Creating Psychological Safety in Schools: Building Trust for Pupils, Staff, and Parents
Written by Hannah Wilson
Founder and Director of the Belonging Effect (formerly Diverse Educators).
In a world that is constantly changing, schools are being asked to do more than ever before. They are not just places of learning, but communities where young people grow, adults work, and families connect. Yet one essential ingredient often gets overlooked: psychological safety – the sense that it is safe to speak up, make mistakes, ask questions, and be yourself without fear of ridicule or punishment.
Coined by Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson, the term “psychological safety” refers to an environment where people feel respected, included, and confident that their voices matter. While the concept emerged from studies of workplace teams, its relevance to education is profound. Schools that nurture psychological safety for pupils, staff, and parents create the conditions for deeper learning, stronger relationships, and healthier wellbeing across the community.
Psychological Safety for Pupils: A Foundation for Learning
For pupils, learning inherently involves risk – the risk of being wrong, of not understanding, of standing out. When students feel unsafe to fail or to speak up, they disengage, hide their struggles, or act out. When they feel safe, they take intellectual risks, collaborate, and grow.
How schools can build it:
- Normalise mistakes as part of learning: Teachers who model vulnerability (“I don’t know the answer – let’s find out together”) show that uncertainty is not weakness, but curiosity in action.
- Encourage voice and choice: Giving pupils real opportunities to influence classroom norms, projects, or school decisions signals respect for their perspective.
- Respond to behaviour with empathy: Instead of “What’s wrong with you?”, try “What’s happened for you?”. Trauma-informed approaches remind students that they are seen and supported, not judged.
- Celebrate diverse identities and stories: Representation in curriculum, displays, and classroom discussions communicates that every background and identity belongs.
When pupils feel safe, they do not just learn better – they thrive. They are more resilient, more engaged, and more able to take the healthy risks that learning demands.
Psychological Safety for Staff: The Heart of a Healthy School Culture
Teachers and school staff are the emotional climate-makers of a school. Yet education can be high-pressure, high-stakes, and emotionally demanding. When staff feel psychologically unsafe – afraid to admit mistakes, speak up about workload, or try new approaches – creativity and wellbeing suffer.
Building safety for staff means:
- Leadership that listens: School leaders set the tone by asking for honest feedback and responding constructively. Phrases like “What do you need?” or “What would make this better for you?” open doors.
- Permission to be human: Staff who can talk openly about stress, uncertainty, or failure model the same authenticity we want for students.
- Collaborative problem-solving: Rather than top-down directives, invite co-creation. Involve staff in shaping policies, curriculum, and wellbeing initiatives.
- Psychological safety in meetings: Encourage questions and divergent views without fear of reprisal. Recognise contributions and credit effort, not just outcomes.
A psychologically safe staff culture fuels innovation, trust, and retention. As one teacher put it: “When I know I am trusted, that I can speak honestly and still be respected, I do my best work.”
Psychological Safety for Parents and Carers: Strengthening the School-Home Partnership
Parents and carers are essential partners in children’s education. But they too need to feel that they can approach the school without fear of judgment or dismissal. When parents feel psychologically unsafe – worried they will be labelled as “difficult” or “uninvolved” – communication breaks down, and pupils lose out.
Ways to build parental safety:
- Welcome curiosity, not compliance: Encourage questions and conversations rather than expecting silent agreement.
- Make communication two-way: Use surveys, listening sessions, or informal coffee mornings where parents can speak freely.
- Acknowledge emotions: School issues can trigger strong feelings – about fairness, inclusion, or a child’s needs. A calm, empathic response goes a long way: “I can see this matters to you; let’s explore it together.”
- Be transparent: Clear explanations of decisions, policies, and next steps reduce uncertainty and build trust.
When parents feel valued as partners rather than judged as outsiders, collaboration deepens – and the child benefits most.
Practical Strategies for a Whole-School Approach
Creating psychological safety isn’t a one-off initiative – it is a cultural commitment. Here are some practical steps schools can take to embed it across the community:
- Set shared values and norms: Make “respect”, “listening”, and “learning from mistakes” explicit cultural pillars.
- Model it from the top: Leaders who admit their own learning moments signal that vulnerability is safe.
- Train for empathy and communication: Provide staff development on trauma-informed practice, restorative conversations, and active listening.
- Measure what matters: Use anonymous surveys or student voice groups to gauge how safe people feel – and act on the findings.
- Create visible reminders: Displays or messages around the school that celebrate kindness, courage, and belonging reinforce the norm.
The Payoff: Belonging, Growth, and Flourishing
When psychological safety is strong, schools transform. Pupils engage more deeply. Staff collaborate more freely. Parents and carers trust more fully. Challenges still arise – but they are faced with honesty and compassion, not fear or blame.
At its heart, psychological safety is about human connection. It is about creating the kind of school where everyone – whether they are five or fifty – feels that they matter, that their voice counts, and that they can grow without fear.
As one headteacher put it:
“We can’t expect children to take learning risks if the adults around them aren’t allowed to take emotional ones.”
So let’s build schools, colleges and trusts where everyone can speak up, be heard, and belong. Creating psychological safety is not a luxury – it is the foundation of a thriving school. When we get it right – for pupils, staff, and parents/ carers – trust, wellbeing and learning all manifest and become embedded in the culture.
When 'Belonging' Replaces 'Equity': The Silence of White Male Educators
Written by Hannah Wilson
Founder and Director of the Belonging Effect (formerly Diverse Educators).
Across schools, colleges and trusts, a quiet linguistic shift has taken root. Many white male educators – often in leadership roles, often well-meaning – are talking less about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and more about belonging. At first, it sounds like progress. Who could possibly argue with belonging? It’s warm, inclusive, even healing.
But beneath that linguistic comfort lies something more complicated. When white male educators embrace “belonging” while sidestepping conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion, they risk participating in a subtle but powerful form of avoidance – one that centres comfort over accountability, and cohesion over justice.
The Appeal of ‘Belonging’
There’s no denying the emotional resonance of belonging. Everyone wants to feel seen, valued, and part of a community. The word signals care and connection – qualities deeply needed in our schools.
Yet belonging, in its current popular use, carries a kind of neutrality that makes it especially attractive to those uncomfortable with conversations about race, power, and privilege. It sounds universal and non-political. It doesn’t demand that we ask who has been excluded, whose histories have been erased, or whose comfort is prioritized.
For many white male educators, “belonging” feels like safer ground. It lets them express empathy without stepping into the uneasy territory of systemic inequity. It invites community-building without requiring structural change.
But that safety is precisely the problem.
What Gets Lost When We Skip DEI
Belonging, when untethered from the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion, risks becoming a hollow promise. It shifts the focus from systems to feelings – from justice to comfort.
- Diversity asks: Who is here? Who is missing?
- Equity asks: Who has access to opportunity and resources? Who are the gatekeepers?
- Inclusion asks: Whose voices shape our culture and decisions? Who is being silenced?
- Belonging, in its best form, should ask: How do we ensure everyone feels valued within equitable systems?
But too often, belonging is invoked instead of those questions, not because of them. It becomes a way to soothe rather than to solve – a way to look caring without confronting the root causes of exclusion.
