Making school a welcoming place

Beth:

How can we make school a more welcoming place for care experienced children and young people?

Mr Murray:

I think just having teachers being able to speak to them, there’s that old fashioned “stand at your classroom door and say good morning good afternoon to all the pupils”. And for a lot of the care experienced pupils, that’s all they want. They might not have that in their lives.

And I often say to teachers, you are their mum and dad in this situation. You are the parental figure. So you should be there, smile on your face, being welcoming. “Hi nice to see you.” If they’ve been off for a while, don’t bring it up why they’ve been off. “It’s great to have you back in class we’ve missed you.” And just having that much more positive outlook within them.

Also I feel like, I know I’m biased here, but pupil support has a big place to play in this, and being able to tell the pupils that they’ve got a safe place that if classroom’s getting overwhelming, if school’s get overwhelming, if life is getting overwhelming, they can come to somewhere like a pupil support or learning support department and being able just to have a little brain break, being able to sit five minutes, have somebody to talk to in a little bit more informal way. Ask them what’s your story what’s the matter with you just now, how can we help you, is anything we can do, and a lot of the time no they just need that five minutes to get their brain back in working order. Then they’ll go back off into the school.

And the biggest tip for me again is just that ability to listen to the pupils and for them to know that when they come and they want to speak to someone in the school that someone’s actually going to listen to them. And I think for them that that’s the most important thing.