What kind of school naturally creates wellbeing?

This article has been published as part of the Rethinking Curriculum project, kindly funded by The Helen Hamlyn Trust.

Dr Jeremy Hannay, Executive Principal, Southall Waterside Federation

Introduction

More than a decade ago, visitors to Three Bridges Primary School were greeted by a phrase that attracted equal measures of curiosity, enthusiasm and criticism:

‘The Happiest School on Earth’

Some people smiled. Others rolled their eyes. In a system increasingly dominated by accountability, data and school improvement rhetoric, happiness felt like an unusual aspiration. Yet behind the slogan sat a serious question:

What if wellbeing wasn’t something schools did, but something schools produced?

Like many schools, we had explored wellbeing initiatives, dedicated wellbeing weeks and curriculum resources. Many were valuable. Over time, however, we became increasingly convinced that wellbeing was being treated as something additional, rather than something that naturally emerged from the way a school functioned. That question gradually reshaped our thinking.

Today, Three Bridges Primary School serves about 500 children in Southall, one of the most diverse communities in the country. While academic excellence remains central to our work, we no longer see wellbeing as something that sits alongside the curriculum. Instead, we believe wellbeing is a consequence of curriculum, culture and leadership working together. More specifically, we have come to believe that belonging precedes wellbeing. This case study outlines how that idea has shaped our curriculum over the past decade and what we have learned along the way.

Why belonging?

Our thinking has been influenced by several complementary strands of research. Self-Determination Theory argues that human flourishing depends upon autonomy, competence and relatedness (Deci and Ryan, 2000). Noddings (2005) places relationships at the heart of education, while Maslow’s hierarchy (1943) positions belonging as a fundamental human need. Hargreaves and Fullan (2012) similarly argue that sustainable improvement depends upon professional capital built through trust and collaboration.

My own doctoral research explored the relationship between Lesson Study, school climate and teacher self-efficacy (Hannay, 2021). One finding became increasingly difficult to ignore: teachers learned best when they felt psychologically safe, trusted and connected to one another.

Together, these ideas suggested something remarkably simple: people flourish when they feel known, valued and able to contribute. Rather than asking how to improve wellbeing, we began asking what kind of school naturally creates those conditions.

Our curriculum approach

Several years ago, we undertook a complete review of our school’s ethos. At around the same time, Three Bridges became one of the founding Well Schools. Rather than giving us a new programme to implement, the work helped us articulate what we were already beginning to understand: that wellbeing could not be separated from curriculum, leadership, relationships or community. As both our school and the Well Schools movement evolved, they shaped one another. The framework gave us a language for conversations we were already having, while continually challenging us to examine whether children, families and staff genuinely experienced belonging in the everyday life of the school. The result continues to underpin every aspect of our curriculum:

• A developing, critical mind
• Eyes wide open, hands uutstretched
• A full, strong and healthy heart

Importantly, these are not wellbeing statements. They are curriculum statements. They describe the kind of people we hope children become as a consequence of learning with us. Knowledge remains essential, but we believe education should also develop curiosity, compassion, courage, critical thinking and a sense of responsibility towards others. Belonging therefore became less about helping children feel included and more about enabling them to become active contributors within their communities.

Across the curriculum, children are expected not only to learn but to lead, perform, present, organise, mentor and serve. They contribute through assemblies, pupil leadership, performances, charitable projects, classroom dialogue and collaborative learning. Representation matters, but contribution matters equally. Children begin to experience belonging when they recognise that they are helping shape the community, rather than simply participating within it.

Our work with adults has increasingly shaped our thinking about children. Over the past decade, professional learning at Three Bridges has moved away from performance management and towards collaborative inquiry. Through Lesson Study, lines of enquiry and, more recently, staff passion projects, we have sought to create the same conditions for adults that we hope children experience every day: professional trust, intellectual curiosity, collaboration, agency and meaningful contribution. Rather than asking teachers simply to implement change, we have invited them to investigate questions that matter to them, pursue areas of professional passion and contribute to the learning of the wider organisation. As this culture has developed, one conviction has become increasingly clear: the conditions we want children to experience cannot simply be described in our classrooms; they must first be lived in our staffrooms.

This thinking is now beginning to shape the next phase of our curriculum through the development of Rubber Duck Day, inspired by our recent learning alongside Canadian educators Leslie Mott and Christopher Rowsome.

I first met Leslie and Chris during a learning visit to Canada in 2024. Within five minutes of stepping into their classrooms, I could see the next stage of our own journey.

For many years, we had been intentionally creating the conditions for teachers to lead their own professional learning: asking big questions, immersing themselves in areas of curiosity, pursuing passion projects, and learning alongside one another. We believed that if we trusted teachers as learners, that learning would inevitably find its way into the classroom and enrich children’s experiences.