In that sense, “belonging” can function as the linguistic comfort food of educational leadership: it fills us up emotionally but leaves the deeper hunger for justice untouched. In other words, it is a plaster on a problem, the problem just becomes hidden.
The Silence of Power
Language choices are never neutral, especially when made by those in positions of authority. White male educators still hold disproportionate power in most educational spaces – whether as principals, governors, professors, or thought leaders. Their voices shape what counts as acceptable discourse.
When those voices go quiet around diversity, equity, and inclusion, the silence speaks volumes. It signals to colleagues and students that DEI is passé, divisive, or optional. It allows institutions to drift away from equity work under the comforting banner of belonging.
And when belonging becomes the new vocabulary of leadership, it risks recentring white male experience – transforming a call for justice into a call for harmony, where discomfort is avoided rather than embraced as part of growth.
This silence doesn’t just maintain the status quo; it legitimises it. It says, “We care, but not enough to change.”
The Cost of Comfort
The consequences of this linguistic shift are real.
- DEI initiatives lose funding or visibility because “we’re focusing on belonging now.”
- Educators of colour are asked to “bring everyone together” instead of naming inequity.
- Students from marginalised backgrounds hear that they “belong,” but still experience microaggressions, biased pedagogy, and uneven discipline.
The rhetoric of belonging, when detached from diversity and equity, offers inclusion without transformation. It becomes a story we tell ourselves about progress, even as the systems of inequity remain intact.
True belonging is not created through slogans, surveys, or drop down days. It grows when power is redistributed, voices long ignored are amplified, and systems are redesigned to ensure fairness. Without that foundation, belonging is little more than an emotional gloss over structural inequity (or some pretty icing on some stale cake).
A Call Back to Courage
None of this is to say that belonging doesn’t matter. It matters deeply. But belonging must be built on top of equity, not in place of it.
White male educators, in particular, have a responsibility to stay in the discomfort – to speak not just about togetherness, but about justice. Silence is not neutrality; it is complicity. And shifting the language without shifting the practice is not progress – it’s retreat.
Belonging that is worth having will always be born from honesty, from the willingness to look directly at inequity and to act against it. It requires courage, humility, and a refusal to choose comfort over truth.
A Final Thought
If we are serious about belonging, then we must be serious about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Because real belonging does not come from soft language – it comes from hard work.
Belonging without equity is not inclusion.
It’s avoidance dressed as empathy.
The challenge for white male educators – and indeed, for all of us – is to ensure that our words do not outpace our courage.
Thus, we must become more conscious of who we are when we are doing DEIB work, we must be confident we are tackling problems and not causing further harm, we must be competent in navigating each layer of our workplace culture as belonging is only surfaced when diversity, equity and inclusion are established and embedded in the foundations.
Defying Gravity: The Moral and Systemic Corruption of the UK - A Wicked Retrospective
Written by Adrian McLean
Ambassador of Character, Executive Headteacher, TEDx Speaker, BE Associate Trainer & Coach, Governors for Schools Trustee, Positive Disruptor
My family and I were like most people across the country. We had been waiting for the new Wicked film to drop. We booked release day and went in ready for the spectacle. The film delivered what we expected: strong performances, sharp visuals and a story that still hits. But I walked out thinking about something else entirely. Beneath the entertainment sat a message about power, belonging and corruption that felt uncomfortably close to home. That is what pushed me to write this piece.
Wicked lands because it shows how fear, pressure and status can twist people who start with decent intentions. You watch two leaders take different paths, both shaped by the same system that rewards silence and punishes dissent. That world is fiction, but the pattern matches the UK’s struggle with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB). When a system prizes comfort over justice, virtues start to warp into vices and inequality becomes normal.
The Emerald City and the Illusion of UK Stability
Elphaba is excluded from the start. Her difference becomes a tool for control. The Wizard turns that fear into policy by stripping the animals of their rights. Oz calls itself prosperous, but the shine hides a rotten core.
The UK does the same. The claim of stability masks persistent, recorded inequities. Black Caribbean pupils are still excluded from school at far higher rates than White British pupils, which fuels the Schools to Prison Pipeline. Minority ethnic jobseekers continue to submit far more applications for the same employer interest. Data from the Social Metrics Commission shows Black and minority ethnic people are more than twice as likely to experience relative poverty and face higher exposure to fuel and food insecurity. None of this is new. It is repeated in every major review that looks at structural inequality.
The pattern is simple. Exclusion begins with a label, then becomes a story, then becomes a policy. When a state or organisation frames a group as a threat to stability, belonging becomes conditional and rights become flexible. Oz had the silencing of the animals. We have exclusions, unequal labour market outcomes and cost of living impacts that fall hardest on the same groups every time.
Virtues Turned into Vices
Wicked shows that the Wizard’s regime survives because people with influence let their virtues bend under pressure. They do not wake up intending to harm anyone, they drift into it.
Glinda thrives because she is charming and quick to connect. Her core virtue is affability. She wants harmony, status and approval. Under pressure, this slides into moral silence. She denies Elphaba to keep her place in the system and tells herself that compromise keeps things stable.
The UK has Glindas’ in politics, business and education. These are the institutional centrists who talk about fairness without taking risks that would cost them capital or access. They avoid reforms that would unsettle sponsors, investors or senior colleagues. When DEIB becomes politically inconvenient, they retreat. Their instinct for consensus turns into complacency and the result is stalled progress.
Elphaba’s driving virtue is conviction. She sees injustice and refuses to look away. She fights for the animals when no one else will. Under pressure, this hardens into isolation. She stops listening and her stance becomes so rigid that her allies shrink back. The regime uses that isolation to paint her as the problem.
The UK has Elphabas in social movements, school leadership and community activism. They push equity forward when institutions resist. The risk is that their conviction becomes inflexible. When leaders hold the line alone, they become easy to discredit. They get written off as difficult, extreme or disruptive, even when their claims are evidence backed.
The Wizard builds his authority by shaping the story people live inside. He presents order, progress and unity. Behind the curtain is manipulation and fear. His virtue is charisma coupled with organisational skill. Under pressure, this becomes populism. He manufactures enemies to distract from his failures.
The UK has seen its own operators of conformity. The rise of symbolic politics is one example. The volume of flags, organisational figureheads and public posturing has increased while pay gaps, attainment gaps and poverty rates keep widening. It is easier to demand visible allegiance than to fix structural problems.
A core tactic in this pattern is the creation of a convenient scapegoat. In Wicked, the Wizard convinces the public that Elphaba is responsible for every disruption in Oz. The accuracy of the claim is irrelevant. The story does the work. Parts of UK discourse follow the same script when complex economic pressures are reduced to a simple claim that immigrants are the cause of national strain. This persists even when economic data shows that immigration contributes net labour, tax revenue and essential workforce capacity. The point is not evidence. The point is to give the public a target that keeps attention away from systemic failure. When critics raise equity issues, they are dismissed as divisive or ideological. This mirrors the way the Wizard and Madame Morrible brand Elphaba as wicked to steer attention away from his regime.
