everyday interactions and shared symbols. Who parks where, how, and why can serve as a barometer of school culture: collegial or hierarchical, inclusive or individualistic, humble or status-driven.

So, what can leaders learn from the car park?

1. Be conscious of the symbols you create. If you occupy the most prominent space, what does that communicate to others?

2. Recognise the emotional landscape of school life. For many staff, particularly in pressured environments, territorial cues matter.

3. Use the mundane to read the culture. Sometimes, school improvement doesn’t begin in the classroom—it begins in the car park.

Culture is built not only in grand statements but in a thousand tiny rituals. If we want to change the culture of a school, we may have to start with the car keys.

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Stop Branding Culture. Start Hearing It.

This post was originally published on Positive Young Minds: Stop Branding School Culture. Start Hearing It. - Positive Young Minds 

In recent years, we’ve seen a growing trend of reducing culture to neat, one-word slogans to sum up school culture like learning culture, power culture, strong culture, or effective culture. We’ve even seen leadership consultants and school improvement experts offering silver-bullet solutions—the one thing supposedly missing from a school’s culture. While these phrases can serve a purpose in setting vision or focus, they can also dangerously oversimplify something incredibly complex.

This reductionist, soundbite-driven approach risks narrowing the idea of school culture to something manufactured in boardrooms and leadership meetings. It presents culture as a leader’s responsibility alone—as if it can be designed, printed onto a glossy vision poster, and simply imposed on a school community.

But for me, this completely misses the point.

Culture is not made by leaders. It is made by people.

Let me take you beyond school culture and education for a moment to a story I think every school leader should know.

David Marquet, a retired U.S. Navy submarine captain, tells a compelling story in his book Turn the Ship Around. In 1999, he was unexpectedly assigned command of the USS Santa Fe, one of the worst-performing submarines in the fleet. His original posting had been to the USS Olympia, a very different type of vessel, and he’d spent a year learning every detail of that ship in preparation. But with the sudden reassignment, Marquet now found himself leading a crew aboard a ship he barely understood.

In many organisations—military or educational—this would have been a recipe for micromanagement, fear-based leadership, or paralysis. But Marquet took a radically different approach. He began by asking questions. Not rhetorical ones to assert dominance, but open, curious, practical questions: What do you think we should do? Why? What’s the risk here? What do you recommend? In doing so, he gave his crew autonomy, responsibility, and voice.

What’s striking is how this humble but focused method changed not only the performance of the submarine, but the morale, pride, and ownership of the crew. In other words, he changed the culture—not through command, but through conversation.

This has huge implications for school leadership.

We talk a lot about shaping school culture, setting the tone, or modelling expectations from the top. These are all important. But leadership cannot afford to be an echo chamber. Culture is not built in SLT meetings, CPD PowerPoints, or carefully worded policy documents. It is built in corridors, classrooms, offices, and staffrooms. It is built in the conversations we have with every member of the school—teachers, TAs, pastoral staff, site staff, admin teams, cleaners, midday supervisors, and of course, the students.

Let me be blunt: if you only talk to the teachers, you only know part of your school.

The receptionist may be the first-person families speak to. The lunchtime supervisor may witness patterns of behaviour invisible in the classroom. The caretaker may be your eyes and ears in spaces students use more freely. These individuals are not only contributors to school culture—they are curators of it.

Culture is never singular
One of the most common leadership blind spots is assuming that culture is consistent across a school. That your school has a culture. In reality, any large organisation contains subcultures. The culture in Year nine may feel different from that in Sixth Form. The ethos in the Maths department may not match that of the humanities team. Inclusion may look very different in one part of the school compared to another. This isn’t a flaw—it’s a reality.

The role of leadership, then, is not to flatten all culture into uniformity, but to understand the nuances, learn from them, and use them to build shared strength.

There is also a wellbeing dimension here. When school staff feel heard—genuinely heard—their sense of value increases. If a member of the cleaning staff has been in your school for 15 years but has never once been asked their opinion on behaviour, that’s a missed opportunity. Not every conversation will lead to a breakthrough, but the act of asking builds trust, and trust builds culture.

To be clear, I’m not advocating for chaos or collective decision-making on every strategic issue. I don’t expect there to be a proportional, vote-based system for all decisions. Schools need clear leadership.

We need to make hard decisions, drive improvement, and protect standards. But you cannot claim to know your school’s culture—or improve it—if you haven’t engaged with all the people who shape it.

So, here’s my call to action…

Let’s spend less time designing buzzwords for school culture, and more time walking the corridors. Let’s talk to people. Let’s listen—not just to opinions, but to stories. Let’s ask questions not just about pedagogy, but about purpose, practice, and daily experience.

Culture isn’t a slogan. It’s a conversation. And every school leader needs to be part of it—with everyone.