What I saw in Leslie and Chris’s school was not a programme to replicate or a formula to follow. Rather, it was a glimpse of what those same principles could become when fully realised in the day-to-day experiences of children. Their work gave shape to ideas we had long held and, perhaps most importantly, gave us permission to continue pursuing a path that felt both ambitious and, until then, largely unexplored.

Rather than viewing curriculum primarily as something delivered by teachers, we are interested in how it can be co-constructed by children themselves. The next stage of our journey is the introduction of Rubber Duck Day, where the children step into rich, self-directed learning centred around authentic curricular challenges, working collaboratively to question, investigate and build understanding together. Alongside this, they undertake acts of service that contribute to the wider school community, recognising that belonging is strengthened not simply by feeling included, but by making a meaningful contribution to others. We have come to believe that flourishing happens when children experience all three together: mastering important knowledge, contributing to something beyond themselves and exercising genuine agency over aspects of their learning.

Our ambition is that these experiences develop critical minds through an authentic curriculum, open hands through service to others, and full, strong hearts through collaboration, resilience and shared endeavour. Rather than seeing these as separate ambitions, we see them as different expressions of the same curriculum. We are still learning ourselves, but we see Rubber Duck Day not as a standalone event, but as a glimpse of the curriculum we are working towards — one that reflects, for children, the same culture of inquiry, trust and shared learning that has been developing among adults for many years.

Challenges along the way

Perhaps the greatest challenge was resisting the temptation to solve wellbeing through new initiatives. Educational systems often encourage schools to respond by purchasing programmes, creating policies or appointing leads. While these approaches can have value, we found that belonging is built through thousands of ordinary interactions rather than individual interventions. How are people greeted? How are mistakes handled? How are meetings conducted? How is feedback given? How are difficult conversations managed? These seemingly ordinary moments communicate far more powerfully than any wellbeing lesson ever could.

A second challenge involved balancing support and accountability. Belonging is sometimes misunderstood as lowering expectations or avoiding difficult conversations. Our experience has been the opposite. Children and adults flourish when expectations are high, relationships are strong and boundaries are clear. The challenge for leaders is ensuring that accountability is experienced through trust rather than fear, and challenge through care rather than control.

Finally, we learned the importance of discernment. Not every concern requires a new initiative. Not every problem needs a policy. Often, the most significant leadership decision is deciding what not to introduce. Rather than adding wellbeing to an already crowded improvement plan, we began viewing every existing priority through the lens of belonging.

Findings and implications

Belonging is difficult to measure directly, yet its influence can be seen throughout the life of the school. Over the past decade, we have experienced consistently strong recruitment and staff retention, sustained academic outcomes and positive inspection judgements. More importantly, we have developed a professional culture in which teachers openly share practice, admit uncertainty and learn together. Our evaluation has drawn on staff retention, recruitment, inspection outcomes, pupil and parent voice, and our own reflections on the evolution of professional culture.

Families frequently tell us that the school simply feels different. Former pupils return describing Three Bridges as a place where they felt known and valued. Teachers choose to build long-term careers within the school because they experience professional trust alongside professional challenge. One unexpected finding is that wellbeing has become less visible over time. Paradoxically, this feels like success.

When wellbeing is sufficiently embedded within culture, it no longer requires constant attention. It becomes evident in how meetings are run, how children are spoken to, how parents are welcomed and how adults work together. Wellbeing ceases to be an initiative because it has become part of everyday life.

Recommendations for school leaders

For schools wishing to strengthen belonging across the curriculum, five principles have guided our work.

• Treat belonging as a leadership strategy rather than a wellbeing initiative.
• Create for adults the same conditions you want children to experience.
• Focus on everyday interactions rather than isolated programmes.
• Hold support and challenge together through relationships built on trust.
• Be patient. Culture develops over years, not terms.

Ultimately, we have learned that belonging is not another priority to balance alongside curriculum. It is the lens through which curriculum is designed, leadership is exercised and communities are built. Looking back, I am not sure that The Happiest School on Earth was ever really about happiness. It was about creating a school where people feel that they matter. When children and adults experience genuine belonging, wellbeing is no longer something we need to teach. Perhaps that has been our greatest lesson: schools do not create belonging by talking about it. They create it through the experiences they design every day—for children and for adults alike.

References

Deci EL and Ryan RM (2000) The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behaviour. Psychological Inquiry 11(4): 227–268.

Hannay J (2021) Lessons from Lesson Study: Lesson Study, School Climate and Teacher Self-Efficacy. PhD thesis, University of Exeter.

Hargreaves A and Fullan M (2012) Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. London: Routledge.

Maslow AH (1943) A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review 50(4): 370–396.

Noddings N (2005) The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education. 2nd edn. New York: Teachers College Press.