Culture eats strategy for breakfast...

They say, ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’*…. In our case we have a strong, professional staff culture and a clear focus on the learning of each child and young person in the School. Our staff culture creates the capacity for respectful relationships, innovation, and recognition of TKS as an employer of choice! The Educator Australia has just awarded The Knox School an Employer of Choice award for 2021.

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In schools generally, exciting, and innovative plans can fail to create the intended shift in attitudes and behaviors. Why? These plans become victim to underlying assumptions, which generate a strong invisible web of habits that determine “the way things are done here”. We often think of culture as the way in which we talk and act; strategy represents what we say we value. When in alignment, a powerful synergy is produced.

The culture of a school does not just happen through the creation of policies and the existence of an exciting and innovative strategy. Culture is not simply the result of recruiting the most exceptional professionals; although we can certainly agree this helps! The true culture of a school lies in the intangible aspects, in the hearts and minds, the spirit of the school.

Schools are complex assemblages of a variety of structures, routines, and ways of doing things. They have ways of communicating that have developed as a narrative over time, for example: the design of the timetables, the style of reports and the structure of the learning experiences. All of these, and many more aspects of the way in which the school runs carry messages about the culture of the community.

Our commitment to a positive staff and student culture at TKS permeates through everything we do.

In our recently endorsed TKS Strategic Plan (Phase 2) we highlight that carefully articulated school values and vision are critical to success. Whilst necessary, they are not entirely sufficient; importantly they need to be lived out, and be seen to be lived out, by the community and especially its leaders, the staff, and other adults within the community.

As we look to 2021 and beyond, we must build on our strong foundations and move our personalized learning strategy to the next phase. This will sustain our culture and develop the systems, processes and daily practices that will allow our staff to adapt and design frameworks and models for how we do school, keeping the best of the past, and acknowledging the rapidly changing world our children will enter.

At The Knox School we commit to the creation of a positive staff culture characterized by collaboration, openness, trialing and piloting new ways of teaching and assessing, and encourage staff to provoke their own thinking about learning and how to shape it; a culture in which professional learning is seen as valuable, integrated and not just another thing to do.

Each week, our staff engage in personalized professional learning projects (referred to as PPLP) in which they collaborate across faculties and sub-schools, exploring aspects of pedagogy, models of practice and global research to inform and shape their thinking in the areas of growth, character and assessment. These projects and workshops see our staff participating in leading-edge discussions and developing best practice, which is shared throughout the school, and more broadly, within the wider education sector. Our staff are regularly called upon to contribute within national and global education forums and to be the expert voice exploring the implementation of personalized learning. Our overarching goal is to position TKS as a centre for excellence in the design and implementation of personalized learning.

The Falcon Philanthropy Group (FPG) recognises the value and significance of the educational expertise in TKS’s professional community. To assist the staff of the School to be at the forefront of their profession, last year, the FPG implemented an inaugural Teaching Fellowship, supported, and endorsed by the Board of Directors.  

The TKS Teaching Fellowship is an opportunity for talented and dedicated educators to support the strategic direction of TKS through investigating, developing, and implementing innovative educational practices that benefit your children, our students and to promote TKS as a leader in effective and innovative practice throughout the sector and the wider education community.

These innovative educational practices align with the School’s core values of achievement, care and empathy, resilience, respect, and responsibility, and to the TKS Strategic Plan including the shaping of, connection to, provocation of, and the future positioning of our young people. 

In recognition and alignment with our commitment to the investment in community, in Term 3 2021, the voluntary contribution on the fee invoice will move from being directed into the Building Fund and instead will be directed towards the Scholarship Fund.  This encompasses the Teaching Fellowship. This direction signals the value TKS places on people and our commitment to ongoing investment in our educational community.

This year, The Educator Australia launched their inaugural Employer of Choice Awards; schools and colleges across Australia were encouraged to make a submission detailing initiatives and achievements across 10 key areas of employment including, reward and recognition, training and progression and career progression. The application was a rigorous yet rewarding process and one that allowed us to take a close look at some of the elements which underpin our strong staff culture at TKS.

We are delighted to announce that The Knox School was awarded the Employer of Choice Award in recognition of its commitment to the building of a strong staff culture and initiatives leading the way in employee recruitment and retention. We are one of a few schools in Victoria to receive this prestigious award.

The award stands as testament to the ongoing hard work and dedication of our TKS staff. The accolade establishes TKS as one of the leading schools in Australia in which to work, and as such, will continue our trajectory of attracting and retaining an exceptional calibre of expertise within the profession, an essential element to ensuring the high-quality outcomes for our students, your children. 

Returning to my original reference, “culture eats strategy for breakfast” To be clear, Peter Drucker didn’t mean that strategy was unimportant or indeed weak – rather that a powerful and empowering culture was a surer route to organisational success and in this case, to securing respectful relationships, innovation and high-quality holistic student outcomes.

I thank you for your continued support of the TKS community and entrusting us with the education of your most precious asset, your children. As we look towards Semester 2 and beyond into 2022, we stand by our commitments to deliver the most optimal, personalized learning outcomes for our students and look forward to continuing the growth and strengthening of culture within this outstanding community. 

*Peter Drucker - this reference is often attributed to Peter Drucker and his work