What do you remember about your time at school?
For me, three memories come to mind instantly. A merging of many summer days sitting on the same part of the field with my circle of friends. My first cigarette outside school with the naughty, but hilarious girl in my science lesson (and a couple of teachers, which feels so odd now, but life was different in 2006). Finally, going for a coffee and buying folders for sixth form with my best friend and the transformative feeling that we were no longer kids and had ‘made it’.
The purpose of school is a much-debated issue and whilst it is fascinating, I don't think this is the place to discuss it. For me, however, the purpose of school is to provide opportunities to engage with ideas, experiences and people that we would not have otherwise met. My dad always says, ‘the best F1 driver never got to try out a car’ and the idea that trying as many experiences as possible as essential to adolescence has stuck with me.
Whilst we are limited in the extent to which schools can do this in practice, catchment areas, funding and the fact that we have to get everybody through exams act as barriers to this in some ways. The one thing that is universally available to all of us though is the pupils’ friendship group. Now before you get carried away, I'm not proposing that we create some kind of dystopian control over to whom and how pupils speak. However, if you've been reading my blogs for a while would now, you'll notice that my interest is in the micro experiences of school. The minutia that impact that the experiences we have as pupils, teachers and leaders.
Back in my day…
I was never particularly clever at school, but I was particularly lucky. There were no disparities between the way that my parents spoke about education and the way that my friends acted. By that, I mean that my parents said that school was important and that I should work hard, and my friends worked hard. I was by far and away the least able of my friendship group, a phenomenal group of girls who turned into powerful women, doctors, teachers, pharmacists, environmental activists, military leaders, mothers, heroes. As adults I have watched them overcome cruel hardships and steady themselves as they move through the phases of life.
This resilience started at school. I undoubtedly benefited from it. As a teenager I was quite happy to go with the flow and luckily for me, the flow was revision, the kind of fun that didn’t (usually – although there are a couple of house party-gone-wrong events I don’t think my parents know about to this day) get me in trouble and the unspoken high standards that underpinned our lives through secondary school and sixth form.
Pupils’ Perceptions of School
As much as we may like to think otherwise, in the mind of a child, friendship is central to the school experience. Whilst I am in the quality of education team at my school, all senior leaders play a hand in the behavioural and pastoral aspects of the school. Obviously, as adults we know there is so much behind these words besides friendships, but when pupils don’t want to go into lessons it’s because “they don’t have any friends in there”, where there is persistent absence “everyone has made friends already” and when I’ve managed to finally get that pupil into Internal Exclusion (IE), it’s because they’ve realised their friend is in there!
If this is the way pupils view school, can we use this as a tool to help them succeed? Can we improve pupils’ perceptions of school by manufacturing situations where they engage with pupils who don’t share this view? How much can peers play a role in pupils’ perceptions of school?
Conversely, what happens where we don’t include this in our thinking, and we inadvertently create subcultures? I worry that things go wrong when pupils are spending huge amounts of time in IE together. This can become ‘us’ against the teachers and in the worst circumstances for all involved, pupils further embed an anti-school sentiment as our values and ideas become increasingly alien.
So what pragmatic steps can we take to expand pupil friendship groups?
Modelling
I am a pregnant hormonal mess at the minute and a group of girls had me in tears the other day. Whilst a little ‘lively’ and having gone through a spell of defiance, they seem to be turning a corner. In the canteen a new boy sat alone. They saw him and I watched to see what they’d do. They went and sat with him. I watched, eyes welling up as these girls showed a level of kindness that pupil won’t forget in a hurry. They went through his timetable, they told him what his teachers were like and who would be in his class with him. I knew then that my school had succeeded in something magical and immeasurable in the work that the pastoral team have done with those girls. They have modelled and demonstrated kindness which was now being replicated. So ultimately the first we can do is model the behaviours we want students to emulate and coach them in the art of conversation.
Sports
When I speak to sporty people about their coach and the values they gained from being involved in teams sports at school, there is an unmistakable look of reverence for the experience. Being part of something is important and sports is a phenomenal way to encourage a sense of belonging on its own. Imagine the impact if as teachers/coaches we use our leadership of activities to actively widen pupils’ social circles. The way we could frame conversation to be about team working, belonging, working hard would create micro-experiences of positivity that would rival any big, costly intervention.
Extra-Curricular and Class Lists
We are used to being asked to create seating plans based on the groupings into which we categorise students; SEND, PP, DA, HA, MA, LA etc. but what if we thought about who should sit with who in terms of their social development? I have a feeling that placing the boy who sometimes struggles with behaviour expectations but LOVES history with a partner who can model engagement for him whilst getting on well would be incredibly powerful. Inviting a pupil who has turned a behaviour corner to be a prefect may raise some eyebrows and is culture dependent, but it could also be the catalyst for propelling that streak of good behaviour into a long-term series of positive choices.
Conclusion
I don’t think we need to have a radical overhaul of policies, but perhaps if we view social experiences of pupils as part of the arsenal of interventions we have at our disposal when working with young people, we can use young people’s focus on friendships to support them in having a better experience of school.
Reflective Questions:
How can we better model the social behaviours we want pupils to develop, and how can we coach them to show kindness and empathy in their day-to-day interactions?
In what ways could we use our seating plans to actively support pupils’ social growth, rather than just focusing on academic needs? What would happen if we thought about who might benefit from sitting with whom, socially?
How can we make better use of extra-curricular activities, like sports or clubs, to encourage pupils to build connections beyond their usual friendship groups?
What might the long-term impact be if we unintentionally allow negative subcultures to form in settings like internal exclusion? How can we ensure we’re breaking down these ‘us vs. them’ mentalities?
How might we create opportunities for pupils to interact with peers who hold different views about school? Could this help change attitudes towards education, and what role can we play in supporting these interactions?
Do we give enough attention to the social side of school life? Are we intentionally fostering positive peer influences that could shape how pupils feel about school?
When we plan interventions for pupils at risk of disengagement or exclusion, do we consider how their friendships might be influencing them? How could encouraging new social connections help change their school experience?
What practical steps can we take, as teachers and school leaders, to help widen pupils’ social circles in a natural, positive way? Are there simple things we can do daily to encourage this?
How do we know when we’ve succeeded in supporting pupils’ social development? Are we making space to celebrate these small, but significant, social successes in our schools?
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