Best Practice

School culture & values: An unwritten ethos

Do you use your school’s values? Or are they positive-sounding aphorisms which are rarely dusted off in the heat of battle? Bill Holledge considers how we create and use school values and discusses the Paradigm Trust’s ‘Unwritten Ethos’


Every organisation has a distinct ethos. Many organisations have written values. With some organisations there is good alignment between their “official” values and the lived experience of their ethos.

But that isn’t always the case and I suspect many readers could give examples of a time when they have experienced a disconnect between the two.

Paradigm Trust has a vision statement: “To develop and sustain great schools where we can make the biggest difference to pupils.” And values: “Integrity. Community. Excellence.” And I genuinely think that we try very hard to live by those.

We have very high expectations throughout the Paradigm curriculum and are committed to continually developing and improving it, working with nationally respected experts who we know will challenge us to be even better.

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