Setting the Scene for Success: Our Culture Curriculum

At Sydenham & Dulwich Girls’ Junior School, we believe every child deserves the best possible conditions in which to learn, grow and thrive. As a teacher and leader who has worked across a variety of schools, I’ve learned that excellence in education depends not only on knowledge and skill – but also on the environment in which they are nurtured.

With each career move, I approached the opportunity with energy and growing expertise. Yet each time, I initially felt off balance – not because I lacked capability, but because I was adjusting to an unfamiliar school culture: new routines, norms, and expectations. Only when these became second nature could I fully focus on being the most effective in my role. That early cognitive overload – juggling the demands of the job while learning “how things work” – made it clear just how powerful consistency, clarity and culture are in supporting success.

If this is true for adults, it is even more crucial for children. We must be intentional in creating the right conditions for our pupils to thrive.

Why Routines are Essential for Learning
Research consistently shows that when expectations are clear and consistent, pupils are free to focus on what matters: learning. As Haim Ginott once said, “I am the decisive element in the classroom… It’s my personal approach that creates the climate.” Similarly, Sir Ken Robinson reminded us, “The gardener does not make a plant grow. The job of the gardener is to provide the conditions for growth.”

This philosophy underpins our Culture Curriculum – a carefully designed framework of routines and expectations that are explicitly taught, practised and reinforced, just like any other subject. Its purpose is simple: to maximise focus, strengthen learning behaviours, and empower every pupil to feel confident and safe to enhance progress and attainment.

How We Built It
Inspired by Tom Bennett’s Running the Room and grounded in the latest cognitive science research, our staff team worked collaboratively to define and agree the behaviours, routines and language that would shape our shared culture. We asked: What do we expect? How will we teach it? How do we make it meaningful for pupils? As Ollie Lovell says, “Behaviour is a curriculum – treat it as such.”

Our discussions sparked meaningful professional dialogue – especially around the power of words. Together, we created shared vocabulary to ensure every adult and child across the school was speaking the same language. We introduced our Culture Curriculum through assemblies, lessons and class discussion, involving pupils from the start, making sure they understood the ‘why’ behind our expectations because shared ownership leads to stronger engagement and a deeper sense that we all matter.

Bringing Our Culture Curriculum to Life
Our Culture Curriculum is built on daily habits that foster mutual respect, self-regulation, and readiness to learn. Some of the expectations include:

• Active Listening: Pupils turn their bodies towards the speaker and respond by asking and answering questions.
• Showing Mutual Respect: Children come equipped for lessons, tidy learning spaces, and follow RESET routines to close lessons calmly and efficiently.
• Respectful Walking: Pupils walk quietly on the left, use inside voices, open doors for others, and acknowledge peers and adults with courtesy and kindness.
• Assembly Etiquette: Children enter silently, stand with feet apart in lines to ensure they have space to sit comfortably, sit on cue, and actively listen throughout.
• Meeting and Greeting: At the end of breaks, pupils line up smartly, greet teachers warmly, and use polite phrases that support mutual respect.

These are not arbitrary rules – they are embedded behaviours that build community, support attention, and create a calm and purposeful environment in which all children can thrive.

What It Looks Like in Practice
Two years on, our Culture Curriculum is woven into the fabric of school life. Posters in English, French and Spanish reinforce expectations across the site. Pupils and staff speak a shared language that allows rapid reinforcement of expectations. Classrooms are calm and focused; transitions are swift and smooth; pupils know what is expected of them – and they rise to meet these expectations.

To the untrained eye, these routines may seem simple—but they are powerful. As Peps Mccrea of Ambition Institute explains: “Effective routines can secure success and so act as an antidote to boredom… They increase confidence and feelings of safety… They free up the precious mental capacity needed for creativity to flourish. This is powerful because human attention is limited, and attention leads to learning.”

In other words: attention is cognition. What children attend to becomes what they learn. At Sydenham & Dulwich Girls’ Junior School, our routines are not restrictive – they are liberating. They free our children to think deeply, ask big questions and fully engage in their learning. When routines are intentional and culture is shared, we reduce cognitive load and unlock the mental space needed for creativity, curiosity, and challenge.

Ever-Evolving Excellence
Like any great curriculum, our culture continues to grow. Through staff development using WalkThrus, we have enhanced how we open and close lessons. We have reimagined RESET not just as an end-of-lesson tool but as a smooth transition technique across the day – saving learning time and preserving focus.

We are also piloting Harvard’s Thinking Routines as part of our Learner Profile initiative. As with the Culture Curriculum, these structures help reduce cognitive load and support metacognition – encouraging pupils to think more deeply and independently. Watch this space for a blog about our Learner Profile coming soon.

Shaping Success
Ultimately, it is not just what we teach, but how we enable learning to happen. We invest in the hidden architecture of success: clarity, consistency, structure, and care. We know that progress isn’t accidental – it is engineered with intention.

As a teacher who has experienced the transformative effect of culture in schools, I know how empowering the right environment can be. And here at Sydenham & Dulwich Girls’ Junior School, we are committed to ensuring that every child feels safe enough to take risks, confident enough to lead their own learning, and supported enough to flourish and fly.

Jane Wollaston, Deputy Head Academic