Learning to create communities

Connecting with other people can bring multiple benefits. Positive, caring relationships between teachers and students, for example, can boost student engagement and achievement and have a positive effect on teacher motivation, effort, and teaching quality. Meaningful student-teacher relationships also provide both with a sense of wellbeing. Meeting students’ emotional needs and providing a sense of belonging and connection have a positive impact on their motivation to learn.

Wider collaborations between students, schools, nature and society can create a community of learning and help protect the environment. Family and community involvement in learning can even improve children’s learning outcomes. Could helping children become more engaged in their communities encourage them to find new ways to care for themselves, others and the environment?

This video is part of the animation ‘Learning to thrive’. The animation and related resources bring these ideas to life, providing a space to engage in thinking about how caregivers and educators might support young people to thrive. This is also a space for researchers and science journalists to share the latest evidence on the role of nature, play, creativity and agency in young people’s wellbeing.