School leaders and teaching staff are facing increasing challenges in classrooms across Australia. Is building a positive high-expectation classroom culture the answer?  

Over a quarter of students report their teachers wait a long time for students to settle before their classes begin, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Whether trying to ensure transitioning between activities doesn’t become an activity itself, or managing persistent disruptive behaviour, these challenges eat into teaching time and may impact the success of the whole class.  

The 2023 Senate inquiry into the rising levels of disruption in Australian classrooms highlighted the negative impact it has on learning. Research shows that classrooms with unclear routines and inconsistent expectations often experience higher levels of disruptive behaviour, lower student engagement and reduced academic outcomes.  

The Education and Employment Committee stated that, ‘strategies for addressing classroom behaviour should facilitate calm, safe, and supportive environments where students and staff can succeed in safety and respect.’ 

This is exactly the type of classroom culture that positive high-expectations (PHE) classrooms cultivate. As a result, adopting a PHE classroom culture is a powerful strategy for minimising classroom disruptions.  

Even if unfamiliar with the name, teaching staff will be familiar with the Pygmalion, or Rosenthal effect. Rosenthal’s research into the phenomenon showed the powerful impact of teacher expectations on student outcomes. When teachers have high academic expectations from their students, students perform better.  

The ‘no excuses’ approach explained above benefits from this phenomenon. When school leaders and teaching staff expect high standards of behaviour from all students, behaviour improves. In primary schools, this results in things like lining up and end-of-lesson pack-up times running more smoothly.  

Schools that adopt a positive high-expectations model experience significant reductions in behavioural issues and higher student engagement. Students know what’s expected of them, which aids in developing responsibility and accountability for their actions.   

Teaching staff in positive high-expectations schools experience calmer, smoothly flowing lessons with students who engage more with their learning.  

A Positive High-Expectations framework is built on the belief in every student’s potential. This ‘no excuses’ approach sets clear and ambitious expectations for behaviour and achievement.   

It integrates positive behaviour interventions and supports (PBIS) to foster safe, structured and nurturing environments by:    

• establishing school-wide rules that promote respect, responsibility and hard work  

• encouraging positive behaviours through reinforcement like specific praise and rewards  

• addressing inappropriate behaviours with tiered interventions for necessary support.    

Another key aspect is that it fosters honest, constructive conversations with students, parents and colleagues. These conversations:  

• build trust and strengthen relationships  

• promote accountability for student success  

• connect school and home, involving families in education.  

Using academic and behavioural data is key to driving continuous improvement in schools. Educators are trained to:  

• collect and analyse data to identify growth areas  

• use insights to enhance teaching practices and behaviour management  

• communicate progress and celebrate successes with the community.  

Professional development is an essential aspect for embedding high expectations into school culture. Through collaborative learning opportunities, educators and leaders can:  

• gain practical strategies to implement high expectations in their daily practice  

• participate in role-play, group projects and collegial activities to refine their skills  

• develop leadership capabilities to inspire and promote a high-expectations culture across the school.  

PHE includes implementing clear routines, positively stated rules and values-based practices that foster personal responsibility, teamwork and emotional well-being. 

Here are seven things you can do to start developing a positive high-expectations culture in your school:

1. Teach Rules and Routines 

Implementing clear rules and routines minimises disruptions and interruptions to learning, but only when they’re clearly communicated. Explicitly teaching classroom and school rules and behaviour standards ensures students know how to behave in school and the routines they must follow.   

As the Senate Inquiry noted, ‘The evidence shows that setting ambitious and achievable goals in collaboration with students, followed by a strong emphasis that these goals can be realised, is an effective, proactive approach to classroom management.’  

2.  Teach Classroom and School Values 

While rules and routines guide students’ behaviour in specific situations, values guide students more broadly.  

Positive high-expectations schools set four universal values as the foundation of their behaviour expectations:   

• Be responsible    

• Show respect    

• Keep learning   

• Work hard  

These values can be adapted and taught to each age level with specific examples. For example, showing respect for younger ages might be saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ For older students, it might be active listening and being respectful of different points of view.  

3. Cultivate Consistency 

Building a culture of positive high-expectations requires a consistent, whole-school approach. Ensuring all staff cultivate the same expectations helps students adopt the desired behaviours.   

