Belonging: Resources for Secondary Schools
School belonging is the “the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school social environment”
Goodenow and Grady (1993)
Belonging is an important aspect of any community, but schools in particular play a unique role in fostering child, adolescent, staff and community belonging.
A strong sense of school belonging contributes to positive school culture for students and staff. Student belonging allows students to feel accepted, respected and valued, leads to higher engagement and motivation in their learning and builds social and emotional skills.
New resources have been created to promote belonging in the whole-school and in classrooms. These resources include lesson ideas for different year groups, linked to different subject areas, as well as whole-school strategies to enhance school and individual belonging.
Belonging Classroom PowerPoint
- Teach students about belonging and the importance of feeling a sense of belonging.
- Identify where students feel like they belong.
- Identify and promote places and groups within the school where students can go to increase their sense of belonging.
- Emphasise the importance of including others.
- Empower and educate students on how to find and create their own sense of belonging.
Slide Notes are provided to guide teachers through slides, activities and key discussion points.
Belonging Classroom Activities
A range of classroom belonging activities have been developed and differentiated for lower and upper secondary. Activities have been developed for different year groups and linked to appropriate subject areas. An example of the range of suggested activities include:
- Barriers and solutions to belonging activity: students work in groups to identify barriers to belonging in the school environment and create an innovative initiative to overcome barriers and increase school or classroom belonging.
- Belonging essay project: upper secondary students work independently to research belonging, including the benefits of feeling a sense of belonging and the impact of a lack of belonging, as well as opportunities to belong inside and outside of the school.
- Belonging texts: choose from a list of texts with belonging-related themes. Students read the text independently or as a class, and then compile an essay relating to the story and the theme of belonging throughout the text.
Whole-school Belonging Strategies
Ideas for whole-school belonging strategies. Examples include developing a student wellbeing team, implementing a buddy system, creating inclusive clubs and more!