Manitoba School Leadership Framework

Leadership Focus Area

Leading a Safe, Caring, and Inclusive School Community

The school leader creates a school community that is welcoming, safe, and caring for all students, staff, and community. Effective leaders care for the mental health and well-being of students, staff, and themselves. They create culturally safe and responsive schools, ensuring a safe learning and working environment.

Leadership Practices and Behaviours: Actions to Support Leadership Practices and Behaviours
Leadership Practices
and Behaviours		 Actions to Support Leadership Practices and Behaviours
Developing Self Nurturing Teams Leading Schools
Promote the mental health and well-being of students, staff, and self
  • Promote a welcoming, supportive, respectful, and caring learning environment.
  • Seek to understand the role of privilege in our society.
  • Model self-care and well-being by making positive choices that enhance personal and physical health.
  • Create supports for students and families at points of transition in their continuum of learning.
  • Support and create spaces that develop positive understandings of staff, families, and students.
  • Demonstrate sensitivity to people’s needs.
  • Promote an educational climate that is committed to the well-being of all students and staff, and is inclusive of families and community members.
  • Develop partnerships that draw on community and inter-sectoral resources.
Create culturally safe and responsive schools
  • Model being open and welcoming to all students and staff.
  • Acknowledge and respect the cultural backgrounds and practices of all learners, along with their unique and diverse communities.
  • Ensure a safe and caring school culture, communicate expectations that all staff and students speak and act respectfully.
  • Model and nurture relationships that reduce anxiety and demonstrate a culture of care and inclusion.
  • Take responsibility to support staff as they develop their understanding and affirmation of diversity in the culture of the school.
  • Promote culturally responsive practices and understandings of all cultures.
  • Promote First Nation, Red River Métis, and Inuit cultures in the school.
  • Promote Francophone culture and French language in the school.
Model and lead practices of inclusive education
  • Demonstrate a strong personal commitment to the success and well-being of all students.
  • Treat all students equitably and with respect, recognizing individual strengths and needs.
  • Plan for the success and well-being of all students.
  • Monitor the success and well-being of all students, particularly for students who have education plans and those whose race and social identities impact how society views their abilities.
  • Promote the practices and beliefs needed to ensure more equitable opportunities and outcomes for students, who are marginalized and vulnerable.
  • Identify and remove systemic barriers, which limit the educational opportunities for all students and those that limit opportunities for families and community members to participate in the school and its culture.
  • Address systemic barriers using evidence-based data.
Ensure a safe learning and working environment
  • Promote positive social and emotional behaviours for all students and staff.
  • Model and monitor instruction and assessment practices that reflect and affirm student identities.
  • Work with staff to create a whole-school approach to safety and belonging that addresses harmful behaviours.
  • Engage in conversations regarding the intersection of student identities and student success and well-being.
  • Lead school safety and implement risk management protocols.
  • Ensure staff feel valued and supported in their capacity to create safe, engaging, and inclusive learning environments.

Self-Reflection Tool