The Positive School Culture Project

For teachers and school staff Part of the Positive School Culture Guide for Teachers/School Staff: What students’ experiences of Year 7 can teach us. This series shares insights from research exploring how students experience the transition to secondary school, and what these experiences reveal about how Positive School Cultures develop through relationships, expectations, and everyday classroom interactions. Why clear rules do not always feel fair Schools rely on clear rules and consistent expectations. These help create structure, predictability, and a shared understanding of how school life works. As students describe in the student guide, part of secondary school involves working out how these expectations operate in practice — not just what the rules are, but how they are explained, applied, and experienced in everyday situations. From a school perspective, this consistency is often closely linked to fairness. If the same rules apply to everyone, and are applied in the sa...

For teachers and school staff       Part of the Positive School Culture Guide for Teachers/School Staff: What students’ experiences of Year 7 can teach us This series shares insights from research exploring how students experience the transition to secondary school, and what these experiences reveal about how Positive School Cultures develop through relationships, expectations, and everyday classroom interactions.

  For students starting secondary school (ages 11–13) Part of the Positive School Culture Project — sharing research to help students, teachers, and schools create better experiences of starting secondary school. Starting secondary school can feel exciting, but it can also feel uncertain. Some students quickly feel comfortable in their new school, while others take longer to find their place.

For students starting secondary school (ages 11–13) Part of the Positive School Culture Project — sharing research to help students, teachers, and schools create better experiences of starting secondary school. Starting secondary school can feel exciting, but it can also feel uncertain. Some students quickly feel comfortable in their new school, while others take longer to find their place.

For teachers and school staff Part of the Positive School Culture Guide for Teachers/School Staff: What students’ experiences of Year 7 can teach us This series shares insights from research exploring how students experience the transition to secondary school, and what these experiences reveal about how Positive School Cultures develop through relationships, expectations, and everyday classroom interactions.

For students starting secondary school (ages 11–13) Part of the Positive School Culture Project — sharing research to help students, teachers, and schools create better experiences of starting secondary school. Starting secondary school can feel exciting, but it can also feel uncertain. Some students quickly feel comfortable in their new school, while others take longer to find their place.