Meet and Greet (how a warm welcome makes all the difference)
Cat Jolleys catjolleys.com
Can you recall a time when you've arrived at work or walked into a meeting or social event and no one acknowledged you or tried to make a connection with you? How did it feel? Did you feel welcomed, valued, like you belonged? Did you feel motivated to contribute and give your best? Probably not.
So, it should follow that actively welcoming our children into school, at the start of each day, will not only increase their sense of belonging and reduce any anxieties about coming to school and minimise any behaviours which might prove challenging, it should also encourage them to maximise their efforts that day.
Whilst this sounds obvious and a given that all schools would welcome children at the start of each day, recently watching my own son walk into school and pass 3 or 4 members of staff without any of them even acknowledging his presence, felt disappointing to me. They didn't mean to ignore him (they're brilliant staff) but they were busy having their own conversations (both professional and socially interacting, which is crucial for staff well-being too) but if the importance and benefits of welcoming children at the start of each day were made explicit, training were given and an actual process was created with staff, then explained to children and families and finally put into policy, what a difference to each child and the whole school community, could that make?
After completing the Trauma Informed Schools Diploma in Trauma and Mental Health Informed Schools and Communities diploma Trauma Informed Schools UK in 2021, I realised that, like many schools, my colleagues' good intention i.e. a handful of staff hanging about on the playground (usually those who were 1:1 supporting SENd children or who personally enjoyed chatting with families, were early birds, or those who happened to have organised their lessons for the day and so had the opportunity and time to go outside) was inconsistent. This meant some children might be overlooked, latecomers* weren't welcomed at all and sunny days meant lots of staff outside, whilst on rainy days the welcome was less than enthusiastic with one lonely member of SLT standing there cursing their lack of umbrella and silently wishing bad things upon their colleagues.
Why?
Louise Bomber tells us about the importance of welcoming children warmly each day and how
this develops secure attachments with consistent and reliable adult figures which may be lacking outside of school.
Research also tells us how a familiar
adult providing a friendly, respectful, warm and non-judgemental greeting each
morning/at the start of each lesson, can reduce anxieties and lower arousal
levels to increase feelings of safety and engagement with learning and
attendance and reduce the likelihood of conflict and behaviours which may
challenge us.
Sue
Gerhardt, 2004 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2005-01883-000
So we made a change...
We started a staff meeting by deliberately choosing 3 or 4 staff members who we (as a sneaky SLT) would warmly and enthusiastically welcome into the room, deliberately use their name, ask them how their day had gone and ask another question or compliment them on something. The rest of the staff we actively ignored by pretending to have our own urgent conversations or literally blanking them! Once the staff meeting was underway we stopped proceedings to ask the chosen 'welcomed' staff how that had felt, then we asked the rest of them how they'd felt, especially if they'd witnessed their colleagues getting the special treatment. The results were obvious but hearing staff be honest about feeling unvalued, ignored or even disliked or wondering what they'd done wrong, was stark and a useful reminder to us all to give staff that time and attention even when not part of this social experiment. Importantly, this activity served its intended purpose and created the necessary empathy and direct experience for everyone to understand the rationale for the new initiative. Then, we explained how this just wouldn't work if we relied on the goodwill of just a handful of staff so we were going to need a rota. It was crucial SLT had a daily presence to support staff and be visible to families and important we created a fair and realistic rota which reflected particularly busy mornings for some staff and allowed flexibility for unexpected events.
Next, we told all the children in an assembly what our plan was and how we hoped this would create a happy, welcoming atmosphere and how we hoped they'd quickly feel the benefits.
Finally, we sent a letter to all parents and carers, again explaining why we were doing it and how we hoped they'd see and soon feel the benefits of this relational approach with their relationships with staff and the school community. We were even explicit that we were going to be there to meet and greet and so if lengthy conversations were needed, the usual routes of making an appointment or waiting until after 9am when most children were in class, still applied.
How?
We knew for this strategy to work, it needed to be simple, consistently applied, easy to monitor and communicated effectively. So together we created some guidelines, a fair rota and ensured good coverage of all entry/exit points and a good mix of staff each morning and afternoon, so differing roles and skillsets (eg. languages spoken) were represented.
