Place, Belonging and School Leadership: Researching to Make the Difference [Paperback]

Place, Belonging and School Leadershipoffers research findings, analysis and accessible tools for further research inquiry that are designed to contribute to the development of professional learning communities. Researching about place and belonging, Kathryn Riley argues, gives new teachers powerful insights into children's experiences in the classroom and playground, and encourages them to review and change their professional practices. It provides young people with a vehicle to voice their experiences, grow their skill and talents, and develop a sense of agency.

Place, Belonging and School Leadershiphelps school leaders to be 'place-makers' who make 'belonging' work for pupils from many different backgrounds. It builds trust, develops the knowledge and capacities of staff, and harnesses the creative potential of young people to explore, reflect and act. Riley offers an invaluable leadership tool that strengthens school cultures and nourishes leadership throughout the school.

Kathryn Riley is here extending what is an increasingly urgent debate about school, both as a place of belonging and as a site of struggle. In the neo-liberal education marketplace, more and more schools are adopting measures, including police in corridors and classrooms, school exclusion and even the banning of parents, to win compliance with school values and ethos by coercion and to operate a regime with a primary focus on punishment and varying degrees of institutional bullying of students. Students have a capacity to do horrible things to one another and to dent their peers' confidence and sense of safety and wellbeing, especially through their use of social media and threats of violence in and out of school. Kathryn Riley underscores the importance of distribl6