The Business of Belonging

Belonging is when pupils and staff feel part of the school, valued, and able to contribute.  When it is missing, the impact shows up fast: staff absence, churn, inconsistency, conflict, and time lost to avoidable people issues.  You also see it in pupil readiness to learn, behaviour, and attendance.  With “belonging” starting to surface in the Ofsted narrative, many schools are guessing what it means and over-engineering the response.  Phil clarifies the intent, the common misreads, and the behaviours inspectors are likely to recognise, without creating extra paperwork.

This session turns belonging into an operational and financial lever, not a slogan.  Drawing on Phil’s CEO experience, MBA perspective and PhD research, you will leave with a clear line of sight between belonging and what you are accountable for: staff stability, school improvement capacity, risk, and cost control.

In this session we explore

• What belonging is (and is not), and how it links to psychological safety

• The cost of low belonging: churn, absence, capability loss, underperformance, reactive spend

• Practical routines that build belonging across roles, teams and sites

• Feedback loops that create real input, not token engagement

• A simple scorecard to track alongside finance and standards

Take home points

• A clear definition you can use with staff, pupils, governors and trustees

• Practical behaviours that make belonging visible

• A short scorecard of leading indicators and warning signs

• Actions that reduce churn and reactive spend

• How to evidence belonging without box-ticking

This session is for

SBMs, school leaders, finance, HR and operations leads, governors and trustees, in maintained schools, academies and trusts

​