Defying the Wizard: finding the mean
Elphaba’s turning point comes when she stops running and confronts the system head-on. She rejects the false choice between silence and isolation. She does not become Glinda. She does not become a fanatic. She chooses the difficult mean between the two.
The UK needs the same shift. Our current system rewards leaders who avoid conflict or leaders who burn out fighting it alone. We need leaders who will act before the next inquiry or crisis forces their hand. That requires policy choices that tackle the structural inequities we keep measuring but rarely fix.
Three moves that will help to shift the system.
- Mandatory and enforced pay transparency
Ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting should match the current gender reporting model with annual publication and mandatory action plans. This exposes the blocks that keep certain groups stuck at the bottom of organisational hierarchies. When data is public, silence becomes harder and accountability becomes real. This cuts off the pattern where affability turns into complacency. - De-biasing the talent pipeline
Hiring and promotion systems need unbiased review at the early stages and consistent scoring frameworks at later stages. Several public bodies and trusts have already piloted these methods with measurable gains in fairness and diversity. The point is not ideology. It is basic organisational integrity. Merit cannot be judged if bias enters the process before talent is seen. This stops conviction from becoming isolated because people no longer have to fight as lone moral actors to access opportunity. - Anchoring belonging in policy
Belonging cannot remain an aspiration or marketing phrase. It needs to sit inside the cost of living strategy, local authority funding decisions and NHS workforce plans. Policies should undergo Equality Impact Assessments (EIA) that account for race, disability, gender and income as a minimum. The data already exists. The gap is political will. Without structural safeguards, the same groups get hit first every time the economy tightens.
The most potent lesson from Wicked is that silence and fear serve the powerful. Until the core structure of the UK (Emerald City) is challenged, the wicked labels, the resulting inequalities and the denial of Belonging will persist.
Call to Action
Belonging will not grow by itself. It grows when people stop accepting shortcuts, scapegoats and silence.
- Challenge claims that have no evidence. Look at the data, not the headline.
- Ask leaders for the numbers behind their decisions and push for policies that close gaps rather than mask them.
- In workplaces, demand transparent reporting, fair recruitment and consistent standards.
- Back colleagues who raise equity issues instead of leaving them exposed.
These steps are not dramatic, but they are the ones that stop a society falling for the Wizard’s story and start shifting it toward something fairer.
#RENDBristol - a day of hope, connectivity and solidarity.
Written by Hannah Wilson
Founder and Director of the Belonging Effect (formerly Diverse Educators).
Another Saturday… another grassroots event… this time I co-organised and co-hosted the inaugural #REND event in Bristol.
My friends and family who are not in education do not get it – ‘Why do you work on Saturdays Hannah?’ I get asked regularly when challenged about my work life balance. My reply is often the same – it does not feel like work when it is driven by purpose and passion. And the work is too important and too urgent – how else would we get 100 people together to talk about racial equity?
So when Domini and Rahima reached out to me in early June and asked me to join them in co-organising the first REND event in the SW, my answer was a firm yes. Having attended multiple #REND events in Luton, Birmingham and London, it was great to be holding one closer to my home in Bath. As a friend of Sufian and a supporter of Chiltern Learning Trust I wanted to help them mobilise the movement to other parts of the country to help spread the word.
Brought up in North Devon, I also always love delivering DEIB training and supporting educational organisations in the South West with their DEIB strategy. When we talk about legacy, my hopes are to grow consciousness, confidence and competence in DEIB matters in the less diverse parts of the country. We all know that the shires and the white-majority parts of the country need these events and these conversations as much as the cities and the more diverse parts of the country.
Once we got the green light from Sufian to start planning we began to plan the event. Having all attended the black-tie Friday night events we wanted to disrupt things and try a different model to make it more inclusive and more accessible to attend. So we decided to pilot a lunchtime event instead. Furthermore, instead of a dress-up event and a formal meal we went for a more casual affair and a DIY approach. We realised quite quickly how much work we were taking on so we reached out to Tanisha to join the organising team. A big thank you from all of us to Jo and the team at Cotham School for generously hosting us and for so many of the staff who rolled up their sleeves at the event.
Our approach thus meant that we did not need to secure large sponsors – we wanted the event to be grassroots and we were keen to elevate the small orgs, charities/ CICs and individuals doing the work in our region – hence we built a marketplace into the event flow. A massive thank you to our exhibitors who supported the event: Belonging Effect, Cabot Learning Federation, Courageous Leadership, HGS Education Ltd, Jigsaw Education Group, PGS Educators, SARI, Somerset Research School , South Gloucestershire Race Equality Network and Teacheroo.
Curating the line-up of speakers – we were committed to amplifying a local headteacher, a regional academic, best practice from Wales alongside national thought leaders, role models and researchers. We mapped out how many speakers we could fit into the schedule and landed on part 1 with 3 speakers before our Caribbean lunch and part 2 with 3 more speakers post-lunch. We have so much appreciation for our speakers for the work they do, for travelling to join us on a weekend and for speaking for free: Canon David Hermitt, Del Planter, Diana Osagie, Lilian Martin, Dr Marie-Annick Gournet and Sufian Sadiq. (For reference the slide deck from the main hall is here).
With all of the details confirmed we then began to market the event on our socials and across our networks. Our call to action was simple: “Following on from the sell out Racial Equity: Network Dinners launched by Chiltern Teaching School and continued around the country we are delighted to announce the arrival of the event in Bristol. The Racial Equity: Network Dinner is an opportunity for people across the education sector who share and appreciate the importance of racial equity, to come together to celebrate, network and enjoy a delicious meal”.
Our target was to bring 100 people together for our first event and we were only a few people shy on the day – our challenge now is to get everyone to return to our next event and bring someone with them who needs to be in the room to hear the messages that were shared.
The day was a whirlwind: from blowing up balloons, to laying the tables, serving the food, to greeting our speakers and holding space for our guests – the time disappeared quickly. It was brilliant to see so many familiar faces in the room, to meet virtual connections in person and to connect with new people from the area who are committed to making educational space more inclusive, more representative and ultimately safer for our global majority communities and colleagues.
Thank you for the positive feedback we have already received:
- Fern Hughes: “With 100 brilliant attendees, the room was full of purpose, passion and powerful conversation. Networking and connecting with so many inspiring people working across education — a sector close to my heart — made the day even more meaningful”.
- Adrian McLean:“#REND Bristol did things in style! Expertly arranged by Domini Choudhury Tanisha Hicks-Beresford Rahima Khatun-Malik & Hannah Wilson – we left with full hearts and a full belly!”
- David Stewart: “I’m not one for networking events. I find them superficial, surface-level, and inauthentic. But today completely changed that. Today I was invited to the REND Bristol event — the passion, authenticity, and energy brought by the exhibitors, guest speakers, and organisers was outstanding. Conversations were deep and particularly meaningful. Every speaker shared their story with pride and optimism for the future, and the organisers made the entire day run seamlessly”.
