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The Importance of Belonging
19th May 2023
Hello, it’s lovely to meet you!
I was recently appointed as part of the Secondary Education team for Learning Partners, and whilst my formal starting date is September 2023, I have started working with our Trust secondary schools, and have been incredibly grateful for the warm welcome I have received.
However, I am in that space of feeling ‘new’ and working my way through the discomfort of adapting to new ways of working, new systems, new people, and new processes, all of which I know will become familiar over time, but now it’s, well… new!
It’s a reminder of the discomfort our children and young people can feel when they feel unfamiliar. Perhaps it is because they are new at school, not quite fitting in a friendship group, or whether they feel uncomfortable in their learning, believing that ‘everyone around them gets it’.
It is good to be reminded of how our children can feel, and to remember that they do not have all the coping mechanisms in place yet to manage – how much harder must it be for them?!
I am lucky that my work allows me to visit a huge variety of schools and I am constantly impressed by the fact that regardless of size, phase or location, schools, (and more specifically the people who work in them), are experts in creating communities of belonging. I am also mindful that it can often be despite the challenges that individual children and their families face, that schools offer a place of security and predictability within a warm and caring community.
One of the current narratives in schools is that behaviour in children and young people is ‘different’, particularly since the pandemic. In their book ‘Reconnect: Building school culture for meaning, purpose and belonging’ Doug Lemov et al. suggest that one of the things that is difficult in schools in 2023 is that we are using ‘old’ strategies to address ‘new’ challenges. They describe key observations of children and young people in 2023 including:
- The tension between individualism and belonging.
- The ‘epidemic’ of technology.
- Loss of faith in institutions.
It would be futile to try and summarise the ideas in ‘Reconnect’ here (though I would highly recommend that you read it!), but this optimistic, practical guide to addressing these issues reminded me that we are already expert at building ‘Belonging’. So, despite the many challenges of working in education now, I would like to thank you for making your schools places where children truly belong. I hope that as adults, you enjoy the benefits of belonging at your school too; the connections, the expertise, the sharing, the support, and the joy. And finally, I would encourage you to take a moment to celebrate all that you bring to your community – it wouldn’t be the same without you!
Hello, it’s lovely to meet you!
I was recently appointed as part of the Secondary Education team for Learning Partners, and whilst my formal starting date is September 2023, I have started working with our Trust secondary schools, and have been incredibly grateful for the warm welcome I have received.
However, I am in that space of feeling ‘new’ and working my way through the discomfort of adapting to new ways of working, new systems, new people, and new processes, all of which I know will become familiar over time, but now it’s, well… new!
It’s a reminder of the discomfort our children and young people can feel when they feel unfamiliar. Perhaps it is because they are new at school, not quite fitting in a friendship group, or whether they feel uncomfortable in their learning, believing that ‘everyone around them gets it’.
It is good to be reminded of how our children can feel, and to remember that they do not have all the coping mechanisms in place yet to manage – how much harder must it be for them?!
I am lucky that my work allows me to visit a huge variety of schools and I am constantly impressed by the fact that regardless of size, phase or location, schools, (and more specifically the people who work in them), are experts in creating communities of belonging. I am also mindful that it can often be despite the challenges that individual children and their families face, that schools offer a place of security and predictability within a warm and caring community.
One of the current narratives in schools is that behaviour in children and young people is ‘different’, particularly since the pandemic. In their book ‘Reconnect: Building school culture for meaning, purpose and belonging’ Doug Lemov et al. suggest that one of the things that is difficult in schools in 2023 is that we are using ‘old’ strategies to address ‘new’ challenges. They describe key observations of children and young people in 2023 including:
- The tension between individualism and belonging.
- The ‘epidemic’ of technology.
- Loss of faith in institutions.
It would be futile to try and summarise the ideas in ‘Reconnect’ here (though I would highly recommend that you read it!), but this optimistic, practical guide to addressing these issues reminded me that we are already expert at building ‘Belonging’. So, despite the many challenges of working in education now, I would like to thank you for making your schools places where children truly belong. I hope that as adults, you enjoy the benefits of belonging at your school too; the connections, the expertise, the sharing, the support, and the joy. And finally, I would encourage you to take a moment to celebrate all that you bring to your community – it wouldn’t be the same without you!
