Abstract
Schools are best described by their unique culture that is peculiar to themselves. School culture is the assumptions, values, norms and cultural artefacts, ceremonies, unwritten rules of behaviour and thinking that are established, shared and accepted through mutual understanding by the members of a school community which influence their functioning. We investigated the characteristics of the organisation culture of a successful Limpopo secondary school. Schein’s (2009) levels of organisation culture provided the theoretical framework for the study. The study was framed within an interpretative paradigm. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with six teaching professionals, analysed and coded, to uncover themes and subthemes, which are reported on using Schein’s levels. The levels reported on are firstly school artefacts, notably school uniform, sports, ceremonies and logo. The second level was the school values, being discipline, ethos, community involvement, role modelling and effective communication. The third level contained school assumptions concerning religion, equality, commitment and professionalism. We found that the school under study was well managed in a variety of aspects related to each level. The significant contribution of this study can be valuable to school management and policy makers, if applied in context.