- Saima Akhtar: “Race equity work in education is not just important, it is transformative. It shapes futures, dismantles barriers, and creates spaces where every learner can thrive. As educators and advocates, we carry a profound responsibility to drive this work forward with urgency and courage. The progress we make today will define the opportunities of tomorrow. The conversations and energy in this space never fail to inspire me, but today, thanks to REND, I feel like my inspiration has had an energy drink! Let’s keep pushing boundaries, challenging norms, and ensuring that equity is not just a vision but a lived reality for every child”.
So what’s next?
If you attended we would love to hear your feedback – including what worked and what we can improve at a future event – please do complete the feedback form: REND Bristol Saturday 22 Nov 2025 feedback. Domini, Rahima, Tanisha and I are then meeting next weekend to review the event and the feedback to confirm our next steps as we want to keep the connections, the conversations and the momentum going.
In the meanwhile, you can join the conversation on LinkedIn – we have a #REND networking group here and we have collated all of the #RENDBristol reflection posts here. If you are not on Linkedin then you can join our private community space on Mighty Networks and find the #REND community group here.
We have also created a page on the Belonging Effect’s website for more information about #REND events around the country (it will be updated over the coming weeks). Ann, who joined us as a delegate in Bristol, is hosting #RENDLondon on Friday 12th December – you can book a ticket here.
For people who live and work in Bristol, we would love to see you at our #DiverseEd Hub – Tanisha and I host it at the Bristol Cathedral School each half-term, our next meet up is after school on Wednesday 3rd December.
When I relocated to Bath in 2023, we hosted a #DiverseEd event at Bridge Learning Campus in Bristol. We are delighted to be hosting our next regional #DiverseEd event at IKB Academy in Keynsham on June 13th. Get in touch if you would like to exhibit/ facilitate a session – the line-up will be confirmed in the new year.
Some final signposting:
- I chatted to a few people about Black Men Teach, you can find them and 200+ other orgs supporting schools, colleges and trusts in our DEIB Directory.
- We would love to publish some more blogs reflecting on the themes from the event, please email me with any submissions.
- Hopefully you got to say hello to Adele from Teacheroo – we collaborate on a jobs board with them to connect diverse educators with settings who are committed to the work. We host free adverts for vacancies for ITTE, DEIB / anti-racist leaders and for governors/ trustees – do get in touch if we can help you promote career development opportunities with our network.
Thank you to everyone who attended and supported #RENDBristol – we look forward to sending out more follow up information and opportunities from our speakers and exhibitors from this event and to reconnecting soon.
A Safe, Professional DEIB Network for Educators
Written by Jo Brassington
Jo Brassington (they/them) is a former primary school teacher, the co-founder of Pride & Progress, and the co-author of Pride & Progress: Making Schools LGBT+ Inclusive Spaces. They work with schools, universities, and charities primarily around LGBT+ inclusion, trans awareness, and children's mental health.
In the first year of my teaching career, my mentors and school leaders gave me lots of great advice as a new, early career teacher. One suggestion in particular confused me at the time, but went on to have a huge, positive impact on both my teaching practice and my career.
During an early-morning chat, my headteacher told me I should join Twitter. I’d used Twitter before, but never in a way that could support me professionally. I was sceptical at first, but about a week later, sitting alone in my classroom after school, I downloaded the app and made myself a new account.
In the weeks that followed, I began connecting with other educators on “teacher Twitter” and slowly built a network. Very quickly, I understood why my headteacher had recommended it. Back then, Twitter was an engaged and empowering space for teachers. You could find educators interested in the same aspects of teaching as you, share resources and ideas, ask questions, exchange advice, and genuinely become better educators together. It felt like a huge, supportive staffroom online – somewhere safe, generous, and collaborative. I learned so much from the people I met there, and that network made me a better, more informed teacher.
When I look back at my career, so many of the things I’m most proud of can be traced back to that space. I became a better teacher through connecting with people like Becky Carlzon on Twitter. I started Pride & Progress with my colleague Adam, who I met on Twitter. And now I’m a Lead Associate for Belonging Effect—another connection first made (you guessed it) on Twitter.
Twitter for teachers was brilliant… until it wasn’t. I don’t need to document the downfall of the digital town square—chances are you witnessed it yourself, or read about it in the news. The platform doesn’t exist under the same name anymore, and neither do the positive values I’ve described. Like many teachers, I eventually deleted my account. It became a space filled with hostility, and it was no longer a safe space for meaningful conversations about diversity.
Losing that vibrant professional community has been a real loss. I tried moving to other platforms, but nothing felt the same. And I’ve had countless conversations with teachers who, like me, are still missing that engaged, supportive online staffroom.
Aware of this gap, we at Belonging Effect have been working to co-create a solution. A while ago, we opened a network space on Mighty Networks under our previous name, ‘Diverse Educators’. Mighty Networks allows you to build your own networking space, shape it for the needs of your community, and most importantly – keep it safe. Following our rebrand earlier this year, we’re now working to re-energise that space.
The Belonging Effect Network is a safe, professional networking space for those working in education to connect and discuss Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. It’s a closed network, and new members answer a few questions before joining – this helps keep the space safe for our community. Through the app or web-browser, you can access what looks like its own social networking space. Inside, you’ll find blogs, books, resources, events, and identity-based networks to support different communities. Our hope is that this becomes the supportive online staffroom so many of us have been missing—but it will only thrive if the community is active and engaged.
If you’d like to help us rebuild the kind of professional networking space that teachers need – and if you’re looking for a supportive, values-led network yourself – then join the Belonging Effect Network today. You can find out more and sign up here. Better still, invite colleagues who you think might be interested by sending them this blog.
We hope to see you in the Belonging Effect Network soon.
Seen, Valued… and Able: Designing Classrooms for Social and Academic Belonging
Written by Tricia Taylor
With more than 25 years’ experience teaching and leading in schools across the UK and the USA, Tricia founded TailoredPractice to bridge the gap between research and classroom practice. Driven by a passion for making learning work for everyone, she now partners with schools worldwide to translate cognitive science into practical strategies that challenge and support all learners. A regular Learning & the Brain Conference speaker and author of Connect the Dots: The Collective Power of Relationships, Memory and Mindset, she is also Head of Teaching and Learning at Mallorca International School.
Belonging isn’t separate from academic teaching. Strategies that build knowledge—when done correctly—also build belonging.
A heartfelt card from reception (kindergarten) child to a headteacher, which says: “I love it how you always pay attention to me when I am talking.”
I know the headteacher who received this on the last day of term. She kneels to students’ height, meets their eyes and listens without rushing. It’s powerful when that’s modelled from the top. Behind the scenes, great leaders, like this one, also put systems in place so belonging is as much social as it is academic. Yes, we greet students at the door AND we also design routines, teaching strategies and feedback structures that help every students feel seen, valued and able to learn.
Belonging has two strands
In school, when we talk about ‘belonging’, we often focus on the social—names, greetings, being known. That matters. But students also need academic belonging: the steady sense that their thinking belongs here, that they can see what ‘good’ looks like, and that there’s a fair and achievable route to get there. The strands work best together: warmth without stretch becomes ‘nice but low challenge’; stretch without safety shuts down risk-taking.”
- Social belonging: feeling accepted, respected, included, and emotionally safe with peers and adults.
