You could have missed it.

The usual school lunchtime.  The bell had sounded and there was the familiar accelerated pupil movement disgorging into a sunlit playground where games and conversations jostled in a good-humoured, boisterous dispute for space.

anywhere but at the teacher.  “Trouble” was my suspicious and ungenerous thought as I stopped within earshot to look at the noticeboard.  On closer hearing and casual glance the boy was nodding and inspecting some object in the teacher’s hand and with quick eye contact and a smile he took the object and disappeared.

The teacher was doing what good teachers do with early adolescents.  She had brought in an early telescopic lens picked up for next to nothing in a junk shop with what I would call ‘inclusive intent’.  The teacher explained.  She was finding Haroon as she put it “…beyond me.  I couldn’t reach him, couldn’t touch him.  Nobody in the staff could.  He is a loner… doesn’t mix.  Then I found out from an essay he wrote that he took photos.  And when he went to the Indoor Arena I got him to take some with my camera.  Soon he was talking of his hobby: he collects old photos obsessively.”

Haroon was lucky.  Well, all the pupils were at that school, for as one member of staff generously said, “There’s always something if you ask the right questions and between us - and that includes the lab assistants and the support staff - we do.  There is usually one member of staff who can make a connection”.  By ‘making a connection’ the staff meant finding the means of showing the child that they are special to at least someone on the staff.

It made me think that all the generalities about the need to build ‘self-esteem’ mask a huge input of sharp observation and endless sensitive efforts well beyond the call of duty and sheer hard work by all concerned.  We all know the general argument but it is only when you visit a school that you appreciate fully the energy and subtle effort that goes into it.  Whether it is in an extra-curricular club or on a residential visit or listening at the beginning of a school day in tutorial work or stopping somebody in the corridor, it takes determined hard work to make what the member of staff called ‘the connection’.  For the primary teacher it is being endlessly interested in artifacts, toys and objects brought from home.  Later in awkward adolescence the ritual reverses itself and the traffic is often the other way - teachers bring objects for the youngsters.  Pupils wouldn’t be seen dead bringing things to show the teacher.  The critical incident described at the beginning of this article testifies to the truth of this observation.

I came across one of our schools last year that was working a variation on this theme of showing interest in every pupil as an individual as part of a drive on their part to reduce exclusions.  The staff had brainstormed the names of those in year 7 who they predicted would be most at risk of being excluded or at serious risk of that by the time they reach year 9.  They then divided the 20 names they collectively had suggested among the 40 members of staff.  So unbeknown to an individual pupil, each was allocated 2 staff names.  All that each member of staff then promised to do was to stop their ‘pupil’ at least twice in the corridor each week in year 8 to engage in small talk about school or out-of-school interests.  I shall not be surprised if the result is that none get excluded and at least 15 are turned round into positive achievers.  At the very least 20 pupils can’t complain that nobody is noticing them.  Quite a lot of secondary schools are now doing similar ‘one-to-one’ strategies for different reasons.  For example, another is ticking against the register the names of children in trouble either for lateness (L), behaviour (B) or experiencing curriculum difficulty (D) and then orchestrating similar one-to-one casual conversations in the corridors at lunchtimes or out of school with the children.  They find that this is contributing to challenging male under-achievement and sustaining relationships with children from minority communities.

In short behind the theory of building self-esteem lies some extensive planning, a lot of day in and day out hard work on relationships and above all imaginative but essentially simple ideas.

As the teacher told me beside the noticeboard, “with some of these kids you can’t start until you know exactly where they are”.  I suppose that’s what getting expectation just ahead but not too far ahead of self-esteem means.

The recently published ‘Self-Esteem Directory’ outlines nine elements of self-esteem which are set out below together with a simple statement which perhaps enables all of us, whether in school or in some other form of organisation, to plan more carefully situations where self-esteem (whether pupils’ or adults’) need not be unnecessarily damaged - indeed can be reinforced.  At the recent primary Heads’ Conference, John MacBeath of Strathclyde University gave us all a taster of how it is possible to take the temperature of children’s and organisations’ self-esteem and provide helpful pointers to the means of improving it.  We must get him back to work more closely with us.

Elements of self-esteem

1. Unconditional self acceptance

2. Sense of capability

3. Sense of purpose

4. Appropriate assertiveness

5. Experience of flow and fulfilment

6. Sense of responsibility and accountability

7. Sense of safety and security

8. Sense of belonging

9. Sense of integrity

The nine elements can be used as a diagnostic aid, to identify areas that may be underdeveloped in an individual organisation.  They can also be used as a planning tool, by asking someone involved in an organisation, project or course to identify how participants will experience each element.