Hearts vs handbooks? Relationship-centred practice in schools
by Verity Howorth
Director of Training
When thinking about the place of relationships in schools, two very different approaches step into the boxing ring of my brain.
Photo by Joran Quinten on Unsplash
In the blue corner, all pumped and twitchy with righteous energy is the firm belief that ‘structure liberates’. If you want to get stuff done, you need a framework (ideally, a three-step plan where each step starts with the same letter), a strategy, codification and training. And crucially, you need to see and narrate impact.
In the red corner, just as fired up and raring to go is the sense that the best relationships are authentic and therefore can’t be scripted or ‘practised’. To build healthy relationships you need to listen without an agenda. Communities don’t need some well-meaning but external saviour to fix their problems for them with an audit tool.
This is the tussle I’ve experienced ever since being a part of The Relationships Collective. The Collective is a group of people brought together by the Relationships Project, to build the field of ‘relationship-centred practitioners’.
We hailed from health, policy, local government, faith, third sector and education. We met online and in person on a regular basis to check in, reflect on our respective progress and challenges in our quest to put relationships first.
A few members of the Collective, the Relationships Project, and author Matthew Lloyd-Rose have developed the ‘Case Maker’—a beautiful resource for all who can describe themselves as working relationally, to support them in their quest to promote this way of working.
Putting Relationships First (2024)
The case for relationship-centred communities, organisations and systems
Since leaving frontline school life and moving into the facilitatory role with The Reach Foundation, I’ve had the privilege to read, think and discuss this tension at length with anyone who will listen. And one of my favourite people to do this with is the newly-appointed executive headteacher of an all-through school in Somerset, Bridgewater College Academy, Jonathan Black.
As part of our Cradle-to-Career Partnership in his previous role as Deputy Head at Holyrood Academy in Chard, and as a participant in the inaugural West100 programme for aspiring headteachers, Jonathan is a truly inspirational and inspired leader.
He is deeply committed to ensuring that all children, especially those experiencing disadvantage, get to live lives of choice and opportunity. He is generous with his time and expertise but carries this lightly and is comfortable leaning into moments of vulnerability. It was a privilege to spend time talking to him about this great report.
If you want to listen/watch our whole conversation you can dive right in below. Alternatively, we’ve highlighted three key themes that emerged from our discussion further.
1️⃣ We face wicked problems and working relationally is the only way to solve them (but this doesn’t mean trying to be Michelle Pfieffer)
Within the first ten minutes, we dug into one of the sector's stickiest issues at the moment: attendance. This is an example of a wicked problem that we can’t ‘prescribe one solution’ to; relational practice is needed to tackle complex problems like this.
We came back around to this later (at 22:52) where Jonathan talked about deciding to do a relationship-based survey with Year 7 at Holyrood Academy. The type of information they gathered (‘Who are your closest friends at school? What clubs do you attend? Who do you go to when you have a problem? Who is your favourite teacher?’ etc.) meant that form tutors were able to know their children better. Jonathan shares more on the rationale for this in the short clip below.
Whilst it’s difficult to draw a direct causal link, they did see a 2% increase in attendance in a relatively short period. Here’s a great article from Glennon Doyle I referenced during our conversation about the need to root out loneliness and disconnection in school-aged children as a matter of great urgency.
However, whilst no one can disagree that we face challenges, a bit of a revelation came early on in the discussion (04:00) where we unpick the desire many school leaders have of wanting to be that pivotal person whose charisma can effect change. Michelle Pfieffer in Dangerous Minds, Coach Carter, Sister Mary Clarence in Sister Act 2, John Keating in Dead Poet’s Society; who hasn’t been inspired by those fictionalised, effective teachers?
Yet, over here in the real world, what we have learnt is that communities don’t need a saviour. People will bring their solutions with them. Our job as school leaders is to hold the space so that people trust us but also trust themselves.
Around 5:30, we discuss the great case study in the report about the West-Midland Swifties; this wasn’t a solution that any professional would have come up with, but relational practice is about establishing micro-changes. Whilst we may be impatient for faster, bigger, more measurable impact, sometimes we need to be patient and open to solutions that come from within the communities we serve.
2️⃣ High expectations and genuine warmth are not mutually exclusive; Everyone can get better at relationships
We started our discussion by reflecting that you need to be in the right headspace personally and professionally to explore ‘relationship-centred practice’.
It takes a healthy dose of self-awareness, enough confidence to allow yourself to be reflective and enough humility to recognise that it is a skill (like any other) that anyone can (and should) be trying to get better at. This can only happen, however, in a culture of psychological safety. Even if you think you are ‘naturally good’ at building and maintaining relationships, as a school leader, you also need to support your team to nail this, which is tough!
Jonathan and I talked about the power of modelling what you want to see and explicitly using those moments to teach others (Jonathan shared the example of how he ensures he includes Heads of Year in phone calls and meetings so they could see how he does this). As an example of getting better over time, skip to minute 37 in our conversation, where Jonathan reflects on initially ‘getting a lot of hate from parents’ because he ‘exacerbated situations’. Despite taking reasonable, professional actions, he wasn’t always able to help in those situations ‘just because the maths works out, doesn’t mean it’s the solution’.
As such, some of his key learning has been around becoming ‘less confrontational, calmer’ and being able to ‘anticipate, notice where we might be in danger of making a situation worse’. Not having an agenda can allow you to listen better. We also discussed that, try as we might, we may never know what is sitting behind the actions of others, but what feels very true is that assumptions are barriers to relationships.
3️⃣ What relationships-centred practice looks like for a new headteacher in a new school
Jonathan was on day 5 of headship when we spoke. At 7:50, he talks about his short-term aims being about establishing himself as a leader, and trying to work out where the school is currently at with relationships.
He is clear that the bright spots are clear to see; from groups of children already passionately engaged in ‘Grassroots’ student council activism, to the existing relationship with the community centre that runs the food bank. However, there is a significant minority for whom attendance and behaviour are a concern and he is clear he wants to address this by getting the right people in the right roles to support this group.
Jonathan’s long-term aims are about the ever-present challenge in an all-through school: How do we join these two phases up and make this feel like an all-through school? When it comes to relationships, it is almost just accepted that primary schools are great at the events and the comms and managing the sticky issues when they arise. So we are left wondering, what do secondaries need to do to learn from primary colleagues and institutions?
