In the past year something that everyone knew about schools - but took for granted because the idea of being without them was so unthinkable - has suddenly hit home: the place itself matters.
The people, the corridors, the unique aromas - good and bad - the green spaces and the quirky old buildings, and the shiny new ones, all echoing to shouts, laughter, tears, debates, disagreements, eureka moments: they all matter.
But for almost a year schools everywhere have, for varying lengths of time, been forced into a new reality: remote teaching and Covid-secure schools and classrooms that have, quite understandably, diluted the essence of each school, its community and its togetherness.
Losing this is not something to be taken lightly. A growing body of research confirms the benefits of building a sense of community in schools.
Specifically, research led by the University of Groningen, in The Netherlands, found that students in schools who feel a strong sense of community are more likely to be academically motivated, to act ethically and altruistically, and to develop social and emotional competencies.
These benefits are long-lasting, too. Experts have also found that the positive effects of certain community-building programmes can lead to higher academic outcomes and better teacher engagement, while another study has found that a sense of belonging among students leads to lower rates of violent behaviour, heavy drinking and sexual activity, as well as higher academic motivation and achievement.
In the international sector, these benefits from school are perhaps even more pronounced: there students come and go more frequently, cultures mix and merge in the classroom, multiple languages are spoken…yet the school itself is the thing that binds everyone together.
Matt Payne, head of lower school and a Year 1 teacher at Nord Anglia International School New York, sums this up as such: “As we are an international school, community has always been a big part of our school’s strengths. We create and nurture a community for our families to enter so that they feel at home whilst away from their native countries.”
How, then, can schools retain this sense of community, belonging and the benefits that come with it while students are sat behind a computer screen or dealing with one-way systems and no-go zones?
Liz Free, director at International School Rheintal, in Switzerland, tells Tes that, for her, making students feel connected to school throughout the pandemic has been vital.
“One of the things we’ve focused on is an unrelenting commitment to the school year. The markers in the sand that indicate the passing of time in a school year are critical for anchoring and securing our students,” she says.
Part of this has meant ensuring a focus on retaining the usual school events and rites of passage that are integral to creating a school community: “This includes things like the Christmas market, Laternelaufen [light festival], entry to Grade 1 celebration and peace day,” Free explains.
This has required some creativity, as you would imagine. “How we celebrate has required incredible ingenuity from doing an online auction for the student Christmas market, recreating the Hallowe’en walk in our middle years’ student lounge (rather than parents doing the usual event), to recording all festival productions and streaming them on our school platform,” Free adds.
Elizabeth Cloke, head of secondary at Tenby International School in Malaysia, is another who says that keeping events going has been crucial to keeping the essence of their school alive.
“For Deepavali [festival of lights] in November - during our second lockdown - students across our four schools on the campus collaborated across Teams to produce dance videos and key messages, and pre-recorded an assembly for our 700 students (and a number of parents, I expect!) to watch while we sat in tradition dress,” she says.
This may have all taken more work than usual to organise for students but it is clear that social events like this - however they have been delivered - have been key to helping schools retain their sense of what makes them special to their communities.
And this is not just done through social events, but also with academic-related events, explains Cloke.
“Debating competitions across our Tenby group have converted online, as has our International Buddy Exchange Programme,” she says. “This is actually providing more opportunity for students to get involved as there is no cost, as we can’t travel.”
Gwen Byrom, the director of education strategy at NLCS International, is another who says that working to prioritise these sort of activities has been crucial to ensure that the ideals of schools in the group have been maintained during Covid.
“The NLCS family of schools have worked hard during online learning and within the current in-country restrictions in place in Dubai, Singapore and South Korea to maintain our core values and ethos,” she says.
“This has meant everything from making sure that the academic societies (which are a core part of our academic ethos) still took place during lockdown, to ensuring that house competitions, assemblies and form time have still taken place online.”
Of course, a school community encompasses more than just pupils - families are also central to that sense of togetherness that delivers so many of the benefits outlined above.
And, in the international sector, where many parents’ main social connection in a new country may be through their school community, this is even more important.
This is why so many schools made sure they found ways to make parents feel connected to school during the past few months.
Payne says one way his school did this was to host a virtual coffee morning with parents so they felt connected and aware of school life - just as they normally would.
“During our initial time online, we were able to keep [parental engagement] going by having regular coffee mornings. We would invite parents to join us online so they could share their thoughts about the virtual experience and give us personal feedback,” he explains.
Furthermore, the school also recorded and shared its online assemblies to allow parents to watch and see how children were still coming together in a communal way.
“I would lead these for my area of the school and share work of the week that the other teachers would share with me beforehand,” Payne says.
“I would then make a recording and then send the link out to families at the end of the day each Friday. We encouraged the families to sit and watch them together to make them more of a family, community event.”
Paul Topping, headteacher of the British School in The Netherlands, agrees that technology has been key for “enabling teachers, students and parents to maintain the connectedness which underpins successful schools”.
“Whether that be through the now ubiquitous Teams calls for lessons and activities to support student welfare, or through our redesigned parent consultation evenings with mum, dad and children sat around the kitchen table, screens and software have been game-changers through these challenging times,” he says.
Cloke adds that the shift to digital tools has made many more engaged than ever before, helping to further boost the sense of community among parents and students.
“Online parent forums saw an increase in attendance and parent evenings have proved popular for the ease and practicalities from parents’ own homes. We have even had some parents engage for the first time as it is now more convenient for them.”
However, this is not to say that technology will be a replacement for school.
And this is why, whenever the rules have allowed it, schools have done whatever they can get to pupils or parents on site to help them reconnect with the school itself, as Julie Knight, the school principal of EtonHouse International Education Group in Bahrain, explains.
“We can’t have parents into the school when there are children here, but we’ve been able to have those face-to-face meetings where parents have requested them.”
EtonHouse, which has now returned to school with fewer pupils per classroom, has also made sure to do as many group activities with students as possible since returning by taking advantage of the warm weather that the nation enjoys.
“The children have done an art project, made robots and done shadow painting outside, which means our children can come together,” says Knight.
“We have that sense of community through the activities we do, so our children are spending more time outside now than they do inside.”
As the above shows, so much of how schools have responded to pandemic has not just been about academic attainment but about keeping communities together - as Topping sums up.
“Young people will always be the lifeblood of any school and even though buildings may have been empty, warm relationships and progressive learning experiences continue to be a feature of the school experience.”
Carly Page is a freelance journalist
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