Creating Emotionally Available Schools With Roger Mitchell | In This Together Ep 16

Roger Mitchell, Headteacher of Ripple Primary School, joins In This Together to discuss "How do we create emotionally available schools?". Roger shares his twenty-year journey of transforming a fragmented school into an "Outstanding" setting rooted in kindness and professional generosity. This episode explores the vital shift from punitive discipline to relational practice, emphasising that creating a sense of belonging for pupils, staff, and families is the foundation of educational success.

Takeaways

• The "Why" Before the "What": Always investigate the reasons behind a behavior or action before deciding how to respond to it.
• Professional Generosity and Maturity: Building a culture where staff look out for one another and act with integrity ensures a stable, kind environment for pupils.
• Relationships Over Sanctions: Meaningful change in behavior is driven by the connections built between adults and children, not by the punishments imposed.
• Belonging is Inclusion: True inclusion means every individual feels they have a rightful place in the school community.
• Consistency in Leadership: Headteachers must model the emotional availability and kindness they expect to see throughout the entire school.
• Contextualized Justice: Similar to a court of law, school "judgments" should consider personal circumstances and remorse rather than following a zero-tolerance, one-size-fits-all approach.

Sharing is Caring

Roger Mitchell recommends three essential books for educators looking to transform their school culture:

• The Kindness Principle by Dave Whitaker: A highly accessible guide to using unconditional positive regard in education.
• When the Adults Change, Everything Changes by Paul Dix: A foundational text on how adult behavior dictates the culture of the classroom.
• Becoming a Trauma-Informed Restorative Educator by Joe Brummer and Margaret Thorsborn: A practical resource for implementing restorative justice and relational practice.
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More information on emotionally available schools can be found on Roger’s website

https://emotionallyavailableschool.com/

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Chapters

00:01 - Introduction - Meeting Roger Mitchell and the focus on emotionally available schools.

00:47 - The 20-Year Journey - Transforming a fractured school into a community.

01:50 - Professional Generosity & Maturity - Core values that frame the school's mission.

04:50 - Recruiting for Kindness - Smothering the school with love and hiring the right people.

07:52 - Removing Detentions - Moving away from "policing" and exiting children from class.

11:04 - Relationship Building - Treating children with the same decency as adults.

13:42 - Belonging and Identity - Why belonging is the most powerful word in inclusion.

16:11 - Academic Success - Proving that a relational approach leads to high academic outcomes.

18:40 - Teaching Behavior - Why behavior should be taught just like maths or spelling.

21:50 - The "Professionally Lazy" Option - Critiquing zero-tolerance and context-free sanctions.

25:58 - Supporting Staff - Applying Maslow's hierarchy to a teacher's readiness to teach.

33:53 - Scaffolding Emotional Intelligence - Moving from student anger to sadness and worry.

39:19 - Engaging Families - Removing the "yellow line" and welcoming parents as clients.

47:19 - Sharing is Caring - Roger’s top three book recommendations for educators.