Every nursery and school has two curriculums.

The first is the one we carefully plan.

The second is the one children experience.

The second curriculum is often the most powerful.

Children are constantly learning – not only through the activities we prepare, but through the relationships they observe, the words they hear and the way adults respond when emotions run high.

This is the hidden curriculum of belonging.

A reflection from practice

Recently, I witnessed an interaction at a school that stayed with me. A child was visibly distressed and crying while an adult, who also appeared emotionally overwhelmed, responded in a raised and angry tone. Other adults stepped in to help calm the situation.

As I watched, I found myself thinking less about behaviour management and more about what the child might have been learning in that moment.

Not mathematics. Not phonics. Not literacy.

Instead, perhaps the child was learning: “When I am overwhelmed, adults become overwhelmed too.” Or: “My feelings are too much.” Or even: “When I struggle, I may be publicly corrected rather than helped.” 

None of those messages may have been intended. But intention and impact are not always the same. The experience a child has in a difficult moment can become part of the hidden curriculum they carry with them.

The curriculum we never write down

Children notice far more than the content of our planning. They notice how adults speak to one another, how mistakes are handled, whose voice is listened to, whether differences are respected and whether emotions are met with curiosity or punishment.

No curriculum document includes a learning intention that says, “Children will learn whether adults lose control.” Yet children learn this every day.

They also learn whether adults apologise, whether relationships can be repaired, whether behaviour is treated as communication and whether they remain worthy of care when they are having a difficult moment.

This is why the hidden curriculum matters. It quietly teaches children what power looks like, what safety feels like and whether belonging is conditional.

Belonging is experienced through relationships

Early childhood development is profoundly relational. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological view of development reminds us that children grow within interconnected systems of relationships and environments. Gerhardt’s work similarly draws attention to the importance of early relational experiences for emotional development.

When adults remain calm enough to help children regulate, children gradually learn that difficult feelings can be survived. When adults model empathy, children experience empathy. When adults repair after a rupture, children learn that relationships can be restored.

Belonging is therefore not created by a display board alone. It is experienced when a child discovers: “Even when I struggle, I still have a place here.” 

What does this mean for educators?

The hidden curriculum invites us to look beyond what we planned and ask what children actually experienced.

• What did my tone communicate?
• Did my response preserve the child’s dignity?
• Was I regulated enough to help the child regulate?
• Did I respond to behaviour only, or did I remain curious about what might be underneath it?
• If I got it wrong, did I repair the relationship?

This does not mean educators must be perfect. Early Years work is emotionally demanding and adults will have difficult moments too. It does mean that reflective practice must include the adult’s emotional state, not only the child’s behaviour.

The leadership responsibility

This is also a leadership issue. If staff are expected to co-regulate children, they need cultures that support their own regulation and reflection.

Leaders can strengthen this by creating psychologically safe supervision, modelling calm responses, allowing staff to ask for help, discussing difficult interactions without humiliation and treating repair as part of professional practice rather than evidence of failure.

The culture adults experience becomes part of the culture children experience. In that sense, workforce wellbeing, leadership behaviour and children’s belonging cannot be separated.

Reflection questions

• What are children learning from the way adults respond when things go wrong?
• Who receives patience in our setting – and who receives correction?
• Do our behaviour approaches preserve children’s dignity?
• Do staff feel safe enough to say, ‘I did not handle that well’?
• What do our routines, relationships and reactions teach children about who belongs?

Read, reflect and act

This week, observe one interaction rather than one activity.

Ask yourself: What was the child learning about themselves, about adults and about belonging in that moment?

Sometimes the most important lesson was never written on the planning sheet.

Final reflection

Belonging is not only built in our easiest moments. It is revealed in our hardest ones.

Children may forget the activity we planned, but they can remember how an adult made them feel. Our responsibility is not to offer perfection. It is to keep reflecting, repairing and creating environments where children feel emotionally safe, seen and valued.

Perhaps the most powerful curriculum we offer children is not simply what we teach, but who we are while we are teaching it.

References

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979) The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Edmondson, A.C. (2019) The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Gerhardt, S. (2015) Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2004/2020) Young Children Develop in an Environment of Relationships. Working Paper No. 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.

Rinaldi, C. (2006) In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, Researching and Learning. London: Routledge.

Siegel, D.J. and Bryson, T.P. (2011) The Whole-Brain Child. London: Constable & Robinson.