The strategy included:
- Smile and use a warm greeting! Be aware of your facial expression and non verbal communication
- Use children's names and parent/carer names where possible (avoiding a generic and possibly patronising or incorrect 'Mum')
- EYFS parents and carers welcomed into the classroom all year (not just the first week in September) to jointly enjoy a welcoming activity with their child eg. reading a book, finding their name card, writing their initial in a sand tray etc
- Try and include a 'relational touchpoint' eg. complimenting them on their snazzy wellies or remembering an event or conversation shared previously (especially important if there's been conflict or harm the previous day - show the child this is a new day and rebuild the trust and sense of belonging)
And?
After half a term, we informally assessed the impact during a staff meeting and staff were honest about the time taken and how some mornings this led them to feeling rushed, but overall the feedback was positive with staff commenting that the pleasure they got from smiling, using children's names and the developing relationships with families, was energising and made their day start much more pleasantly. There was also lots of agreement about an unexpected reduction in staff anxiety about broaching tricky issues with parents or carers, as the relationships had deepened due to the regular positive interactions.
After a term we asked parents, during parent's evening, using ipads left around the room with a form on (and utilising interpreters amongst our staff, or older children, for families without English as a first language) and the feedback was hugely positive. Parents and carers reported feeling their children were being left in the hands of staff who really knew them, cared about them and in an environment of safety and care.
We knew it was working, but this feedback confirmed it and we felt buoyed up to carry on!
Now...
Like with any new initiative, practice slips and dark, overcast Manchester February mornings are not conducive to hanging about on the playground and smiling. So we had to regularly return to why we were doing it and even use the evidence to help.
In his book, When the Adults Change, Everything Changes Home | When the Adults Change Paul Dix asks; At the start of the day or the start of the lesson, stand at the door and shake hands with your learners, like you might do if someone knocked on your front door at home. I am sure you wouldn't sit on your sofa and scream 'Let yourself in'. You would make your guest feel welcome with a small kindness or generous word. Imagine for a moment that this consistency alone was followed to the letter by every adult for the next school year. What would be the effect on learners, the environment, the behaviour in corridors? What would the ripples out into the community be? Would learners be more punctual to lessons, the adults feel more supported and the smaller people feel safer?
A study in 2011, in the USA (Allday et al 2011; Allday and Pakurar 2007; Weinstein et al. 2009) found the positive effects of a personal greeting can be noticed within the first 10 minutes of the day.
Their intervention included greeting the target student at the door using the student's name, followed by a brief, positive interaction that communicated expectations. Results of their study found that teacher greetings increased on-task behaviour during the first 10 min of class. When students receive personal recognition before class, they have been shown to engage in academic instruction and display on-task behaviour more quickly than when they do not receive the same attention from their teacher.
Research has even shown a reaction in our brain's frontal hemisphere on hearing our own name spoken.
There are several regions in the left hemisphere that show greater activation to one’s own name, including middle frontal cortex, middle and superior temporal cortex, and cuneus. These findings provide evidence that hearing one’s own name has unique brain functioning activation specific to one’s own name.
In short, using a child's name to warmly greet them in the morning, is proven to not only speed up the rate at which they settle to and engage with learning, but also decreases the likelihood of them sitting passively or even engaging in disruptive behaviours.
What next?
Now the system is embedded and modelled to new staff and written in policy and is just what we do, we have noticed other, unexpected benefits. One KS2 teacher commented on a developed intrinsic motivation for some children, to add to the sense of community in school with them holding the doors for each other, cheerily saying good morning to peers, after having it modelled to them by staff, and parents and carers greeting and interacting with each other more positively than before. A Reception teacher developed the practice to include her class taking turns to lead the register (to learn numbers and names of classmates and develop speaking and listening skills) but also to regularly practice and rehearse explicitly welcoming and greeting each other in a way they might not otherwise and talking about why we do this and how it affects us, leading to huge development in emotional literacy and vocabulary.
*a note on latecomers - it's possibly even more important that children who arrive to school late and come through the office or main entrance, are welcomed using the same principles, just as positively if not more so, if they are to get straight into class in a regulated state and engage with learning. The conversations and process for tackling persistent poor punctuality can happen, but not there and not then.
For me there's no excuse for schools not to be meeting and greeting every student every day in a warm, relational and positive manner. If an increased sense of belonging, community, respect and improved relationships sounds appealing - start with this!
Cat Jolleys catjolleys.com
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