Safe Schools


Promoting a Positive School Climate

Introduction

A positive learning and teaching environment is essential if students are to succeed in school. "Promoting a Positive School Climate" is a resource that provides examples of practices and activities that will help your school improve its overall school climate. This resource has been designed to help your school and safe schools team identify practices that could work for you or be adapted to suit your needs.

What is School Climate?

A positive school climate may be defined as:

“The sum total of all of the personal relationships within a school. When these relationships are founded in mutual acceptance and inclusion, and modelled by all, a culture of respect becomes the norm.”

Definition from Safe Schools Action Team report, Safe Schools Policy and Practice: An Agenda for Action
(Toronto: Queen's Printer for Ontario, June 2006), p. 6

To help achieve a positive school climate, boards and schools should actively promote and support positive behaviours, in keeping with their character development initiatives. They should also involve parents and members of the broader community in the school.

Characteristics of a Positive School Climate

The following are some of the characteristics associated with a positive school climate:

  • Students, parents and staff feel safe, comfortable and accepted.
  • Healthy and respectful relationships are promoted among all members of the school community.
  • Students are encouraged to be leaders and positive role models in their school; for example, to speak up about issues such as bullying.
  • Parents and community members are actively engaged.
  • Positive behaviour is reinforced, and students are given opportunities to develop relationships that are free from racism, discrimination and harassing behaviour.
  • There is a culture of high expectations which emphasizes the improvement of learning outcomes for all students.
  • Schools ensure that all cultures are respected and valued.

How to develop a more positive school climate

Besides the practical examples offered, discussion questions are also provided in a worksheet to help start a conversation at your school about how to develop and promote a positive school climate. These questions could be used at a staff meeting or at a safe schools team meeting to celebrate all the things that are currently taking place and/or to identify areas that could use more attention.

School climate surveys

School boards are required to conduct anonymous school climate surveys of their students, school staff and parents at least once every two years and, as outlined in Policy/Program Memorandum No. 145, Progressive Discipline and Promoting Positive Student Behaviour, and to share the results with their safe and accepting schools teams.

The results of the school climate surveys may identify challenges for some schools. This resource provides a menu of practical ideas for safe and accepting schools teams to consider in helping to meet some of those challenges and help them in their efforts to develop and maintain the kind of school climate where all students can thrive.

Building on initiatives already in place

“Promoting a Positive School Climate” supports and complements the work your school is doing in numerous areas. It brings together ideas from various initiatives that your school is already working on, including:

  • Character Development
  • Equity and Inclusive Education
  • Leadership Development
  • Parent Engagement
  • Student Voice
  • Safe and Healthy schools.

How to use the resource “Promoting a Positive School Climate”

The resource has two parts:
1/ “Promoting a Positive School Climate”
This offers a range of practical suggestions for activities/practices that can be applied to the entire school, the classroom or to students.

Note: To print the Resource actual size, the document will need to be tiled. After clicking ‘Print', select ‘Tile all pages' from the drop down menu under Page Scaling. The document will print in six tiles on letter size paper.

2/ Worksheet with discussion questions
This worksheet is intended to act as a “thought starter” for schools. It has a series of questions that will spark discussion and help to generate ideas about new activities and practices that can be put in place at your school.

Your feedback

The Ministry plans to continually update the resource "Promoting a Positive School Climate" with new ideas to keep it current and to help share effective practices across the province on an ongoing basis. Tell Us What Your School Did.