Assessing the Influence of Culture in a School
- natalie bogdanoff
- Dec 10, 2022
- 2 min read
The SIS school culture has been cultivated over the past 30 years, it is the oldest international school in Shenzhen, and has a historically positive reputation. Over the past three years many international schools in China have struggled to keep up with the ever-changing laws and regulations placed upon them, resulting in the loss of international families. However, in the last three covid years SIS has nearly tripled in size and grown to almost fill three new campuses. The graduating year of 2029 is the largest ever secondary cohort with 89 students, and the graduating class of 2030 moving up presently has 92 students. Students from all over Guangdong province are interviewing and applying to be on the waiting list for SIS.
One of the reasons that SIS is so successful is because its social culture has fostered a love of learning, rather than a love of high grades or scores. With the goal of creating an inclusive environment, SIS has welcomed student, parent, and teacher feedback with nearly every step of major decisions. From what to serve in the cafeteria (affectionately called “Nom Nom”) to the current school-year calendar. The Head of School realizes that changes take longer with multiple channels of feedback, however the overall satisfaction and happiness of the school culture can be felt. In my opinion, the greatest feeling for a person of any age is to be listened to, this equates to more feeling of ownership throughout the school.
According to Westhuizen et. al., a study by Yu and Yeung (2003) was conducted in Hong Kong which I felt was most relevant to why we have such a positive culture at SIS. They identified
six criteria of school culture in schools performing better than other schools: “Support from school administrators, shared values and positive atmosphere, safety and order collaboration in teaching, commitment to student learning, relationship with students, and job satisfaction” (Westhuizen et.al., p 4, 2005).
The organizational culture of SIS is also successful, this is because the Board which includes senior administration, teachers, parents and STUCO members offer transparent agendas. This means they put out surveys for topics of discussion no matter how small or large and include the feedback from all stakeholders in their meetings. The educational curriculum is also straight-forward and communicated to the students and parents before attending. SIS is currently practicing the IB frameworks of learning and teaching, using PYP and DP programs. Teachers at the beginning of 2022 school year have advocated for the complete IB continuum, and beginning the school year of 2023, SIS will be adapting its curriculum to include MYP as well.
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