HOW TO IMPROVE A LANGUAGE SCHOOL: #3 GREET LEARNERS AT THE DOOR

We’ve all heard about those dynamic headteachers who take over struggling schools and implement dramatic reform. Very often that includes making sure the headteacher has a physical presence at the gates of a school in the morning and is greeting learners as they enter. This signals something very powerful to learners because it shows you care. It shows that you value learners and their arrival and that you want to mark it in some way. All too often, the front of a school is a nothing-special-place – it’s where people just hang around vaping and flirting and where rubbish starts accumulating through the day. Students saunter into schools minutes later and possibly the teachers are also turning up one minute before the lesson. Welcome to Keir Starmer’s Britain.

Another advantage of doing this is that if your school director is there at 9 they can make sure everyone gets into the lesson on time which can then have an impact on lateness during breaktimes. I’ve worked at lots of schools where the students had really poor punctuality. A meet and greet approach to the start of the day would have a huge impact on this.

So why not take 2 minutes out of the peace-lily watering routine, why not take a minute away from rearranging photos of your kids on the desk and show everyone how much you care? It can be a very powerful way for a school to start developing an ethos that goes beyond cash generation.