- Academic belonging: feeling like a valued, accepted and legitimate member of the subject community—“people like me do this work here”—with clear expectations and support to succeed.
Students’ experiences of race, language, gender or identity can shape whether they feel safe and legitimate in the classroom community, socially, emotionally and academicially. As Glenn Whitman from the Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning writes, “Belonging is not a monolithic thing you either have or don’t have … each student will feel a sense of belonging in some spaces but not others.”
Barriers to belonging (what we saw)
This year, when the teachers and I brainstormed barriers to belonging, we could see both social and academic situations when students lack that sense of belonging.
- Social (& emotional) barriers. Mispronounced or shortened names; not knowing who to sit with at lunch; wondering “Does my teacher like me?”; cliques and subtle hierarchies; loneliness; curriculum or displays that don’t reflect students’ identities; inconsistent behaviour norms — “I don’t know how to act here”; lack of trust that it’s safe to be yourself.
- Academic barriers. Unclear success criteria; errors made public with no way to repair; low-challenge tasks that signal low expectations; speed mistaken for worth while the class moves on; English as an additional language without scaffolds; risky participation structures (like round-robin reading or hands-up dominance); tracking/setting that labels students.
- When they overlap. Participation feels risky or pointless; attention shifts to self-protection and working memory overloads with worry. The result is less learning.
What students say works
When teenagers describe classes where they belong, two themes surface. They feel they belong when (1) teachers intentionally build trust and peer relationships, for example, using seating to encourage peer interaction rather than as punishment—and when (2) teachers use supportive structures: rehearsal before sharing (turn-and-talk), specific and actionable feedback, clear scaffolding of complex concepts, and treating wrong answers as opportunities for growth rather than labels of who is “smart” or “dumb.” (Keyes, 2019). Together, these strategies draw in students who might otherwise hold back—socially, emotionally, and academically.
Classroom strategies — a dual purpose
Have a look at these common high-impact strategies for budding knowledge and see how—when done correctly—they also create a sense of academic belonging:
Strategy |
What is it? |
How it connects to belonging |
| Spaced retrieval | Short, low-stakes questions on prior learning, spaced over time (no peeking). | Early wins and visible progress show “I can do this here.” Thinking hard to retrieve is valued over ‘the right answer’. |
| Hands-down questioning (Question → pause → name) | Ask, wait 3–5 seconds, then invite a student by name. | Protected think time; wider participation beyond the quickest hands. |
| Oracy (talk partners) | Structured partner talk with sentence stems and rotating roles. | Every voice rehearsed, heard and valued; confidence and precision to share ideas increases. |
Checking all for understanding |
Mini-whiteboards, exit tickets, “show me” checks—then adjust teaching. | Everyone’s thinking counts; mistakes become next steps, not labels. My teacher is paying attention to my progress. |
Make them routine
Belonging grows when school feels reliable: steady relationships, clear expectations, visible support, fair access. That happens when our best strategies run as predictable routines. Predictability lowers anxiety, frees working memory and signals a way in… every lesson.
Let’s take a popular strategy like the Do Now — a 2–3 minute starter students begin immediately on entry. Four quick steps:
- On screen before entry: three retrieval questions (last lesson / last week / last month).→ students walk in knowing what’s expected. The clarity signals: “There’s a place for me here.”
- Students get straight to work: 2 minutes of quiet thinking and recording answers.→ Everyone has something they can attempt. Early wins show: “I can do this.”
- Teacher scan: circulates, glances at responses, offers a quick prompt or encouragement, and notes who might need support.→ The teacher is paying attention; my thinking matters.
- Whole-class spotlight: share one item together; mistakes are treated as part of the process.→ Errors aren’t labels; they’re part of learning. Students feel safe to take risks.
Same time, same steps, every day: the routine creates early wins and builds academic belonging.
Leaders set the tone
When a school leader models real attention—and builds systems so every adult does the same—students sense they matter. In the lesson, they run a simple test: Can I see what “good” looks like? Do I have a fair shot at producing it here? Is someone paying attention to my thinking? Good design lets them answer yes, yes, and yes.
So leaders, If belonging is an initiative in your school, make sure the strategies you model in professional development build belonging socially and academically. It’s not either/or — both matter.
Further Reading
- Keyes, T. S. (2019). Factors that promote classroom belonging and engagement among high school students. School Community Journal, 29(1), 171–200. (Student interviews highlighting the importance of trust, supportive participation, and error-as-learning.) Link
- Lawrie, S. I., Carter, D., et al. (2025). A tale of two belongings: Social and academic belonging differentially shape academic and psychological outcomes among university students. Frontiers in Psychology. Link
- Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 82–96. Link
- Whitman, G. (2024). Setting the Conditions for Learning: Why Belonging and Great Teaching Always Matter. Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning. Link
Rethinking Normality in Uncertain Times
Written by Rachida Dahman
Rachida Dahman is an international educator, a language and literature teacher, and an educational innovator. She started her career in Germany as a teacher trainer advocating the importance of relationships above academics. She then moved to Luxembourg where she teaches German language and literature classes to middle and high school students. She is an award-winning poet, co-author of the best-selling book, ATLAS DER ENTSCHEIDER Entscheiden wie die Profis- Dynamik, Komplexität und Stress meistern.
In the unique context of international schools, where educators and students navigate diverse cultures, languages, and constantly shifting global realities, the idea of “normality” becomes especially complex and fluid. Normality is a cultural construct, constantly reinforced by politics, media, and rituals, not a natural state that we are pulled out of and then simply fall back into once circumstances allow. I was recently asked how, in the midst of today’s wars and crises, one can possibly “restore normality” and how teachers, who are confronted with this longing for stability every day, can take such a demand seriously.
What we call normality in everyday life and leisure is itself an artifact. Politics, talk shows, and public rituals generate their own images of normality. Here lies the danger of what might be called a ”normalization conservatism”: a desire to return to an imagined state of stability. Yet normality cannot be simply retrieved. It is manufactured with all the means of artifice.
And so the real problem shifts. The issue is not the absence of normality, but the attempt to reproduce it artificially. This attempt is carried by a strange mixture of fear and arrogance: fear of the unpredictability of the present and arrogance in believing that politics, media, or public speech could create a truly stable foundation. The result is an echo of rituals, slogans, and symbols that produce the appearance of security, without offering real orientation.
What often goes unnoticed is that tensions persist even beneath these efforts. In education, for example, teachers may feel the impulse to fit students into neat frameworks, an attempt to create order and stability. But such frameworks can quickly become another burden of responsibility, placing conformity above growth. If we give in to this impulse too often, we risk reaching a dead end, both our own creativity and that of our students may be abruptly set aside when the next societal or political storm arrives.
Normality, then, is not a return but always a creation. It does not emerge from artifacts, from the decorative gestures of politics, or from the ritualized dramaturgy of talk shows. It arises in the concrete ways we speak with one another, work together, and share responsibility. As a teacher, this means I cannot give my students normality. But I can create spaces where openness, uncertainty, and incompleteness have a place. Precisely because we are sometimes surrounded by fear and arrogance, we must learn that normality does not grow out of incantation, it grows out of practice.