School leaders can create consistent, school-wide approaches by:  

• communicating school values and behaviour expectations in assemblies.  

• ensuring routines are always followed.  

• integrating positive high-expectations behaviours and values into school curricula.  

It’s also crucial to model a positive high-expectations culture. Students, especially younger learners, are significantly influenced by the behaviours they’re exposed to. Students who see their teachers take actions such as showing empathy and apologising when they’re wrong are much more likely to do the same.  

All school staff should model the values and behavioural expectations they demand from students.  

4.   Set Clear, Ambitious Goals 

Setting clear age-appropriate goals increases motivation and achieves better success. Studies show that students make greater progress when teachers explain what they’re going to learn than students whose teachers never, or hardly ever do this.  

While some may be tempted to set a fairly low goal, either to a whole class or a subset of students, believing that its easy attainment will boost learner confidence, setting the same ambitions goals for all students is more effective.   

Setting ambitious goals tells students that you believe in their abilities and prompts students to rise to the challenge. Achieving an ambitious goal, regardless of the difficulty or time it takes, has much more of an impact on students’ confidence in their capabilities than unchallenging, easily attainable goals.  

5. Encourage Student Ownership of Learning  

Positive reinforcement motivates students to continue to model the expected behaviour. Formal recognitions like behaviour charts, certificates, and celebrations are a great way to maintain a positive high-expectations culture. However, smaller, informal displays of positive reinforcement in the moment are arguably more impactful. This can include:  

• praising students for showing good and improved behaviour 

• guiding students to act appropriately instead of correcting or berating them 

• praising students for effort as well as outcomes 

• using non-verbal cues such as smiling, nodding, and giving the thumbs up.  

Implementing a culture of positive high-expectations is a highly effective strategy for reducing classroom disruptions and fostering learning environments in which students can reach their potential.  

6. Use Positive Reinforcement 

Taking ownership of learning develops students’ personal accountability, deepens their involvement in their education, and installs life-long skills. Students who take ownership of their learning become more confident, inquisitive, resilient learners.  

School staff can encourage student ownership by:  

• giving students autonomy over aspects of their education from a young age  

• involving students in decisions about what and how they learn  

• involving students in goal setting  

• incorporate project and inquiry-based learning  

• encouraging self-assessment  

• providing opportunities for reflection. 

7. Review and Remind 

Like most new information, rules, routines and school values must be repeatedly reinforced for them to become ingrained.  

Repeatedly review rules by revising them and reminding students of them at key moments. For example, the day after explicitly teaching the ‘End of Day’ routine, the teacher asks students to tell them the tasks and rules to follow.  

Posters are an easy way to remind students of rules and expected behaviours. They can be displayed in classrooms and around the school, and even implemented in review activities. For example, the teacher can cover information on the poster and have students provide the missing rule, step of a routine, or school value.  

Cultivating supportive, safe, and productive learning environments is at the heart of Good to Great Schools Australia (GGSA).   

Over 3,000 Australian primary schools are already benefitting from fewer classroom disruptions and more conducive learning environments using GGSA resources.  

The educators behind our Positive High-Expectations curriculum and resources have decades of experience in teaching and curriculum design. GGSA’s evidence-based positive high-expectations curricula is designed to instil behaviours and develop traits that create positive school communities.  

GGSA resources also include materials to support school-wide behaviour management strategies, such as posters and teacher guides.  

Sign up for a GGSA membership to access our free professional learning resources and start building a culture of positive high-expectations in your school today.  

Click on the links below to see the products GGSA offers to help you implement the strategies listed above. 

Julie Grantham brings more than 40 years of experience in education as a teacher, principal and senior public servant, including three years as Director-General of the Queensland Department of Education. 

During her leadership, Queensland’s state school results consistently improved and teaching and learning practices were strengthened through the introduction of world-class benchmarking. 

Julie also led major reforms requiring every Queensland school to define and implement evidence-based pedagogical practices tailored to their context.

Today, as Director of Schools at Good to Great Schools Australia, Julie works with schools and education systems to design and deliver programs that ensure every student has the opportunity to succeed. Be sure to catch Julie each week as she hosts the Good to Great Schools Webinars. For more information, click the link below.