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...
Exploring how school culture is created, experienced and shaped — especially during the transition to secondary school in Year 7. Drawing on students’ voices and research evidence, this site shares insights into belonging, school culture, and the experience of starting secondary school.