- Specific classroom strategies that create space for uncertainty, agency, or open-ended outcomes.
The royal road to practice lies in learning to hold uncertainties, to walk through them with students, and to live them rather than escape them. This requires a healthy rhythm between individual and group work, staying with themes long enough for them to unfold, and deliberately extending the passages of our interactions. Such practices are not simply pedagogical choices, they are acts of resilience.
Again and again, students emerge in our classrooms who appear to falter, whose productivity declines, or who withdraw across different subjects. Dominant opinion often interprets this as laziness, distraction, or failure. Yet what if such moments are signals, pointing to something deeper, a crisis of orientation, a struggle with culture, or an unresolved question of identity? Many students’ identities are inseparable from their artistic identity. The way they make sense of the world is through creative exploration, improvisation, or resistance to rigid forms. To dismiss their “lostness” is to miss the chance to witness identity in the making.
This is especially visible in international classrooms, where cultural displacement and multilingual realities amplify the experience of being “lost.” Students navigate between home and host cultures, between different languages, and between competing expectations of success. Their sense of orientation may collapse under these pressures. But often, it is precisely in their artistic or non-linear responses in music, storytelling, visual projects, or collaborative improvisation that they begin to negotiate belonging and articulate identity. Teachers who recognize this see disengagement not as absence, but as the raw material of presence.
Practical strategies for teachers and school leaders:
- Invite multiple modes of response. Allow students to express their understanding not only in writing or tests, but through drawing, movement, dialogue, or digital creation.
- Stay with the “lost” moment. Instead of rushing to correct or redirect, ask reflective questions: What feels unclear? How does this connect to your experience? This validates disorientation as part of learning.
- Normalize cultural reflection. When productivity drops, explore whether it relates to questions of belonging or cultural dissonance. Invite students to connect class themes with their lived realities.
- Value artistic identities. Encourage students who process through music, art, or performance to bring those forms into academic spaces. In doing so, schools acknowledge that intellectual and artistic identities are often inseparable.
- Hold open-ended outcomes. Frame tasks where the goal is not a single right answer, but exploration and meaning-making. This helps students see “lostness” as an entry point into dialogue, not as failure.
For we and our students are no longer confronted merely with crises but, in some cases, with their full collapse, coming at us in ever shorter intervals. This is why education cannot content itself with rituals of stability or the repetition of normality. To face collapse together means cultivating classrooms where uncertainty is not feared but explored, where trust outweighs control, and where collaboration becomes stronger than competition. Schools that dare to do this resist the conspiracy of appearances make visible a different kind of strength: not the fragile stability of order imposed, but the durable stability that grows when responsibility is shared, when openness is lived, and when the courage to learn is greater than the fear of loss.
2. Examples of school policies or leadership decisions that actively disrupt traditional norms in service of deeper collaboration and equity.
School leaders must learn to operate in settings that are far from a neatly swept house. Crises bring with them heightened psychological reactions, and when class sizes are too large, these reactions are often funneled into a vacuum, where learning, creativity, and engagement wither. Smaller classes are therefore a crucial condition for sustaining real interaction and meaningful reflection.
In such an environment, leaders do not impose superficial order; they cultivate spaces where uncertainty can be navigated, where students’ emotional and cognitive responses are recognized, and where teachers and leaders alike learn to stay with complexity rather than erase it. It is precisely this tension between unpredictability and deliberate guidance that allows classrooms and schools to become laboratories for resilience, collaboration, and shared responsibility.
3. Illustrations of how collaboration with other schools or nontraditional partners have tangibly reshaped practice, mindset, or outcomes.
Partnering with neighboring schools to exchange teaching resources, working with local NGOs or universities to ground projects in real-world issues, and engaging with artists, entrepreneurs, or community leaders can dramatically expand what counts as educational expertise. But these partnerships are not only about content or skill-sharing: they are spaces to gather experience, to encounter moments where emotions surface, and to practice navigating uncertainty together.
In the face of unprecedented crises that often bring destruction and disorder, such collaborations create rare opportunities to learn resilience, empathy, and adaptive problem-solving. By intentionally engaging in these exchanges, educators and students alike confront challenges that cannot be fully simulated in traditional classrooms. They experience firsthand how to act, respond, and reflect when circumstances are unpredictable, complex, and emotionally charged.
4. Practical alternatives to standard rituals, such as how grading might be approached differently, or how assemblies can be reimagined to reflect openness and inclusivity.
Many teachers experience a chill down their spine when so-called assemblies run like clockwork, sanitized and rigid, and disconnected from the lived realities of students. This subversive view of rituals challenges the assumption that standard assemblies and classroom routines are neutral or harmless. In fact, such rituals can produce psychological strain, particularly when they clash with students’ attention spans, motivation, or digital habits. Traditional timetables and fixed hours are not merely organizational tools, they are deeply pedagogical structures; if they do not fit the learners, the potential for growth collapses.
In response, assessment and classroom practices must be reimagined. Exams and grading are no longer merely measures of performance, but opportunities to engage students in democratic processes, critical reflection, and the creation of meaning. Flexible, collaborative settings allow learners to grapple with texts, ideas, and questions in ways that cultivate agency and resilience. Assemblies, too, can be transformed into forums where students and staff co-construct agendas, share inquiries, and participate in discussions that matter, fostering inclusion and shared responsibility.
Importantly, this approach integrates the realities of crises overload, digital distractions, and emotional stress directly into the design of teaching and ritual. By doing so, schools create spaces that do not simply simulate “normality,” but actively cultivate engagement, critical thinking, and emotional competence, even amidst disruption.
I have come to see that what often presents itself as normality is a kind of conspiracy: a fragile arrangement of fear and arrogance that pretends to provide stability while suppressing creativity, trust, and resilience. Observing how leadership constrained by competition and territoriality can limit possibilities, I realized that ideas flourish only when shared openly. This insight became a compass; true leadership requires courage, openness, and collaboration beyond conventional boundaries. In practice, this means designing lessons with open-ended outcomes, rethinking rituals like grading and assemblies, giving students real agency, and creating spaces for reflection and shared responsibility. Normality is not a return to order it is a creation, emerging from daily practices of trust, courage, and collaboration. And so the question is: in times of crisis, do we cling to artificial rituals of stability, or do we dare to create spaces where something genuinely new can emerge?
Disagreeing Well in The Age of Disconnect
Written by Dr Lalith Wijedoru
Dr Lalith Wijedoru loves stories with impact. He is a coach, public speaker, and facilitator who harnesses the connecting power of stories to improve social health and emotional wellbeing. In his former career as an NHS consultant paediatrician in emergency medicine, he was part of multiple national award-winning teams in staff engagement using this storytelling approach. Lalith's storytelling consultancy Behind Your Mask now supports employees across multiple work sectors including tech, law, finance, education, healthcare, and the arts.
It’s the interview question that every medical school applicant is expecting to be asked: “Why do you want to be a doctor?” All around the world, aspiring doctors like me somehow managed to say in one way or another: “I want to help people.” Thankfully, University College London (UCL) Medical School gave me the chance to prove it.
