School Culture and Safety:

     A school is a place where learning takes place, and it happens consciously and subconsciously. During olden days most of the schools used to be situated within the community, Example; even today in many small villages, schools are situated very close to the child’s home. Today as towns and cities have expanded, the schools are no more a part of the community. As schools are no more a part of the community, the concern for their safety is enlarged.

A school is a place where a child spends most of his time, and his primary care takers parents are not around him. It is believed that schools, along with academics should take care of child’s safety and well-being. The child spends a considerable time at school, he has regular interactions with various participants at school such as teachers, peers and non-teaching staff as well. They all have influences on his well-being and safety. As student well-being is critical for the academic achievement and the child’s success in life, schools should take necessary actions to prevent and respond to the issues which affect the student well-being. The school culture, climate, and infrastructure should support and ensure the student well-being.

I like to emphasize on three approaches to achieve student well-being.

a.      Culture

b.      Proactive measure

c.      Reactive measure

All the three approaches are important. The good culture is very challenging to achieve and it could take some years and also decades to attain. The good thing about culture is, once it is sensible, it could sustain for decades without much effort. A good school culture might not depend on CCTV cameras and other human controlled supervision. For a good culture, instead of supervision and authority, the human value is key. The culture is based wholly on trust. Trust is the core of a virtuous school culture.

A school culture consists of the values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that all stakeholders share in common. The culture determines how stakeholders describe where they work, how they understand each other, and how they see themselves as part of the school.

Usually, when there is an immoral situation in a school in any part of the country, other schools turn to proactive measures.

And if the situation arises within our very own school, the schools adopt reactive measures.

Let us try to understand all the three approaches in brief.

a.      Culture:

A good school culture will contribute to the student well-being. Culture is, "the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time". The culture in school involves the routines, practices, norms which the school follows on a day to day routine. Example; School might follow a culture like, ‘listening somebody is a good deed’, Helping somebody is virtuous’.

Culture can also be understood as the shared beliefs of the particular community, here the school culture will be shared belief or practices of the school community i.e. students, teachers and other staffs. The practices of the school like appreciating safety and well-being among stakeholders, core values that the school follows, the way things happen inside the school etc. will constitute the culture of the school.

b.     Proactive measures:

Proactive measures involve a positive school culture. It consists of actions taken to decrease the likelihood of an incident occurring. These measures also set in place techniques or procedures meant to mitigate the damage caused by any unfavorable incident at school environment. These measures cut down on response time, guarantee a uniform response from all school participants, and promote the safe and secure environment. In modern age preventive measures could be having CCTV cameras in critical areas, GPS in school vans, and a female attendant at every school van. And at the broader level, it could be health and nutrition education, physical drill exercises and so on.

Proactive measure refers to the thing that prevents, hinders, or acts as an obstacle to a possible harm. In a school, the preventive measure could consist of capacity building/training of all the school participants like teachers, students, and administrators.

c.      Reactive measures:

In contrast to preventive measures, the reactive measures are usually spontaneous actions that respond to an incident or unfavorable event. Often, these reactions are not the preferred method of dealing with the said incident. These situations and events can open the door to panic and poor decision making, nevertheless, they are important. In school, reactive measures could be consulting a police or education department to deal with the emergency. And for other emergencies like physical harm or fire, it could be, first aid and fire safety equipment readily available during the emergency.

The well-being practices in school should be such that no child feels uncomfortable at school and does not feel suicidal tendencies. But in case things go awry we need to have a counseling or pastoral care facility as reactive measure at school. Facilities like counseling could come under preventive measures as well as reactive measures.

Conclusion:

The schools should put more emphasis on developing a positive school culture. The schools should appreciate trust and integrity. Encourage respect among stakeholders. Value self-accountability as a moral deed. Have a clear channel of upward and downward communication.

Generally, in organizational transformation, the leadership is considered to be very powerful and transformative. Leadership is about setting direction, influencing people, and developing the organizational capacity to perform. It is hard to conceive of developing the right school culture, the school-community connect, school resources and infrastructure, well-being culture without effective school leadership.

By,
Maaz Mohammed A.Q
(Writer is learning strategist at Life Skills Express)