Creating Belonging: Professor Kathryn Riley & Poet TioMolina

ANewLeadershipVision LaNuevaPoesia

School: A Place Where I Belong?Professor Kathryn Riley

& Poet TioMolina

National Union of TeachersNational Education Conference, 2014

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Creating Belonging: Professor Kathryn Riley & Poet TioMolina

School: A Place Where I Belong?Professor Kathryn Riley & Poet TioMolina

Place and Belonging

Inside each and every one of us is a deep desire to be rooted and to belong. Schools are one of the few social institutions which can create that sense of place and belonging - or of exclusion.

In a complex and uncertain world place matters: the place where we are from; the place where we live; the place where we would like to be. Place is about identity and belonging (or the lack of it); roots and connections (or the lack of them); being an insider or outsider. Place and belonging matter, in particular, to our young people whose lives have been up-rooted, or whose families have travelled across the world, or who are growing up in marginalised communities, or in poverty.

This workshop explored the importance of place and belonging, and the notion of leadership of place. It identified some of the steps that can be taken to make schools places where all children, young people and adults feel they belong. It also demonstrated the importance of the power of words and music to shape lives. And it served as a reminder of what our young people are capable of being and achieving - The Art of Possibilities.

Professor Kathryn Riley drew on her wide ranging research, including Leadership of Place, Stories from the US, UK and South Africa (Bloomsbury, 2013) to explore these issues. Poet TioMolina re-enforced these themes through his own unique way of fusing poetry with music.

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Creating Belonging: Professor Kathryn Riley & Poet TioMolina

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If children don’t belong in school, they don’t belong anywhere.

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Creating Belonging: Professor Kathryn Riley & Poet TioMolina

The Workshop

The workshop explored place, identity and belonging at three levels:

The individual: What do these ideas mean for me? The professional: What do they mean for my practice? The organisation or institution: What do they mean for the way the school is organised and for its

connections to the community?

The specific aims of the workshop were to:

Create understanding about Leadership of Place and how this can be exercised throughout the school and connected to local communities;

Illustrate how poetry can be used to develop the talents of young people, build their self confidence and sense of belonging;

Grow leadership capacity by identifying the ‘leaderly’ actions that staff can take to: Enable young people to feel they belong; Become outstanding educational professionals;Encourage families to feel they have a place.

The question at the heart of the workshop was……………..

Is my school a place where all young people and adults feel they belong (staff, young people, families)? And if not .................... What am I going to do about it? And who is going to help me?

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Creating Belonging: Professor Kathryn Riley & Poet TioMolina

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K. Riley (2013)

Leadership of Place: Stories from the

US, UK & South Africa.

London: Bloomsbury

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Creating Belonging: Professor Kathryn Riley & Poet TioMolina

A Reflection

Now is the time to look at schools in a different way.

When we look through a prism, the light splits into component parts. We see things afresh.

When we look at our schools through the prism of place and belonging………..

We understand more about the lives and experience of young people and what troubles them.

We make connections to the wider archipelago of communities and create spaces that are safe and creative.

We understand what needs to be done to help our young people feel they belong.

This transforms lives……….

By understanding what young people are capable of being and doing, our hopes and aspirations for them are boundless.

…This is the Art of Possibilities……..

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Creating Belonging: Professor Kathryn Riley & Poet TioMolina

ANewLeadership Vision: LaNuevaPoesia Professor Kathryn Riley & Poet TioMolina

Professor Kathryn Riley, Institute of Education, London is an international scholar and a leading practitioner. She has been a national policy adviser and is leading thinker on leadership in challenging contexts. Internationally, she has worked with UNICEF, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, where she led its Effective Schools and Teachers Group.

Kathryn has been an educational consultant and adviser in many countries, including Australia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Denmark, France, Guinea, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Macedonia, Malaysia, Senegal, Sweden, the USA, Venezuela and Vietnam. Her latest book, Leadership of Place: Stories from Schools in the US, UK & South Africa, was published by Bloomsbury, February 2013.

TioMolina is a choreographer, poet, dancer and artistic director. He has worked as a dancer in Havana’s renowned Tropicana, later moving to the ConjuntoNacional de Espectaculos under the direction of Alberto Alonso. Through over 30 years experience in contemporary dance theatre, he has worked with Cuban popular dance, Contemporary, Ballet and Afro-Cuban folk dance styles.

Roberto is an established choreographer for cabaret and theatre and is now based in both London and Havana. He is currently developing a new approach to poetry which fuses poetry with Cuba’s musical rhythms. His repertoire of poetry includes Pablo Neruda. TioMolina leads the London-based company Cubartista which promotes a contemporary vision of Afro-Cuban culture and art.

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