A strong school identity, spirit, and community reinforces your school’s values and mission. And is highly critical to the feel and vibe of your school.
By strengthening these three elements, you create a space that reinforces the positive work taking place on campus whilst also creating a life of its own. In this blog, we discuss the concepts of identity, spirit, and community and explore the advantages of an all-in-one online educational platform to promote these elements within your school.
School identity
School identity is about fostering collaboration and a sense of school dignity among your students and distinguishing their connection to the school. Students also tend to live up to expectations, be them positive or negative, so an identity that is carefully designed to elicit the best outcomes for students will drive achievement and behaviour.
School spirit
Although a bit difficult to define, school spirit is the driving force that unites all members of the school community as well as setting the school apart from other institutions. It is palpable but never tangible. The impact can support positive behaviour that upholds the school’s values. Positive school spirit can have increased academic success in students and create mentally strong learners. School spirit is linked to achievement, pride and determination.
Connected community
A connected community includes your students, teachers, leaders, parents, and the wider school who learn from each other, together in a collaborative learning environment.
A connected community within your school has multiple benefits. Staying connected, especially during a pandemic increases mental health and wellbeing. It also has a positive impact by creating a sense of belonging and purpose. Fostering an online community has even more urgency now due to the pandemic of 2020 and the restrictions it has placed with distance learning.
Online communities allow all members to be part of the school body and take an active approach no matter where they are, what year level they are in or what role they play; be it student, teacher, parent or the wider school community.
An all-in-one online educational platform
With an all-in-one online educational platform, your school is able to strengthen its identity, spirit, and community in a single location that is accessible anywhere and at anytime. In fact, it becomes easier to keep your entire school in sync with a united mission and connected, regardless of external disruptions, as we saw with the 2020 pandemic crisis.
Ingraining the school mission and vision into the curriculum
The mission and vision of your school fortifies the values and attitudes of its community.
Educational software like a learning management system becomes ingrained in the daily activities of students and teachers and can be a valuable vehicle to drive your school’s mission and vision. With the online learning environment, K–12 schools can purposefully encourage positive values and behaviours they want their community to see and demonstrate, ingraining the school’s mission and vision into the educational curriculum. And, being one system for all users, you can utilise multiple purposes that will work for each and everyone.
Reinforcing identity and spirit with personification
Having a positive identity and spirit has been closely linked to higher success rates for students in school, college and university. Personifying the school’s mission, vision and values unites students on multiple campuses with common goals. An example of this practice is in the use of the school mascot. Providing a physical embodiment of school identity and spirit, via a mascot with a name and personality that reflects the traits sought after by the school communities places these ideals at the centre.
An online educational platform provides the perfect avenue to personify your school’s identity and spirit and keep it at the forefront of the minds of all students. Personifying an all-in-one online learning platform embeds school identity and spirit deep within the learning journey.
Building community on and off campus
An online community portal provides a space for live collaboration and interaction. This is the place where community updates, news and events can be shared with all its members. Providing a community building opportunity online eradicates segregation from year levels or campuses. It also allows students, teachers, parents and the wider school community to collaborate together.
Integrating your community portal within your learning management system upscales opportunities for shared enthusiasm and support for common interests, without any hindrances with the year level of campus location.
Community portals are brilliant for sharing information and celebrating successes. They bring together many different opportunities and can be used to keep the community up to date with online competitions, shared classwork,school productions and important news.
Using an all-in-one online educational platform to unite a K–12 school will strengthen school identity, spirit, and community. A central location where students in all facets of school life can come together is a phenomenal approach to creating a strong community that shares the same motivations and aspirations.
Looking for more ways to enhance the learning journey for your students? Take a look at our other resources:
