About communication, trust, authority, disagreement, time, relationships, achievement and education itself. I work with school leaders on exactly that question — through long-term partnerships, keynote presentations and individual coaching.
For most schools it is a characteristic of a substantial proportion of the families in their community, and increasingly of families who were born here.
use a language other than English at home.
among people who used a non-English language at home in 2021.
use a language other than English at home — 83% with one or both parents born overseas.
Almost half of that Australian-born group are under 15.
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census of Population and Housing, 2021.
Ongoing work with leadership teams to examine how the school communicates, makes decisions and builds trust with families whose assumptions differ from the school's own.
Talks for conferences, staff days and parent associations that make cultural difference concrete: what it looks like in a parent-teacher interview, a discipline conversation, a complaint.
Confidential one-to-one work with principals and senior leaders who are sitting with a specific relationship, conflict or community that isn't working the way they hoped.
Both sides usually want the same thing for the child. What differs is what a respectful message sounds like, who is allowed to disagree with whom, what a well-run meeting looks like, and what education is for. We work through each of these with real situations from your school.
Communication
Trust
Authority
Disagreement
Time
Relationships
Achievement
Education
Map your school community, place your school on the eight dimensions, work through the moments that matter, and use the five-step cultural curiosity process after any interaction that didn’t go the way you expected.
Open the toolkitKnow your community
Understand culture
Map your school
Moments that matter
Examine your assumptions
Adapt your leadership
Build cultural intelligence
Culture is a lens, not a label
“The families weren’t disengaged. We were inviting them in a way that made no sense to them. That reframe changed how our whole leadership team works.”Principal, Australian primary school
Tell me a little about your school community and what prompted you to get in touch. I’ll reply personally to arrange an initial conversation, at no cost.