Researching Ethos Words

Our current ethos phrases are 'community well being', 'attitude to learning' and 'powerful knowledge' and these have been embedded into school life. However, in review and from feedback, some children find these phrases harder to understand and identify with.

Step 1 - Reviewing ethos with parents (Spring Term 2023)

During the evening of parents consultations, parents were surveyed asking the 3 words or phrases they would use for their perfect school ethos.

Step 2 - Reviewing behaviour and ethos with TAs and support staff (Spring Term 2023)

In March, TAs and support staff had a meeting to review behaviour in school. The afternoon was split into parts:

Reading and reviewing the current behaviour policy.
What are the non-negotiables for behaviour we should have in school?
What should our current ethos in school look like (Community wellbeing, attitude to learning, powerful knowledge)?
If you could pick 3 child friendly words for the school's ethos, what would they be?
Supportive consequences - What are the differences between educational and protective consequences?

From this afternoon, the support staff shared their opinions and words that they would like to include in the new behaviour policy.

Step 3 - Reviewing behaviour and ethos with teachers (Summer Term Inset April 2023)

During the summer term Inset day, teachers met to review the current ethos and behaviour policy.

Analysis

Using suggestions from each of the reviews with parents and all school staff, a shortlist was created of the most common words identified:

Kind Positive Inclusive Learning Considerate

Honest Respect Safe Creative Achieve Inspire

Surveying Ethos - Summer Term 2023

With the shortlist of ethos words identified, a short google form was sent out to Governors, children, parents and school staff to find out the three most popular words to form the school ethos.

Analysis

354 people responded to our ethos survey. Mostly, the survey was completed by children. 44 parents, 31 school staff and 8 Governors also responded. The results were pleasing, with kind and safe being the most popular words. These words are already part of the language we use around school. Therefore, we have decided that we will adopt 'kind', 'safe', 'positive' and 'learning' as our new school culture words. We are looking forward to embedding these words in the new academic year and working with the children to understand what these words mean in school life.