Abstract:

Schools today face mounting pressures from accountability systems, curricular reforms, and competing policy priorities. In this environment, ethos and values risk being sidelined, despite their central role in shaping culture, governance, and relationships. Drawing on Schein’s model of organisational culture, which distinguishes between visible practices, articulated values, and underlying assumptions (Schein & Schein, 2017), this study conceptualises ethos as multi-layered and systemic. In parallel, the OECD identifies values and attitudes as core components of future competencies, interdependent with knowledge and skills (OECD, 2021). This research brings these perspectives together, highlighting the development of three, evidence-informed, ethos quality framework for school networks in Ireland. The research explores how schools can articulate, enact, and evaluate their values as an essential dimension of educational quality. The study integrates organisational culture theory (Schein & Schein, 2017), literature on school self-evaluation (O’Brien et al., 2022), and international perspectives on values in education. The OECD’s Future of Education and Skills 2030 project emphasises that values and attitudes are integral to preparing learners for future challenges (OECD, 2021). The values and attitudes promoted by a range of international organisations indicate that increasingly, there is shared agreement on global values such as human dignity, respect, equality, justice, cultural diversity, tolerance and democracy (OECD, 2019). Together, these perspectives position ethos not as a peripheral aspiration but as a structural and evaluable dimension of school quality intersecting with leadership, pedagogy, and policy.

Keywords:

School values, ethos, quality assurance, school self-evaluation.