Using Community Circles to Boost School Culture

In my role of school social worker, I’ve had the honor of working with two elementary schools to set up classroom community circles. The benefits of classroom community circles are well documented. I’ve seen how they help build relationships and create a positive classroom environment, as well as support the development of communication skills.

The teachers loved facilitating the classroom circles to start and end the day with their students, saying, “It’s my favorite part of the day.” “I love getting to know my students.” “I can’t imagine teaching without community circles.”

We saw relationships between teachers and students improve. Additionally, teachers and students reported improved relationships among students. Teachers shared, “Students are kinder to each other.” Another reported, “Seeing empathy develop in my students.” The benefits were also felt by newcomers: “New students feel more welcomed because of the community circles than they did when they only attended the classroom meetings.”

Students also reported that they believed that they were getting along better with their classmates and better able to work out conflicts with each other. In addition, students shared that they could trust their teachers more because of the discussions in the community circles.

Broadening the Effect of Community Circles 

Because of the benefits that we were seeing from the classroom community circles, the principal at one of the schools where I worked, Adam Harpring, wanted to expand the impact of the relationship building going on in the classroom. The second-grade teachers also wanted to expand their community circles across their homerooms. So, I came up with two new formats to expand the community circles: grade-level classroom community circles and grade-level large group community circles.

Both of the expanded community circles started after fall break when relationships had already been established within the classroom setting. For the grade-level classroom community circles in second grade, the teachers divided their homerooms across the teachers of their grade level. The students wore color-coded bracelets to make it easy to identify which classroom they would go to. The grade-level classroom circles, which they called “Family Groups,” were held once a week.

To begin this program, the teachers started with a get-acquainted activity. The homeroom teachers asked their students to draw a picture of three things that they liked to do. Then, all of the teachers rotated through each homeroom so that students could share their pictures. With this format, the students met the teachers in their own homeroom environment, which increased their feelings of safety as they interacted with all the teachers from their grade level. After this first week of meeting the teachers, the students began moving to their assigned classroom for their weekly group with the teacher in that classroom.

The teachers noticed the following three benefits:

• They were learning the names of more students in their grade level, which helped at recess and in the lunchroom.
• They enjoyed getting to know more students.
• They saw students building relationships across classrooms.

For the large group grade-level community circles, we had the students sit in a large circle in the gym. Our school already had a structure for monthly whole-school convocations, so every other month we replaced those convocations with large group circles. Each grade level was scheduled for 20 minutes in the gym. Since our school was Loper Elementary, we called these large meetings “Loper Round-Up.”

The principal led the large circle meetings, and I was present for all the meetings to help with the flow. I helped the classes enter and exit the gym for a smooth transition and assisted teachers with seating the students in the large circle. I also gave support by keeping track of time and sitting by students who needed a little extra attention to be able to focus.

OUR Specific Community Circle Breakdown

This was the format we followed for each Loper Round-Up: 

• Welcome.
• A mindfulness practice (sometimes it was a short body scan, or a breathing exercise like rainbow breath, balloon breath, etc.).
• Introduction of the theme (kindness, stick together/new year’s resolutions, friendship).
• A game or activity to align with the theme (for “kindness,” students did a partner talk about a time when they were kind; for “friendship,” they played a game of Would You Rather).
• Another short mindfulness practice (usually just three deep breaths).
• Exit with positive statements from the principal (positive affirmations and acknowledging the theme).

The mindfulness practice at the end of the round-up, paired with the principal’s quiet voice, was really important for helping the students get more regulated after the game/activity so that they could exit the gym and enter the classroom ready to learn.

For our large group community circles in January, with a focus on sticking together (cooperation), we began with a similar format:

• Welcome.
• A short mindfulness practice (short body scan).
• Discussion focused on new year’s resolutions.

Students were told that the new year’s resolution for our school would be “We Stick Together.” They played a game in which they sat back-to-back with a partner, with their arms entwined, and had to stand up together without dropping their arms. After students completed this task, they were asked what it took to accomplish the goal of standing up together and applied these skills to our collective new year’s resolution of sticking together

Our principal enjoyed leading the large circles and getting to know the students in this positive setting. Our teachers also enjoyed the meetings and participated in the games in order to get to know more students in their grade level. The teachers observed that the students really enjoyed the large group circles and looked forward to them. They also noticed that students were learning new social and emotional skills—talking to students whom they didn’t know well—building relationships out of respect and kindness. Finally, the teachers were surprised at how well the large group meetings went after a few kinks were worked out from the first meeting.

Students also said that they enjoyed the meetings. They felt that the meetings were fun, and many liked them better than the whole-school convocations. They also said that they enjoyed seeing the principal lead the meetings and loved interacting with him in this fun setting.

Taking the community circles outside of the individual classroom setting had a positive effect on every member of our immediate school community—the principal, teachers, and students all benefited from the activity. As a result, we’ve bolstered our school culture and supportive learning environment.