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Culture is Constructed, Not Discovered

According to theorists like Crotty (1998), constructivism suggests that meaning doesn’t exist in a vacuum, waiting to be discovered—it only emerges when consciousness engages with experience. Culture, then, isn’t something “out there” to be found. It’s something we create together through shared experiences, values, conflicts, and decisions.

In the context of a school, this means culture is not handed down from a mission statement or imposed by leadership alone. While the institution may predate its current staff, its culture is continually shaped by the people within it. As Bryman (2008) explains, culture acts as a “point of reference” rather than a fixed structure—something that exists in concept, but only takes shape through human interaction.

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Multiple People, Multiple Cultures
Social constructivism also acknowledges an essential truth: there are as many constructions of meaning as there are people. That’s crucial in schools, where culture doesn’t emerge uniformly. A teaching assistant, a headteacher, and a pastoral lead might all describe the school’s culture differently—and all be right. Each interpretation is built from unique perspectives, shaped by role, experience, power dynamics, and personal values.

This explains why efforts to capture school culture in a single Ofsted descriptor or policy document can feel both hollow and divisive. Leadership must understand that culture isn’t singular—it’s layered, dynamic, and sometimes contradictory.

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Culture Is Always in Motion
Another powerful implication of a social constructivist view is that culture is never finished. Because it’s continuously renegotiated through interaction, the culture of your school today is not the culture it will be in six months. A change in staffing, a safeguarding incident, a shift in leadership focus—any of these can recalibrate the social atmosphere in profound ways.

This has two major consequences for school leadership:

• You can’t define culture once and be done with it. Culture isn’t something you implement—it’s something you steward. It requires ongoing reflection, open dialogue, and responsiveness.

• You need to listen, often and widely. Because everyone’s construction of the culture may be different, it’s not enough to rely on your own view—or even your leadership team's view. You need to hear from the margins: from support staff, early-career teachers, SEND coordinators, lunchtime supervisors. Their stories are your culture.

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So What Should School Leaders Do?

• Create space for multiple perspectives. Social constructivism tells us that culture is plural. Make sure your understanding of it is, too.

• Acknowledge culture as changeable. Don’t treat it as a fixed asset—treat it as a living, breathing process that evolves with your community.

• Lead with humility. You are part of shaping culture, but so is everyone else. Share that responsibility intentionally.

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References

Bryman, A. (2008). Social Research Methods (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Crotty, M. (1998). The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process. SAGE Publications.

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The Label Experiment & School Culture

Imagine you’re teaching a class and you're asked to choose just one word to describe each of your students. Now imagine that every student is required to wear that word on a badge every time they enter your classroom. You might be tempted to have a bit of fun with it. After all, there’s always one student who comes to mind straight away—often because they’ve been pushing your buttons all term. But what about everyone else? The quiet student who's been quietly building confidence? The unpredictable student who's shown real moments of brilliance? 

Reducing a whole human being to a single word isn't just reductive—it’s misleading. And uncomfortable.

Now flip the scenario. Let’s apply the same challenge to your colleagues. One word for each teacher in your department. One word for each member of the leadership team. Imagine them walking around with that word pinned to their chest. Suddenly, what started as a thought experiment becomes ethically murky, if not completely absurd. Because we know how unfair it is to be summed up by a single aspect of ourselves.

And yet—ironically—we often do this exact thing when we talk about school culture.

As school leaders, we are sometimes encouraged to distil our school's culture down into one-word descriptions: “inclusive,” “ambitious,” “supportive,” “rigorous,” “traditional,” “trauma-informed.” These words might sound impressive in a strategy document or Ofsted report, but they’re often a gross simplification of something far more complex.

School culture is not a slogan. It is not a branding exercise. It is the daily lived experience of students, staff, families, and leaders. It’s shaped by everything from behaviour policies to the way we greet each other in the corridor. From how decisions are made to how conflict is handled. From who gets heard in meetings to who feels safe in the staffroom.

For school leaders, the danger of trying to define culture in a single word is twofold:

1. It silences nuance. When we fix a label to our culture—especially a positive one—we risk overlooking the uncomfortable or unresolved parts of our community life. If we say our culture is “inclusive,” do we stop looking at who might still feel excluded? If we call it “high expectations,” do we risk ignoring the quiet burnout among staff?

2. It encourages performance over authenticity. A culture described in glossy terms can become a performance that staff feel pressured to uphold, even when their experience tells a different story. Leaders must be especially mindful of this. Culture isn’t what’s written in a handbook; it’s what happens when no one’s watching.

Instead of forcing culture into neat typologies, we need to cultivate spaces where the contradictions and complexities can be named and explored. We need to move from branding to belonging.

For school leaders, that means listening more than labelling. It means holding space for honest conversations. It means embracing complexity rather than fearing it.

So next time someone asks you to describe your school culture in one word, try this instead: tell them a story. Talk about your students. Talk about your staff. Talk about what’s changing, what’s working, and what still needs work.

Culture, like people, is always in motion. It deserves more than a badge.

 

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