Belonging: A Staff Workshop Activity
In the introduction to this activity, the model for helping us to think about belonging in school was proposed. It suggests four features that together might contribute or comprise feelings of belonging for young people in school.
Obviously, belonging links to inclusion or inclusivity, but it is more than that. Inclusion is something that the school does; it’s about school policies and practices. In contrast, belonging describes how a young person feels towards or within the school culture and community and the relational dynamics s/he experiences.
This discussion activity is a vehicle for teachers to engage together on the subject of belonging–what it is and how well you feel your school fosters feelings of belonging for all young people.
Activity One
In groups discuss the model. What does it make you: Think? Feel? Wonder about?
Is there anything you would change? Based on your experience, what would you take out and replace or re-word? What would you add? Why?
Do you think each feature is equally important? Is there an order? Redraw the model using the size of the features to indicate relative importance.
Think of some learners in your context. How might the model help you to explore and better understand their experience of school? What questions does this raise for you?
If there are multiple groups, facilitate an opportunity to share insights and ideas to arrive at a version of the model that feels right for your school.
Activity Two
In groups (the same or different) discuss each of the features in your updated version of the model. What do you do well and how? What do you do less well and why? Give yourselves marks out of 10 for each feature.
Share and discuss your scores.
Where is there strong agreement?
What can you learn from the differences?
Agree a score for each feature for the whole school.
Activity Three
Take the two lowest-rated features and, in groups, discuss what action(s) would need to be taken to improve these scores.
If there are multiple groups, split the two features being discussed to make the best use of time.
Ask each group to share their suggested actions. Ideally someone (in advance) might be delegated to take ownership of the suggested actions so that the people taking part can see that their insights and ideas matter.
