The theme for Children’s Mental Health Week this year is 'This is My Place', calling for all children to feel like they belong in school.
Belonging, or 'mattering', refers to the feeling of being valued and appreciated; the feeling that you are noticed, you are important, and you are missed when you're away.
A sense of mattering in school is crucial in children’s healthy development and wellbeing, and schools have a responsibility to ensure that all pupils are supported to belong. A lack of mattering in children or young people may result in academic difficulties, behavioural problems, and poor mental health.
The nurture principles support belonging by encouraging us to look at the whole child and meet their social and emotional development needs.
This lesson plan provides strategies to cultivate belonging in school and activity ideas to get you started.
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Cultivating belonging in pupils
As a teacher—or any member of staff interacting with children and young people—you have the opportunity to make that child feel seen, heard and valued in that space. This is a great power which can have a far-reaching impact on the wellbeing of that child. Therefore, the interactions you model with that child are significant: your facial expressions, your body language, how you speak with and listen to that child.
You should pay close attention to praise, consistency, and communicating emotions.
Strategies include:
- All adults positively greet children coming into class.
- All adults end the day positively sending the children home with a nice thought, wish for the evening and fresh start tomorrow
- All adults give praise for small achievements and be consistent with rewards and sanctions.
- Set clear achievable tasks with appropriate rewards.
Activities:
Be aware that individuals that lack a secure sense of belonging may find it difficult to engage in activities, therefore initially, perhaps do not engage directly with them or enforce participation. You might also try finding out the interests of these specific pupils and creating activities linked to it.
Our lesson plan activities include:
- I am valuable
- Fingerprints
- Yarn connections
All strategies and activities are either suitable for both primary and secondary school pupils, or we've included a simple adaptation.
Complete the form above to unlock these strategies and activities in our free lesson plan.