My daughter came home from school looking very glum today. She wanted to be a school councillor but had lost out in the class vote.
As I rummaged for chocolate biscuits to assuage the sad truth that democracy doesn’t always go your way, she told me about the election: “First we had to write a letter, then we all got to stand up in front of the class and tell them why we would be a good school councillor.”
“And what did you say?” I asked.
“Oh, you know, I’ve got lots of good ideas and a caring heart and I’m kind,” she said.
I love my daughter’s school. They really do teach the children that to have a caring heart and be kind is the root of it all - not in a saccharine, fluffy sense, but in a matter-of-fact, everyday way.
In my experience, kindness is something primary schools are particularly good at, but it has to be adult led. The harmonious image of small children at play and work is a misleading one. The chatter of a full playground might homogenise into a happy sound, but that largely depends on the fact you can’t hear what some of them are saying to each other.
Schools know this, so they work on it. Constantly. They do this despite the fact that so much of what exists in schools now doesn’t engender kindness (league tables, high-stakes testing, performance-related pay, to name but a few issues).
Teaching children to be kind
Even when the powers that be do touch on pastoral issues, it’s normally to endorse things such as grit and British values rather than a simple plea that schools teach children to be kind.
Of course, however you do it, you have to walk the walk. Children immediately spot a failure to practise what you preach. I remember seeing this in action some years ago. Konnor was one of the most challenging children in the school’s history. With a miserable, sometimes violent home life, he played out his frustrations in school: refusing to work, hitting out at staff and children. He was always teetering on the brink of exclusion, but somehow the school had managed to hold on to him and now he’d reached Year 3.
The year started as predicted. Konnor hid under furniture, pushed other children and flew into a rage at the drop of a hat. Then, gradually, things improved.
“What are you doing with him?” I asked his teacher. “He’s doing so much better.”
“I treat him differently,” she admitted. “I bring him in early off the playground and give him breakfast. I let him queue jump at dinner. I give him five-minute bursts of Lego and I keep a spare tie for him, so he won’t get told off for having the wrong uniform.”
And it was working. Her actions had managed to get through to him in a way that all the stern lectures, missed lunchtimes and threats of exclusion had failed to do.
Konnor’s progress through school continued to be erratic, but the second chances he was granted were endless. We knew that if children like Konnor can’t find kindness in school, there’s a danger they might not find it at all.
Jo Brighouse is a pseudonym for a primary teacher in the Midlands
