Somewhere in the middle of rural Madhya Pradesh, an all-age 3-16 years school is opening its doors for the day. The lane feeding the school is winding and narrow with high hedgerows on either side. While parent vehicles can pull into the school field, the absence of school buses is replaced by tempos, rickshaws, bikes and ‘scootees’ which disgorged onto the roadside, were supplemented by random, fast moving trucks and bikes.
Even though it sounds like an accident waiting to happen, my highly tuned ‘fear or flight’ antennae hadn’t even been activated. Why not? Well, as I stood by the side of the lane watching the student arrivals and adult departures, I was reassured by the community’s involvement. First, there was a policeman, clearly a friend of the school. There every day, his presence and directions calmed both me and the traffic while the headmaster shepherded the children. Add two parental volunteers to the mix, alert for stragglers meant that this school reviewer was having a great start to the day!
Meanwhile, inside, the retired headmaster was talking with the parents who had dropped off their children. No one was in a rush to leave! A couple of staff were out chatting with students. Why did it feel so good? Because the early evidence suggested that this was a safe, secure, and happy school for the children.
But as an assessor, what it did for me was to carry on the search for evidence to confirm that this really was a school that strove to place itself at the heart of that community. So I began talking with and importantly listening to parents, students and teachers. I learned much in those 15 minutes about the school and its approach to the welfare of the children that informed the next four days as we helped the school to look at their own practice.
So if 80% of great teaching is all about the relationships, the story is very similar for a school. If I had not known that before, COVID would have taught me that developing real relationships with the local community as well as their families is the foundation of a mutually supportive school community.