As a paediatrician, I played a crucial role in the health of children by providing treatment, preventing disease and injury, and advocating for them. My medical training made me well-versed in the interplay between mind (mental health) and body (physical health).
The coronavirus pandemic was a tsunami that swept disconnect across the planet. Restrictions on our movement outside the home with limited exercise affected all of our physical health. The seismic shift to online working and video conferencing affected our mental health. For me, the biggest impact was social distancing. That had a detrimental effect on our social health.
Social health is our ability to form and maintain positive relationships: those which are healthy and meaningful. Relationships can be with friends, neighbours, and our work colleagues. Our physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing depend on strong social bonds with others. Social distancing and remote working threatened our ability and need to deepen human connections.
When we say ‘find your tribe’, we are harking back to our animal ancestors who recognized there was great safety in surrounding ourselves with those who looked and acted like you. Things that were different represented danger, a potential threat. Xenophobia has clear evolutionary roots linked to survival. There is a sense of unity and belonging when you surround yourself with people who share facets of your identity. People who get you in some way. Others who understand you.
Our modern world has become far less segregated than the rest of the animal kingdom. The diversity that has always been there now, for the most part, co-exists in far closer proximity with far greater visibility than ever before. Social connectivity is far from homogenous, but for all the benefits of living in a diverse community, it comes with its challenges.
Diversity is not just in the more obvious visual protected characteristics of ethnicity, gender, or age. It also means diversity of thought, opinion, and belief. With that comes the potential for clash, conflict, and disconnect. So how can we cultivate meaningful relationships in a world that is disconnected ideologically and politically whilst connected digitally?
The vitriol that is not uncommonly seen on social media, the emotional and physical hostility that plays out in protests and counter-protests, and the division that is preached by certain political leaders all fan the flames of discontent, disagreement, and disconnect. People screaming their opinions at each other without consideration to what someone else has to say. Putting fingers in their ears while reciting ‘la-la-la-la’ to block out alternative views. We live in an age of not listening.
I love my alma mater for many things, but in the decades since graduating I am particularly proud of one of its recent initiatives. A campaign called Disagreeing Well. It includes a public panel discussion series, a podcast called The Bridge, and online courses on critical thinking for diverse communities where conflicting opinions and ideas exist and are expressed.
One of the things I learned from the campaign’s public series was the concept of epistemic humility. Being humble with your assumptions about your own knowledge. Recognizing that your understanding of the world is incomplete. Aware that as a consequence, you may not perceive things as clearly as you think you do.
One of the skills to promote disagreeing well is to listen carefully to each other. Listen with the intention to truly understand someone’s lived experience. Listen not with the intention to reply, fix, or criticize. My storytelling consultancy was born out of a time of great disconnect. I strive to create spaces and opportunities for us to truly listen to each other. To listen to our true, personal stories without interruption, without fear of judgment or reprimand or insult.
So what would my medical school interviewee-self think of the doctor I became? I may not be helping paediatric patients and their families with their physical and mental health anymore, but I am certainly helping people with their social health. Stories have the power to educate, engage, and inspire. One of the powers of stories that I like the most are their powers to connect. We can agree to disagree, but through stories we can kickstart respectful conversations that inevitably lead us to find the things that we do agree on. And that can only be a good thing for diversity.
Whose Values Are They Anyway?
Written by Adrian McLean
Ambassador of Character, Executive Headteacher, TEDx Speaker, BE Associate Trainer & Coach, Governors for Schools Trustee, Positive Disruptor
This blog is based on a provocation I gave to the Practical Wisdom Network to the question of “Whose values are they anyway?” I approach the provocation through the character lens of practical wisdom.
Walk into any school or scroll through a Multi-Academy Trust’s website, and you’ll see them: Respect, Aspiration, Ambition, Integrity, Courage. Neatly framed, laminated and polished like a branding exercise.
But a question should haunt us: Whose values are they anyway? Who decided that these specific words should shape the daily culture, decisions and futures of an entire community? To answer this, we need to understand the difference between values and virtues and, most importantly, the practice of practical wisdom.
Practical wisdom isn’t just book smarts; it’s life smarts. It’s the ability to do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, balancing rules with humanity. It’s the skill of making good decisions in messy, real-life situations – choosing what’s good, right, and true, not just what the rulebook says.
Values are the principles we declare we hold, like claiming to value our health. But virtues are the habits that make those values real. If health is the value, then virtues like self-discipline, perseverance, and temperance are what turn it into a daily practice. Self-discipline is choosing a walk over crashing out on the sofa; perseverance is showing up to the gym on the days you just don’t feel like it; temperance is enjoying food without swinging into excess. Put simply: values are what we say, but virtues are how we live, especially when it’s difficult.
Who Decides?
In practice, values are almost always handed down. A trust board. A group of senior leaders. Sometimes, one headteacher with a vision. But how often do we invite students, families, or associate staff into the process? How often do we open the doors to the community whose children will live with the weight of these words? Too rarely. Values are often written in a room by people who will not face their consequences. If that doesn’t unsettle us, it should.
Take, for example, “British Values.” They didn’t emerge from a national conversation; they were written into statutory guidance in 2014 following the “Trojan Horse” affair in Birmingham schools; a moment laced with political anxiety about extremism, identity and belonging. They were less the fruit of civic reflection and more a defensive assertion of national identity.
When one-size-fits-all national values are imposed on a plural, multicultural nation, the risk is that they flatten nuance and erase lived realities.
- What does “democracy” mean to a young person who has never seen their community represented in positions of power?
- What does “rule of law” mean to families who feel over-policed yet under-protected?
- What does “individual liberty” mean when opportunity is unevenly distributed and discrimination silently closes doors?
- What does “mutual respect and tolerance” mean when some identities are merely “put up with” (not representing the true meaning of tolerance), not celebrated or centred?
From a DEIB perspective, this is not neutral ground. British values often land less like a common commitment and more like a top-down script. Practical wisdom reminds us that to live well in community is not about repeating someone else’s script but cultivating the virtues to navigate complexity, difference and difficulty with integrity.
Values vs. Virtue
Aristotle taught that true flourishing wasn’t about abstract ideals but about virtues embodied in practice. As philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre notes, a value on the wall is just a word. A virtue lived out is a habit formed through struggle and character.
Integrity isn’t a poster; it’s the painful choice to tell the truth when it would be easier to conceal it. Empathy isn’t a slogan; it’s the practiced attention to the quiet child in the back row who carries the weight of the world. Without virtuous practice, values are just advertising, not meaning.
What’s Good, Right, and True?
Schools often claim they are places where children learn what is good, right, and true. But these words are slippery. What counts as good for one community may not for another. What is right in an affluent suburb may not be in a town hollowed out by unemployment. And truth, let’s be honest, is never neutral. Curricula are choices. Discipline policies are choices. Definitions of success are choices. Those choices reflect particular cultural and political traditions, not universal truths.
This is why DEIB cannot be an “add-on.” If our values exclude or silence the lived experiences of children from different racial, cultural, religious, or socioeconomic backgrounds, they are not values. They are exclusions dressed up in nice fonts. Belonging is not assimilation into someone else’s values; it is co-creating values that are genuinely shared.
