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Impact of School Climate on Learning

School climate is a critical factor in school improvement as it relates to the core elements of mission, philosophy, vision, and plan. School climate is like an individual's personality and affects how people feel about and behave within the school. Changing a school's climate is challenging but important for changing behaviors and creating an effective learning environment. There are four frames that shape a school's climate - physical, social, structural, and symbolic/cultural. While the physical frame is easiest to change, the symbolic/cultural frame is most difficult but has the greatest impact on teaching and learning. A positive school climate supports student academic and social development, reducing bad behavior and improving outcomes.

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376 views2 pages

Impact of School Climate on Learning

School climate is a critical factor in school improvement as it relates to the core elements of mission, philosophy, vision, and plan. School climate is like an individual's personality and affects how people feel about and behave within the school. Changing a school's climate is challenging but important for changing behaviors and creating an effective learning environment. There are four frames that shape a school's climate - physical, social, structural, and symbolic/cultural. While the physical frame is easiest to change, the symbolic/cultural frame is most difficult but has the greatest impact on teaching and learning. A positive school climate supports student academic and social development, reducing bad behavior and improving outcomes.

Uploaded by

sara fahmy
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chapter (3)

Why is school climate a critical factor in school improvement?


School climate is considered a critical factor in the process of school
improvement as it’s much related to the four cornerstones for school improvement
plan: mission, philosophy, vision, and plan. The school climate is the school
characteristic; it can be compared to an individual’s personality. When we deal with
someone, we are certainly affected by their way of treating us, the way they act or
look, the same feelings people have towards the school either they are employees,
teachers, or students. There’s a nexus between the opinion and the behavior.
Sometimes principals or those who want to restructure schools don't pay attention to
this connection when they’re planning for changing and improving.
Thus, the school climate is quite an important issue when principals want to
change employees’ behavior to reconstruct effective schools for successful students.
In fact, for principles, restructuring a school is very challenging especially when the
school climate is closed or negative. There are four frames to understand a school
climate, any change of one of this frameworks or elements has a potential effect on
the students learning and entails a certain level of implementation difficulty that
differs from one frame to another.
The first frame is the physical frame which is part of the ecology and includes
factors such as size of the campus, classrooms' layout, cleanliness, lighting,
furniture, equipment and how much access do students and teachers have to
materials and supplies that improve teaching. Actually, the easiest element to
change is the physical one especially if required sources are available, but though
renovating a school building or improving physical characteristics of the school is
essential, this change alone has the least effect on teaching and learning.
The second one is the social frame, which includes aspects of social behavior and
is a part of milieu like the interaction of members of school (teachers, students, and
administrators) among each other and among visitors, how they collaborate and do
they have trust between each other or not. Typically, changing this element is to
some extent difficult as it needs behavioral alternations, but it can have a quite
positive effect on students as it provides a suitable environment which encourages
learning.
The third frame is the structural frame, that refers to system organization such as
daily schedule, annual calendar, evaluation methods, and selected curriculum.
Changing in this frame is moderately difficult and its effect is mixed.
The last one is the symbolic or culture frame and this frame includes factors such
as values, beliefs, and norms. In fact, changing culture is the most difficult change a
principle can ever make as it requires trust, open communication, and time. But,
culture frame has the greatest effect while changing in other aspects may be
considered temporary. Indeed, Schools that have strong, constructive cultures are
productive schools while those which have weak destructive cultures are
unproductive schools.
However, according to the National School Climate Council, positive school
climate nourish student's academic and social development. Improving school
climate can reduce bad behavior, improve attendance, achievement and increase
satisfaction with the school. So obviously, the school climate has a major influence
on the learning process and its effectiveness.
References:

Kowalski, T., 2010. The School Principal: Visionary Leadership and Competent
Management. Taylor & Francis, Inc.
Seashore Louis, K. (2006). Changing the Culture of Schools: Professional
Community, Organizational Learning and Trust. [ebook] Available at:
http://Changing the Culture of Schools: Professional Community, Organizational
Learning and Trust

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