is Head of Mandarin at Didcot Girls’ School with experience as a Teacher Educator at ITT and ECT levels. She currently works for NCLE at the IoE, UCL coordinating national language projects. She has undertaken MSc research in student motivation focusing on Self Determination Theory.
Teachers across subjects often identify the same students as disengaged, lacking confidence, or seeming emotionally distant from learning. We try different strategies - new seating plans, encouragement, sanctions, rewards - and yet the impact can be frustratingly limited. Increasingly, guidance suggests that what is missing may not be ability or effort, but a sense of belonging ().
With a surge in popularity for books on belonging aimed at teachers (e.g. , 2025), and school leaders’ dismay at post-pandemic declining attendance figures, belonging has become a buzz word among school leadership and in staff rooms. I argue that belonging is not a “nice extra”. It is a fundamental psychological need, and when it is absent, motivation suffers.
Belonging as a basic human need
The need to feel connected, understood, and valued by others, to feel that you belong, is central to human motivation. Within (Deci and Ryan, 1985), this need is described as relatedness, alongside autonomy and competence. Whilst all three needs will need to be fulfilled for learners to be optimally (intrinsically) motivated, it can be helpful as a classroom teacher to reflect on individual needs and to develop strategies to enhance learners’ perceptions of these.
When students feel they belong, they are more likely to:
- Engage willingly with learning.
- Take risks, including speaking up or making mistakes.
- Persist when work becomes challenging.
- Experience greater wellbeing
Conversely, students who feel disconnected often display lower confidence, reduced effort, or behaviour that masks insecurity rather than defiance.
Is belonging a pastoral or a curriculum priority?
Belonging, with its potential for improved attendance and well-being (, is often framed as a pastoral concern, yet it is deeply embedded in everyday classroom practice. At a whole-school level, curriculum structures, assessment routines, and behaviour policies all communicate powerful messages about who belongs and who does not. At a classroom level, how teachers choose to enact these routines and policies is also powerful. It has been a successful shift in my own school’s culture in recent years to focus on “Connect before you Correct” (see Golding and Hughes, 2012), which helps to preserve a strong teacher-pupil relationship even when sanctions must be applied.
In my MSc research on motivation for learning Chinese, I attempted, through to raise Year 9 pupils’ perceptions of competence, autonomy and relatedness, essential components of a high quality ‘intrinsic’ motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Graham, 2012). Despite already having taught Chinese and other languages for over 20 years’, the effect on my own practice was quite profound, and enabled me to enjoy my job even more than I already did. Belonging is therefore both pastoral and and cannot be addressed meaningfully without considering classroom practice itself.
Small tweaks, big impact
Teachers in many contexts face genuine constraints. Time pressures, curriculum coverage, accountability measures, and behaviour systems can all sometimes appear to work against relational connection. In language classrooms, additional barriers may include anxiety about speaking, fear of mistakes, or cultural expectations about participation (MacIntyre et al, 1998). Yet belonging does not require radical structural change. Research consistently shows that small, intentional actions can have disproportionately (positive) effects (Walton & Cohen, 2011).
Working with teachers from across subject areas to develop practical strategies that support belonging via the curriculum, we focused on making small tweaks in delivery and lesson structure rather than “back to the drawing board” ideas. These included:
- Making learning personal: using students’ names in examples, feedback, and assessments.
- Normalising mistakes: explicitly celebrating errors as part of learning.
- Building peer connections: rotating seating, teaching collaboration skills, and rewarding teamwork.
- Creating continuity: embedding routines to help absent students catch up without stigma.
- Inviting student voice: regularly asking for feedback and giving learners agency over aspects of their learning.
Belonging is relational work, and it requires effort. One of the most powerful shifts teachers can make is adopting a stance of curiosity: learning about students as actively as we expect them to learn our subject content. This may involve speaking with colleagues, listening to families, or simply noticing patterns over time. As teachers, we model what it means to belong by how attentively we notice others. These actions signal to students that they are seen, valued, and expected to succeed.
Why belonging matters for outcomes
A strong sense of belonging supports not only motivation but also attainment and wellbeing - for students and teachers alike. When students relate to their peers, their teacher, and the content they are learning, classrooms become more resilient, humane, and effective learning spaces. Motivation grows where students feel they belong. The possibilities of a strong sense of belonging are many and benefit the whole school community now and in the future.
What small tweak could you make tomorrow that might help one student feel more connected to your classroom?
Chowdhury, Z. (2025). Creating Belonging in the Classroom: A Practical Guide to Having Brave and Difficult Conversations. London: Bloomsbury Education.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Springer.
Golding, K. S., & Hughes, D. A. (2012). Creating loving attachments: Parenting with PACE to nurture confidence and security in the troubled child. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Graham, S. (2022). Self-efficacy and language learning – what it is and what it isn’t. The Language Learning Journal, 50(2), 186–207.
MacIntyre, P. D., Clément, R., Dörnyei, Z., & Noels, K. A. (1998). Conceptualizing willingness to communicate in a L2: A situational model of L2 confidence and affiliation. The Modern Language Journal, 82(4), 545–562.
National Education Union. (2023, December 7). Creating a sense of place and belonging in schools.
Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2011). A brief social-belonging intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority students. Science, 331(6023), 1447–1451.