“When the signals are telling you, ‘You are seen here, you are included in this, you belong here,’ we are in a completely different hormonal state: anxiety reduces, oxytocin and dopamine - which are very important energising hormones - start to soar. Whether it’s my work with the England football team or my daughter’s school, it makes no difference: the humanity of this is the same.”

Owen Eastwood knows more about belonging - what it is, how to create it and how to measure it - than most. As a performance coach, he has worked with the England football team, Nato and the South African cricket team. He has written the best-selling book Belonging: The Ancient Art of Togetherness. And he’s an in-demand speaker across the world.

He has recently been asked to work more and more within education, for obvious reasons: as recent research and reports have revealed, more and more pupils and their families - and indeed teachers - feel like they don’t belong in schools. That’s causing huge issues with the attendance and behaviour of pupils, the engagement of parents and the retention and recruitment of staff.

Exclusive webinar for schools

So, for the first of our Leading and Learning Webinar series, host Paul Spiers, founder of the New P&L Brand Purpose Institute, sat down with Owen to talk about what schools need to understand about belonging, how to make the required changes and how to sustain it.

As Owen says: “Belonging is the foundation of any high-performing environment.”

You can watch the webinar below, or you can find it here.