Research School Network: COU306 Building Belonging Conference Create an inclusive environment in your school

A collaboration between Huntington Research School and Red Kite Connect exploring the evidence base, implementation and school approaches to developing positive relationships and a sense of community. This conference will cover why belonging matters, what schools can do to enhance their provision and how other schools have embarked on their own journeys.

This online conference for leaders and teachers will focus on:

• Why belonging is important to schools
• What schools should evaluate when considering belonging in their school
• Exemplification of how other practitioners and schools have implemented strategies for their context

Full access to all recordings will be provided after the event.

Find out more here: Building Belonging with Huntington Research School

1:30pm Keynote: Why belonging matters in school

From Isolation to Inclusion: The Power of Belonging with Jonny Utley, TEAL Academy Trust, and Julie Kettlewell, Huntington Research School

2:15pm Workshops: What is the priority for your context

Participants are free to select their workshop to support exploring priorities:

Engagement and belonging: Insights and learning from the national pupil engagement research cohort 2024 – 25 with Steph Hamilton from Impact Ed: In 2024 – 25 ImpactEd Group led a national commission examining engagement as a lead indicator of outcomes, facilitated by The Engagement Platform (TEP). We conducted 3 national census windows across the year and supported over 100,000 young people to take part. In this session, we’ll dive into the national insights and understand how engagement measures (including understanding belonging) has been used by leaders to shape decision making and strategy, sharing practice from benchmark beating schools.

Poverty Proofing the School Day with Jane Elsworth from Huntington Research School and Ancha Stoodley from Poverty Proofing: A case study of Huntington Research School’s experience of Poverty Proofing with Children North East and how they have built belonging for their most disadvantaged learners. The session will explore how Huntington implemented this approach for their context and their learning from the experience.

3:10pm Workshops: How to implement approaches to supporting belonging

Participants are free to select their workshop:

Three Relationships for Belonging with Mark Miller and Shahnaz Bi from Bradford Research School: In this session we will explore three relationships that can help us to build belonging: relationship with self, with others and with the curriculum. We will hear a case study from Dixons Music Primary of the role of ​‘family dining’ in enhancing these relationships and building belonging.

3:55pm Final Session: Carr Manor Case Study

All participants to return to the main room for Carr Manor share their journey of belonging in a through-school in Leeds.

Putting inclusive values into practice: where everyone is connected to a trusted adult with Tom Shaw from Carr Manor: Developing belonging begins with a commitment to inclusive values. Tom explains how these are operationalised at Carr Manor Community through small group pastoral structures. Drawing on research in relational, restorative and trauma informed practice he highlights the outcomes that have been delivered and the opportunities for schools to use their current resource in a different way to deliver more outcomes for children.

4:45pm End

The conference will end at this time and all recordings will be made available after this time.