It is never too late to spend time building a relationship with your group as a whole and with any individuals with whom that relationship isn’t there yet. The effect is always greater than we imagine!
A few weeks into the new term, and things have settled. The initial jitters are moving on, routines are established, and your students are building lasting peer friendships and relationships. Your class are motivated, and engagement is high across the board. Students respect and understand each other’s needs, and dysregulation is met with support and understanding…
Ok, so this is all a little too idyllic, and a few might even say it's a touch unrealistic.
And although there will always be ebbs and flows, and the aim isn’t perfection, with a little prioritising to hold student-teacher relationships at the heart of what we do, especially in this first term, we can make this idyllic scenario more the norm than the exception.
What is driving our students behaviour at this time of year?
We know some of our children will find the beginning of a new year extremely difficult, and our focus needs to match their needs rather than our targets or expectations.
To support these students - as well as their peers and ourselves - it helps to recognise how strongly times of change can increase our need for social and emotional safety. That sense of safety is shaped not just by what is happening within the individual, but by Relationship and Environment too.
Whether you have a Year 4 group who have been together for a while, a Year 7 cohort meeting each other for the first time, or a Year 10 class moving on to the pivotal KS4 curriculum, every student’s main focus over the past 4 weeks has been safety and security through friendships and relationships.
It may appear for some like they have little interest in their education and that what you are offering isn’t their main priority right now, and that’s because it isn’t.
This isn’t to suggest, however, that they aren’t interested in their learning; in fact, this safety-seeking and desire to belong can be part of their journey towards becoming more engaged and available for learning.
Why prioritise relationship?
Consciously or not, students are continually responding to Relationship, and the Environment around them. When those relationships provide connection, predictability and a sense of safety, engaging with learning can become easier.
It is never too late to spend time building a relationship with your group as a whole and with any individuals with whom that relationship isn’t there yet. The effect is always greater than we imagine!
Beyond motivation and engagement, strong student-teacher relationships can also shape the characteristics of a student's relationships with their peers.
If you bring warmth, safety, honesty and authenticity to your students, you help create the conditions for them to bring those qualities into their relationships with each other. That can strengthen social and emotional safety across the group, supporting greater availability for learning and, over time, aspects of executive functioning.
Unfortunately, this can work the other way around, and to an even greater degree.
Students notice how we respond when a peer is struggling, distressed or dysregulated, and that can influence how they respond too. If our reaction is one of conflict and negativity, this student’s peer relationships will be negatively impacted, and as we have discussed, this will then affect their social and emotional safety and, in turn, their motivation and engagement.
What can teachers be doing to build positive Student-Teacher relationships?
Techniques and strategies for building positive student-teacher relationships don’t need to be convoluted or time-consuming, and they don’t even need to be on a 1:1 basis. They just need to be authentic and effective, and show students they are in a safe space with an adult who is there to listen and support them.
The following suggestions might work for some and less so for others, depending on your teaching style and the group you work with, but we can all work towards being reliable, authentic adults who listen and value their students.
Take some time to discuss these and other strategies with your colleagues to see what might work best for you and your class/cohort, and begin to implement them before the half term.