Roots of Kindness

Building our Kindness Classrooms and Schools

Embedding and Rooting Kindness 🫶🏼

One of the first steps to ensure kindness is at the centre of everything that we do is to consider how as adults in the setting we communicate with each other. It sounds simple right? And it is simple once you’re actively aware.

Consider, when another colleague enters your classroom, regardless of who they are or what status or hierarchy they hold within the school - How does this first interaction take place? Think about different experiences you have had in the past with a variety of different colleagues entering your classroom. Is there an appropriate greeting (for example good morning…)? Have they greeted both yourself and your class? Have they entered and gone straight in with their query or agenda, not necessarily deliberately but too focused on their agenda in that moment?

It is likely you have 30 pairs of little eyes watching on and quietly (or sometimes not so quietly) observing this communication. Both adults are the role models here for setting the foundations for kindness from the outset of all communications that come after this. This space is both yours and your pupils safe space. The space should embed the roots for developing your kindness classroom and indeed the wider school. If this is not already happening for every encounter this is an easy ‘fix.’

Always welcome colleagues into your classroom with a positive greeting that provides the opportunity for your pupils to be involved in this. And when entering a colleagues classroom, offer a greeting to both the class teacher and pupils. A genuine positive kind comment directed towards the pupils engagement in their work, or their behaviour is a welcomed interaction too! After all, as a class teacher, you would not tolerate a pupil from another class storming into your room and interrupting your lesson without some sort of polite initial greeting, would you? But if this is the experience children witness from the adults then this is the standard that is already predetermined…

I can’t speak for everyone, but as a class teacher I am always left with a warm feeling when my colleagues come into my classroom with a positive communication between myself and my pupils. Regardless of whether they have interrupted a teaching moment or not.

These professional interactions and communication should not be exclusive to the classroom. For example, when passing colleagues in the corridors whether with your class or not we should all make an effort to have genuinely positive communications. When going on class trips or transition events to other schools etc…

This must be a collective strategy for the whole school and be genuinely positive interactions as children can smell a disingenuous communication from a mile off as can most adults!

The small things really can make a big difference! 🧸💕