Activity 2: Current issues in my professional contextCreate a blog post where you critically analyse issues of socioeconomic factors, school culture and professional environments in relation to your practice.

Step 1: Identify the socioeconomic status of the community, organisational culture and professional environments. Use the following questions to guide your thoughts:

• Is there any statistical data that indicates the socioeconomic status of your school’s community? Our school's Decile rating indicates the socioeconomic status of our school's community which can be found on  
• What does it tell you about the characteristics of the community?  
• What is the culture that the school is striving for? How is it manifested?
• How would you describe the professional environment in your school?

Step 2: Analyse the issues around the socioeconomic status of the community, the school culture and professional environments. Use these following questions to guide your thoughts:

• What issues arose from the socio-economic status of your school’s community? How is it similar or different from those of similar socio-economic status? How have the issues been addressed?
• What issues arose from the professional environments in your school? How these issues impact on your practice? How have the issues been addressed?
• What role does your school’s culture play in addressing the discussed issues?

Refer to page 10 of Stoll’s (1998) article in which Stoll and Fink (cited in Stoll, 1998) identified 10 influencing cultural norms of school improvement. Does your school culture embed the mentioned norms? If not, what is missing and how may you and your school foster a positive school culture.

Read page 6-14 of this Principal's sabbatical report by Gargiulo (2014) on The Engagement and Academic Success of Students from Lower Socio-economic Status to have some idea of the strategies the school have actioned to address the school issues.

Does your school have similar approach? What would work and not work? Why?