Building Community at Pinelands North

One negative about Covid was that it kept people away from each other. Pinelands North has always encouraged families to be part of the education solution and so Covid broke down the community vibe because we couldn’t interact as partners face to face. This year we have to focus on rebuilding our community and her a few ideas we have used to do this: 

• Welcome family members back into the passages and classrooms

While children are being dropped off or collected, staff are available to chat casually to families. Besides our usual parent meetings each grade will have their own ‘school in action’ day this year so that all family members can actually follow their children through a normal day and experience schooling today for themselves. Trust is built when parents understand exactly what goes on in every classroom.

• Focus on gratitude

We thank our parents, the staff and children for playing their part in our big picture, even if not everybody is playing a big part. Showing gratitude for small things makes others want to please the organization more and then more people will want to play a positive role to the benefit of everybody.

• Invest in the people of the community

We look out for opportunities to coach, share or workshop with parents, grandparents, pupils and their caregivers, interns, volunteers and staff. Every learning opportunity gives someone else a skill that they can use in furthering their learning in their own lives. This year we have employed thirteen Presidential Interns too: these are young unemployed youth are now assisting with art, sport and music classes, facilitating children with special needs and providing another set of eyes in classrooms.

• Encourage pupil voices

The best way to ‘know’ what is really going on behind the scenes is to ask children informally. Good adult and child relationships in a school allow children to voice opinions about staff, about safe and unsafe places at school and about their own home realities. We have staff specially trained and available to ‘listen actively’ and to act upon the advice or information given.

• Have fun, play and laugh at school

Laughter changes vibes. School should be to create opportunities to laugh, play and make schooling fun. Our staff regularly hold fun days when they might wear two different shoes to school, encourage children and staff to wear pyjamas or wear their clothes backwards. Just tiny things like this lighten the load of life and create smiles in classrooms as school starts.

• Daily shout outs

Why not catch people in the act of doing the right thing instead of the wrong? Our staff and children to look at the world through new lenses and encourage kindness, generosity and good habits by announcing what they witness over the intercom during the day.

• Shared conflict resolution language

Our school uses several ways of dealing with conflict, with families as well as the children. By sharing the language used at school to resolve conflict with our families, we encourage them to also resolve conflict at home in a similar way. If parents need to be informed of some school conflict, they will  then understand the process used too. One great way of resolving conflict is to use narrative therapy; our school tries to change people’s stories, about themselves and about others, through this process.

• Acts of kindness

Encourage acts of kindness; between people at school and those at home. Remembering a birthday, calling when you hear a family pet has died or just checking in because you thought of someone are all kind acts which show you care about the people in your community. We try to follow up regularly with our families – short emails or Whatsapp or voice notes let our families know we are thinking of them in difficult times.

• Pay it forward

A great project for the whole family is to work out who is in need around them and ask them then to ‘pay it forward’. Simple ideas like buying a pair of shoes for someone in need, offering to babysit a colicky baby or the neighbours’ dog are some ideas families have used to bring happiness to others and therefore also to themselves. We have used this idea as a holiday project for our families and it worked so well – each child was given a tin to fill with coins and then the money inside was used to ‘pay it forward’.

None of the above ideas cost money: they just take time and a little extra effort on behalf of all members of the school community. When a school community is happy, feels welcomed and safe, then the children in the school benefit hugely!