Envisage: In practice

Values sit centrally to the culture of a school. They are central to relationships. Values education was the driver for change [at this school]. The belief that the values lens will get at the heart of how we can work better within our schools, within our communities and improve student learning is what's important … it stems from my belief that values have the capacity to touch the hearts, minds and souls of individuals and ultimately support the professional development of educators; empower communities and transform organisations at a deep and profound level.

Principal, Modbury Primary School (SA), VEGPSP Report – Stage 1

Values education makes us stop and think about what is important. It allows educators to reflect on what we've done, audit the methodology of being in relationships with other human beings, makes us stop and think about how we model. Values education is something we can table and open up what it means to us in our lives and the dilemmas it confronts us with.

Student wellbeing coordinator, St Charles Borromeo Primary School (Vic), VEGPSP Report – Stage 1

Why embed values education at that time? Because the school needed it. The values education vision could provide the climate for change so that the school could survive. The same themes kept coming up again and again – communication, decision-making, student achievement and student enrolment. The thing about embedding values … is more about the higher-order thinking that comes out of it.

Principal, Seaford 6–12 School (SA), VEGPSP Report – Stage 2

The values education program of the schools [in the cluster] is based on the belief that the school needs to be the place for this sort of learning, so important for students' management of social interactions … As such the principal emphasises values as being one of the key areas where schooling can and will make a difference if judiciously and consistently applied … the principal wants the students to be 'decent individuals and good members of the community'.

Werribee cluster (Vic), VEGPSP Report – Stage 1

The process of change management is probably universal. Changing a school to found it on values basically follows the same process as any major change … The difference with values though, is the kind of conversation and the depth of stakeholder involvement that is needed to make the change real. It's not just changing curriculum. It's about changing the way we speak to each other, to students and the way we interact with our parents. It's personal and that has to be kept top of mind throughout the whole process. Changing your school to view the world through a values lens is very personal and for that reason, quite challenging.

Principal, K–12 independent Christian school (WA)

I ensured that everyone on staff, from teachers to cleaners, was involved in the values in education project. It was never going to be the sort of program that could just be implemented in just some part of the school. Everyone at the school had to be aware. We assumed that all would get on board. The reality was that some teachers embraced it enthusiastically while others really struggled.

Principal, government primary school (Qld)

I did not mention the term 'values education' until approximately 18 months down the track. I started the process by asking 'essential questions', to consider whether the 'school was sustainable', and left such questions on the staffroom board, on the refrigerator, then raised them for about ten minutes discussion at staff meetings … Our early values conversations were under the guise of good teaching, good pedagogy, behaviour management. It wasn't until later that I started to unpack that with staff, when we were working with a facilitator.

Principal, government primary school (Qld)

We started our process through conversation with the staff … I had a very dedicated staff who got on well with students and who put in a lot of extra time to support individual students and the school co-curricular program. Before I started challenging them with explicit questions about values, I am certain that every staff member at that school would have told you that values are at the core of what they do and that our school has a strong values base. However, they would not really have been able to articulate what that meant, how it was demonstrated in relation to student outcomes, how it affected relationships across the school, where it was explicitly taught and whether students shared that respect for values. Now, five years later, if you were to put the same questions to the staff, and indeed to the parents and students, you'd get a very different response.

Principal, K–12 independent Christian school (WA)

We worked hard for three years to shift the school culture and to embed values conversations in all aspects of the school's organisation. Ultimately, despite being a 'textbook' case of systematic planning, facilitating staff learning, reorganising our timetables, buildings and structures around a collaboratively developed strategic plan, I think we failed. Basically, my deputy head was not aligned with the new direction. He'd been in the school twenty years, was well loved and respected by the staff … he talked the talk but would not walk it and the staff recognised that. On the surface the school changed enormously. But soon after I'd left, apart from what I'd call some cosmetic changes, the only discernable impact was the critical mass of staff whose fundamental thinking had shifted. However, most of these teachers left the school within two years of my departure. That's why I say that unless the leadership team is united and consistent, the change will not be sustained

Principal, large independent denominational school (Vic)