Getting Your Whole School on the Same Page About Respect
Teaching respect in schools can get complicated when every classroom approaches it differently. How do you make sure students are hearing the same message, not just during an assembly or a lesson, but throughout the school year?
When expectations change from one classroom to the next, students notice. One teacher may spend a lot of time talking about what respect looks like, while another approaches it completely differently. Before long, something that was supposed to be a school-wide value starts to mean different things depending on where a student happens to be.
A school-wide approach doesn’t have to mean introducing a huge new curriculum. Sometimes it’s more effective to choose one idea that everyone can work on together.
Start With a Shared Understanding of Respect
Our 12 Ways to Act With Respect curriculum is designed to give schools that common starting point. It includes 12 lessons that explore what respect actually looks like in everyday life, rather than simply telling students that they need to “be respectful.”
While the program was created with younger students in mind, the ideas aren’t limited to one particular age. Teachers can adapt the conversations to their students while still working from the same core message as the rest of the school.
And because the lessons are already laid out step by step, teachers aren’t being asked to come up with another SEL activity or spend hours preparing something from scratch.
The real benefit comes from repetition. A student might first talk about an idea in the classroom, then hear similar language from another teacher later in the week. Over time, those conversations become familiar and students begin to understand that respect isn’t simply something one teacher expects from them. It’s something their school values.
Once that foundation feels established, you can decide where to go next. Your students might need more support around bullying or perhaps there’s another issue that has become more noticeable during the year.
You don’t have to cover everything at once. Start with something your entire school can get behind, give it enough time to become familiar, and build from there.