Flourishing. Defined by Whom?
Too often, the system narrows flourishing to one measure: exam results. Grades are the currency of human worth, but here’s the paradox: the system itself is designed to prevent everyone from “succeeding.” Significant numbers of children will always be labelled “below standard” because that’s how exams are normed. The Department for Education’s media guidance is instructive:
- If results go up, its proof policy has raised standards.
- If results go down, its proof policy has raised standards.
A neat trick. But let’s be clear: nobody becomes better at maths simply by sitting a harder paper, especially if they ‘fail’ it. Yet this is the frame in which “flourishing” gets defined: harder benchmarks, narrower outcomes, national straplines.
So if flourishing is defined only by grades, or boxed into compliance with a centrally imposed set of British values, then flourishing is not about children at all. It is about alignment and fitting in. It is about living up to someone else’s story of what counts as good, right, and true.
That is not flourishing. That is conformity.
Pathways for Co-Creation
So, what is the alternative? Practical wisdom points us toward a different path:
- Co-creation with communities: Values forged through dialogue with students, parents, staff, and local voices; not handed down as final.
- Virtue in practice: Schools embedding habits of integrity, courage, empathy, and service in daily routines and structures; not as posters but as pedagogies.
- Flourishing as dignity and contribution: Schools are judged not only on exam results but on how their students leave with the capacity to live lives of meaning, purpose, and contribution to the common good.
- Local nuance, national honesty: Acknowledging that “British values” are not universal values, but one political frame; opening space for communities to shape how values are lived in their context.
The Dare
So here’s the provocation: Whose values are you really living by?
- Are they values chosen in Whitehall and laminated in your corridors?
- Are they values written in a boardroom and handed down like policy?
- Or are they values forged, tested, and lived in the daily practices of your community?
The dare is this: stop treating values as safe branding. Start treating them as dangerous commitments. Dangerous because they demand something of us. Dangerous because they unsettle power. Dangerous because they might actually make our schools places where all young people, not just the ones who fit the script, can truly flourish.
I’ll leave you with the question, not as comfort, but as a challenge:
Whose values are they anyway? Are you ready to change the answer?
Deficit Language: The Invisible Barrier We Do Not Talk About
Written by Hannah Wilson
Founder and Director of the Belonging Effect (formerly Diverse Educators).
We do not just describe people with our words – we define their possibilities. And sometimes, we unintentionally define them by what they lack. Too often, the language we use to describe communities puts the blame on individuals instead of the systems that fail them. This is what we call deficit language.
Why is Deficit Language Problematic?
As we strive to become more inclusive, we really need to consider the language we use and consider if it is a tool for inclusion or a weapon for exclusion. We choose our words to speak out loud our thoughts – language selection gives us agency and we need to be conscious about what we say and how it lands as there is often a gap between our intention and our impact.
In schools and workplaces we can fall into the trap of using deficit language to define and categorise people – it is problematic as it leads with what people are not, as opposed to leading with what they are. It highlights their barriers, instead of celebrating their strengths.
Definition: The word deficit comes from the Latin deficit meaning “it is wanting.” A deficit is characterised by the wanting of something missing – e.g. deficit (noun) is the property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or required.
How Do We Shape Intention into Impact?
When we talk about people, the words we choose matter. They do not just describe reality – they shape it. Deficit language is one of the most common, yet often overlooked, ways language reinforces stereotypes and limits opportunities.
Deficit-based language frames individuals, groups or communities in terms of what they lack rather than what they bring. It emphasises shortcomings, needs, or problems.
Asset-based language focuses on strengths, resources, and potential, using words and framing that promote dignity, confidence, and empowerment. It celebrates difference as a value-add.
Example 1:
It rattles me when I hear educators referring to people on their staff as ‘non-teachers’. This centres the voice and the experience of teachers at the expense of the support staff, the admin staff, the site staff, the catering staff who can be collectively referred to as the operations staff. To open a DEIB training session by welcoming everyone and naming who is in the room, it is both ironic and counter-intuitive, furthermore it undermines the commitment a school is striving to make, when the impact of the language contradicts the intention.
There is nothing ‘non’ about working in a school and being in the majority of the staff who are not the teachers.
Example 2:
It frustrates me when I hear people refer to others as ‘non-English speaking’. This assumes that everyone around the world speaks English and that there is a hierarchy of language. It makes the EAL learner or the multilingual family the problem and negates the value speaking a different language has.
There is nothing ‘non’ about being a linguist and being able to communicate in multiple languages.
Example 3:
It jars me when I hear people refer to others with a darker skin tone as ‘non-whites’. To me this smacks of racial segregation and categorisation. I can’t imagine anyone ever saying can the ‘non-boys’ come over here, or can the ‘non-parents’ go over there? It would get a reaction as it explicitly reduces people and erases their identity.
There is nothing ‘non’ about being racialised as being black, brown or biracial and belonging to the global majority.
Example 4:
It infuriates me on a personal level when people refer to me as being ‘non-married’ and a ‘non-parent’ or childless. This defines me by what I am not instead of what I am. It carries judgment about my lifestyle and my life choices. I am in fact very happy being ‘partner-free’ and ‘child-free’.
There is nothing ‘non’ about being independent, autonomous and self-sufficient.
Why is Deficit Language Harmful?
- It Perpetuates Stereotypes: Deficit framing positions people – especially marginalized communities – as inherently lacking. This reinforces harmful biases rather than dismantling them.
- It Shifts Blame to Individuals: Instead of addressing structural inequities (like underfunded schools, discriminatory hiring, or systemic racism), deficit language makes individuals appear responsible for circumstances beyond their control.
- It Limits Opportunities: Words influence perception. When people are described in deficit terms, decision-makers (teachers, employers, policymakers) may unconsciously lower expectations or overlook talent.
- It Shapes Identity: People internalise how they are described. Constantly hearing deficit-based narratives can impact self-esteem, confidence, and the way individuals see their own potential.
How Do We Move Beyond Deficit Language?
- We shift from “what’s wrong” to “what’s strong” – by replacing reductive phrases and by choosing our words more carefully.
- We highlight agency and resilience – by acknowledging the challenges people face, but also their strengths in navigating them.
- We name systems, not individuals – by focusing on the problem itself instead of focusing on the person who is facing the problem.
- We ask communities how they want to be described – by respecting that self-identification is key so we need to listen, unlearn and re-learn the language that we use.
The Bigger Picture
Moving away from deficit language is not about being “politically correct.” It is about shifting narratives to more accurately reflect reality, challenge harmful assumptions, and honour the dignity and resilience of individuals and communities.
When we change our words, we begin to change the systems they uphold. Asset-based language celebrates the value that difference brings, whereas deficit-based language puts the problem onto the person and others them.
This approach involves shifting the narrative from problems to opportunities, particularly in fields like education and social services, by recognising and valuing individual and community assets to achieve positive and equitable outcomes.
So as everyone strives to articulate their DEIB commitment, as we become more conscious of who we are and our own lived experience – can we please become more confident in modelling inclusive language and more competent in calling in and calling out language that diminishes others?